190 OPHIDIANS. 
Tinctures of these all mixed together form what is called 
“Liga,” or “The League ;” the most bitter antidotes are con- 
sidered the most efficacious. 
The plants named are found in certain localities in great 
. abundance, and those considered most efficacious by Curers in 
certain places are always found in places infested by the most 
venomous snakes. 
The same substances are called by different names by the 
different Curers, although scores of them have a manuscript 
list, of which the above is an exact copy, except that the 
botanical characteristics of the plants are written out in de- 
tail. 
The Curers are generally men void of all principle ; shrewd ; 
cunning; ever ready to profit by any circumstance which can 
be turned to their advantage, and as they have to do with a 
people always inclined to superstitious belief; who attribute 
everything to “ La Suerte” (luck, chance, fatality); as an in- 
evitable result, these men are in a position to make themselves 
masters of any and every situation. They never forget an 
insult or injury given (except in a fellow-curer or “ brujo,’’), 
and will wait patiently for years with the hope that sooner 
or later they shall be called upon to cure a snake-bite in 
their enemy, and if death is not imminent they soon make 
it so by the administration or application of poisons they 
keep on hand, and their long-treasured insult is revenged by 
death. 
They pass a great portion of their time in the woods and 
forests ; find the hiding-places of the different snakes, and 
study their habits and peculiarities; thus it is that their 
knowledge is acquired from Nature herself, and not to be 
despised, though purely empirical. 
I have succeeded in inducing many of them to use the 
