The disappearance of the empire of the Incas, far from diminishing the importance of Coca, on the contrary gave a very much greater scope to its popularity. The natives profited by their freedom from the restrictions imposed by the native rulers in regard to the consumption of Coca, and soon the use of this leaf became so common that it has been compared by every one interested in the question to the use of tobacco by us; and, as it has justly been added, without its objections. There is no more likelihood of seeing a smoker embark without his tobacco than an Indian begin work or undertake a journey unless his _chuspa_ (pouch) is full of Coca leaves. Three or four times a day he sits down, takes some leaves, puts them one by one into his mouth and rolls them into an _aculio_ (quid), adding a little _llipta_ (lime), which he takes from his ever-present _poporo_. The _poporo_ is a little gourd, bored at the mouth on the upper part, in which the Indian keeps his _llipta_. This _llipta_ is a white powder composed of ashes of vegetables and of calcined shells pulverized, with which the consumers of Coca have been accustomed, from the most remote times, to season their quid. It is, really, an alkaline substance intended to isolate the different principles of the leaf and to make the action of the Coca more prompt. Among those inhabitants of South America, with whom the use of Coca did not extend to the lower classes until after the reign of the Incas, and who reserved for themselves, as we have seen, the right of chewing the Coca leaves, the consumption of Coca by children is strictly prohibited. They do not indulge in this luxury except in secret, and it appears to them all the sweeter because it is forbidden. But nearly always their breath, charged with the tell-tale odor of Coca, betrays them on approaching their parents, and the latter make them pay for the pleasure which they have stolen, and to which they are not entitled until they are of age, with very severe punishment. Only when they have grown up will they be allowed to chew Coca and to carry the _poporo_, which they do not relinquish even in the grave. On coming of age the young Indian is consigned to an old woman, who keeps him a few hours in her hut to initiate him in the mysteries of man's estate. After this ceremony she gives him the _chuspa_ (Coca pouch), invests him with the _poporo_ and consecrates him a _coquero_. One should see with what pride the young Indian leaves the threshold of the sacred cabin, which he entered as a child scarcely a few hours before and from which he departs a man, that is to say, carrying the _chuspa_ and the _poporo_, and able to chew with impunity, before the old people, this precious leaf which had been forbidden him until then.