1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

289

You only know the fruitfulness of Lust, And therefore here your Judgement is unjust, Your skill in other offsprings we may trust, With those Chast Tribes that no distinction know Of Sex, your Province nothing has to do. Of all the Plants that any Soil does bear, ^ This Tree in Fruits the Richest does appear, y It bears the best, and bears 'em all the year. Ev'n now with Fruits 'tis stor'd Behold how thick with Leaves it is beset, Each Leaf is Fruit, and such substantial Fare No Fruit beside to Rival it will dare. Mov'd with his Countries Roming Fate (whose Coil Must for her Treasures be expos'd to toil) Our Varicocha first this Coca sent, Endow'd with Leaves of wondrous Nourishment, Whose Juice succ'd in, and to the Stomach ta'en, Long Hunger and long Labour can sustain ; From which our faint and weary Bodies find \ More Succour, more they cheat the drooping Mind, i- Than can your Bacchus and your Ceres join'd. J Three Leaves supply for six days march afford, The Quitoita with this Provision stor'd Can pass the vast and cloudy Andes o'er The dreadful Andes plac'd 'twixt Winter's store Of Winds, Rain, Snow, and that more humble Earth That gives the small but valiant Coca Birth ; This Champion that makes war-like Venus Mirth. Nor Coca only useful art at home, — why laugh you yet ? A famous Merchandize thou art become A thousand Pad and Vicugni groan \ Yearly beneath thy Loads, and for thy sake alone [- The spacious World's to us by Commerce known"; Dr. Von Tschudi says that the Coca plant is re- garded by the Peruvian Indian, as something sacred and mysterious, and it sustained an important part in T