Peru.[10] Some of these men had chewed coca leaves from their boyhood upwards. Allowing their daily ration to be no more than one ounce, the consumption, in their lifetime, would amount to the prodigious quantity of twenty-seven hundred pounds weight. Yet they were in perfect health. The coca is considered by the Indians to be an antidote to the _veta_, and Dr Tschudi confirms this by his own experience. Previously to his hunting excursions in the upper regions of the Puna, he used to drink a strong decoction of coca leaves, and found it strengthening and a preservative from the effects of the rarefied atmosphere. So convinced is he of its salubrious properties, that he recommends its adoption in European navies, or at least a trial of its effects during a Polar or some other distant expedition. One of the chief causes of Indian hatred to the Spaniards is to be traced in the attempted suppression by the latter of the use of coca, during the earlier period of their domination in Peru, their sole reason being their contempt for Indian customs, and wish to destroy the nationality of the people. Royal decrees were fulminated against coca chewing, and priests and governors united to abolish it. After a time, the owners of mines and plantations discovered its utility, in giving strength and courage to their Indian vassals; books were written in its defence, and anti-coca legislation speedily became obsolete. Since then, several learned and reverend writers, Jesuits and others, have suggested its introduction into Europe, as a substitute for tea and coffee, to which they hold it far superior. There can be little doubt that--like as tobacco is considered to preserve armies from mutiny and disaffection--the soothing properties of coca have saved Peru from many bloody outbreaks of the Indian population. But even this potent and much-loved drug has at times been insufficient to restrain the deadly hatred cherished by the Peruvians towards their white oppressors.