Chewing the coca becomes quite a passion in those who indulge in it; and when the habit is once commenced, it is affirmed that it is never discontinued, and that an instance of a reclaimed _coquero_ has never been known. To indulge in the enjoyment of this narcotic, the Peruvian will expose himself to the greatest dangers. As its stimulus is most fully developed when the body is exhausted with toil, or the mind with conversation, “the victim then hastens to some retreat in a gloomy native wood, and flinging himself under a tree, remains stretched out there, heedless of night or of storms, unprotected by covering or by fire, unconscious of the floods of rain, and of the tremendous winds which sweep the forest, and after yielding himself for two or three entire days to the occupation of chewing coca, returns home to his abode, with trembling limbs, and a pallid countenance, the miserable spectacle of unnatural enjoyment. Whoever accidentally meets the coquero under such circumstances, and by speaking interrupts the effects of this intoxication, is sure to draw upon himself the hatred of the half-maddened creature. The man who is once seized with the passion for this practice, if placed in circumstances which favour its indulgence, is a ruined being. Many instances were related to Pöppig while in Peru, where young people of the best families, by occasionally visiting the forests, had begun using the coca for the sake of passing the time away, and acquiring a relish for it, from that period been lost to civilization; as if seized by some malevolent instinct, they refused to return to their homes, and resisting the entreaties of their friends, who occasionally discovered the haunts of these unhappy fugitives, either retired to some distant solitude, or took the first opportunity of escaping, when they had been brought back to the towns.” So seductive becomes this habit, for we cannot doubt the veracity of these statements, that neither home, nor friends, nor family, nor society, nor fear, nor love, nor respect, nor any other creature, nor passion, would seem to have the power of winning them back from their monomania to a rational state of existence.