50 LIfE OF THE AUTHOR. 



his hands into the pot. Lastly, the snake's fangs, ants, and peppei 

 are bruised, and thrown into it. It is then placed on a slow fire, 

 and as it boils, more of the juice of the wourali is added, according 

 as it may be found necessary, and the scum is taken otf with a leaf : 

 it remains on the fire till reduced to a thick syrup of a deep brown 

 colour. As soon as it has arrived at this state, a few arrows are 

 poisoned with it to try its strength. If it answer the expectations, 

 it is poured out into a calabash, or little pot of Indian^ manufacture, 

 which is carefully covered with a couple of leaves, and over them a 

 piece of deer's skin, tied round with a cord. They keep it in the 

 most dry part of the hut ; and from time to time suspend it over the 

 fire to counteract the effects of dampness." 



Waterton did not, as careless writers have asserted, suppose that 

 the fangs and the ants were the active parts of the compound. He 

 has distinctly pointed out that the essential substances were the 

 vegetables, and while adding, with true scientific caution, that it 

 would not be proper to assume without direct proof that the animal 

 ingredients were altogether inoperative, he went on to show that 

 superstition alone had probably suggested their employment. The 

 manufacture of wourali was, with the Indian, a solemn and gloomy 

 operation, which partook of the magical. Man is prone to invest 

 natural objects with properties corresponding to the effects they 

 produce upon his own imagination. Thus because the cry of the 

 owl in the stillness of night filled the mind with a species of awe, 

 an evil influence was believed to exist in the very body of the bird, 

 and hence the witches in " Macbeth" throw an " owlet's wing " into 

 their cauldron. For the same reason they cast in the liver of a 

 blaspheming Jew, the nose of a Turk, the lips of a Tartar, the scale 

 of a dragon, the tooth of a wolf, &c., which were presumed to carry 

 with them the concentrated malignity of the beings from which they 

 came. The finger of a " birth-strangled babe " was even supposed 

 to infuse into the mixture the cruelty of its unnatural mother. When 

 such a power was ascribed to fragments which were merely typical 

 of living propensities, much more would the ignorant conclude that 

 actual or fancied venom would be sure to retain its deadly properties, 

 and accordingly Shakespeare's witches take for granted that a toad, 



