It will be seen from the foregoing description that coca is a very wonderful and unique product. In countless directions fortune has been kind to South America, showering distinctive gifts upon her with a lavish hand. It would really seem that nature believed in the principle of monopoly, for certainly the coca of Peru and Bolivia and the maté tea of Paraguay flourish on no other soil. With these two products may be bracketed the coffee of Brazil. The three things combined suggest, in the old Doctor’s phrase, “the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice,” and even when the gold, which tempted the cupidity of the Spaniard to the exclusion of everything else, is exhausted the continent will find (indeed, already is finding) a larger, a more regular, and a more constant source of wealth in its indigenous crops. The sustaining powers of coca, attested by centuries of use, as well as by the fact that it is daily consumed by eight millions of people in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Rio Negro, who require little food of any other kind, constitute a strong argument for its extended employment in the future. If it is such a good friend to the South American Indian, it should be equally serviceable to the soldier on the march; and already the army authorities of several countries are considering the advisability of including it in their commissariat. The present value of the crop--about £200,000 annually--is therefore as nothing to the wealth it may yield in the future. [Illustration: AN INCA MASK IN GOLD.] [Illustration: PRE-INCA MONOLITHS IN BOLIVIA.] CHAPTER XIII _“The Gateway to an Imprisoned Land”_