The drink is taken without the addition of condiment and for the most part hot, like the Japanese _sake_. It is stimulating and sustaining, and soothes instead of irritating the nervous system. Unlike the concoctions made from the coca leaf (cocaine), sugar cane (rum), pulque, sake, vodka and other stimulants stumbled upon by native peoples and become destructive habits, _yerba maté_ has no deleterious effects either immediate or after prolonged use. Dr. Lenglet, President of the International League of Pure Food, says of it: “The noteworthy point of the effect of _maté_ on the system is its stimulating action on the cerebro-spinal organs. Taken with sugar the first thing in the morning it is very wholesome. It gives great capacity to undergo fatigue and invigorates the brain, and although it prevents feeling hungry, one does not enjoy one’s meals any the less. It does not appear to affect the intestinal organs; the nervous system is, nevertheless, insensible to the organic losses caused by the want of nourishment which are made known by hunger. “In _maté_ is found one of the most important means to obtain a maximum of strength and energy. It can be compared to a reservoir of vitality.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VI BOLIVIA In the heart of the continent a vast table of land as large as all our Middle States has been crowded up into the air by some titanic convulsion to a height of more than two miles, or fourteen thousand feet. The surface in many places is deeply encrusted with salt, suggesting the upheaval of a great mediterranean sea and a spilling of its waters over the succession of terraced slopes that finally break off abruptly and merge in the summer valleys of Brazil and Paraguay; for from these heights innumerable streams shimmer off toward the distant Amazon. The plateau is hemmed in by the _Cordillera de la Costa_ (the coast range) and the _Cordillera Real_, the main range, on the east, and is intersected in various directions by cross-sections, the whole producing a topography of a grandeur that makes all attempts at description pitifully inadequate. The majestic snow-clad peaks of Guallatiri and Miniquis in the coast range, and Illampú (Sorata), Illimani, Chachacomani, and Karkaake in the _Cordillera Real_ rise to a height of over 22,000 feet. A dozen more in both ranges exceed 20,000. On the northwestern border along the Peruvian frontier, lies Lake Titicaca, unique also in that it is the highest navigated body of water on the globe. It is 160 miles long by thirty wide and is fed by the melting Andean snows.