CAOUTCHOUC AND GUTTA-PERCHA. 207 
the traveller must content himself with a view from great distance, for more 
than one Cerberus guard the treasures. The external aspect, combined with the 
astonishing fertility and the superabundance of products of every description, 
suggests the idea that the garden of Eden, the paradise from which man had 
been expelled, has there again come to light, for the curse under which man- 
_ kind groans—‘ In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread’””—seems there 
to be powerless. But a shade is inseparable from light; there are hosts of 
terrors connected with those paradisiacal regions, lavishly scattered by nature 
- in order to prevent man from easily enjoying his life amid all that magnificence. 
One example out of a thousand will make this clear. 
Of the various branches of natural history, botany alone is regularly taught 
in our schools, which at least acquaints the youthful student with those off- 
springs of our flora which he meets in his rural excursions. Many of our 
readers will remember the surprise they used to feel at seeing a thick, milk- 
like juice profusely flowing from some of the plants which they plucked. That 
juice was in some cases white like milk, in some colorless and dark, in other 
but rarer cases it was colored. Thus celandine, which we generally see grow- 
ing around hedges and on heaps of rubbish, is all filled with a yellow juice, 
while the juice of some varieties of wolf’s-milk is rose-colored. To the same class 
of plants belong, among the natives of our soil, the various salad plants, the 
poppy; the dandelion, &c. 
The nearer we come to the equator the larger becomes the number of plants 
bearing a milky juice, and the greater the diversity of the qualities of these 
various juices. Just as the plants themselves mostly belong to the three 
great families of the euphorbiacex, apocynex, and urticez, in the same way we 
can divide the various milk juices, in general, into three classes. The first is the 
nearest in resemblance to animal milk; its taste is sweet, refreshing, and cooling, 
for which reason it is variously used by the inhabitants of those regions as an 
excellent means of refreshment. But to the plants themselves these juices are 
no aliment, as has been erroneously believed; they are in this respect by no 
means to be compared to the milk of the animals. 'The second class has become 
the most important toman. he fatty globules of animal milk are here replaced 
by a peculiar substance, which, like milk, is prevented from coagulating by an 
 albuminous matter. Caoutchouc is here formed in the same way as cream out 
of milk at rest, and both possess that peculiar property that, when coagulation 
has taken place, a separation of the single globules can no more be brought 
about. The third class, finally, produces the most terrible poisons, which, in 
the hands of the aborigines of America, Asia, and’ Africa, become the most 
dangerous weapon against rapacious animals and against men frequently more 
rapacious. . 
Every part of the globe has its peculiar plants, which yield the chief compo- 
nent parts for these arrow poisons. They are mostly little known to us, the 
savages guarding their treasures with watchful jealousy. The preparation of ar- 
row poison is a secret of the priests and sorcerers ; it is accompanied, as is also the 
gathering of the milky juices for that purpose, with the performance of sundry 
superstitious ceremonies. He who is discovered selling the poison to Huro- 
peans is put to death; the purchaser.shares the same fate. If the wound is 
only so deep that the poisoned point of the arrow penetrates to the blood, a 
violent convulsion of the limbs takes place almost instantaneously, which, in a 
few minutes, is followed by death, foam covering the lips of the victim, and very 
soon after by the decomposition of the body. ‘he wounded man is irretrievably 
lost, for no European knows an antidote; the speedy cutting out of the wound 
and of its surrounding is said to be the only possible means of salvation. At 
least the natives make use of this means in order to save the flesh of the animals 
killed by them with poisoned arrows. Such flesh is entirely innoxious, in spite 
of the immediate effect of the poison, and is daily eaten in great quantities by 
