The coca plant has from ancient times been the object of religious veneration by the Peruvian Indians, and although we have no historical record to tell us when the use of coca was introduced, or who first discovered its peculiar properties, we learn that when Pizarro destroyed Athualpa’s Empire, he found that the Incas employed coca in their religious ceremonies and sacrifices “either for fumigation, or as an offering to the gods. The priests chewed coca while performing their rites, and the favour of the invisible powers was only to be obtained by a present of these highly valued leaves. No work begun without coca could come to a happy termination, and divine honours were paid to the shrub itself.” “After a period of more than three centuries, Christianity has not yet been able to eradicate these deeply-rooted superstitious feelings, and everywhere the traveller still meets with traces of the ancient belief in its mysterious powers. To the present day the miners of Cerro de Pasco throw chewed coca against the hard veins of the ore, and affirm that they can then be more easily worked—a custom transmitted to them from their forefathers who were fully persuaded that the Coyas, or subterranean divinities, rendered the mountains impenetrable, unless previously propitiated by an offering of coca. Even now the Indians put coca into the mouths of their dead, to ensure them a welcome on their passage to another world; and whenever they find one of their ancestral mummies, they never fail to offer it some of the leaves.” It is believed that the superstitions regarding coca were looked upon with great disgust by the Spaniards, and that their efforts to stamp them out did more to keep alive the enmity borne them by the Indians than anything else. The coca plant was first grown in Ceylon in 1870 when it was introduced from Kew. It was grown there as a result of a suggestion made by Mr. Joseph Stevenson who pointed out the commercial importance of the plant in view of the separation of the alkaloid cocaine by Nieman in 1859; but owing to the liability of the coca leaves to rapid deterioration after picking in unfavourable climatic conditions, this branch of commerce has not developed, and as yet no attempt has been made to extract the alkaloid in India, in commercial quantities at any rate. But no matter what might be said about coca-chewing, there can be no two opinions about the dire and destructive effects of cocaine the alkaloid, and the results of indulgence in this drug are truly deplorable. It may be owing to something else in the coca leaves which ameliorates the full effect of the alkaloid; in fact it must be so, because I doubt whether even a confirmed cocaine consumer could find anything to say in its favour.