WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 77 



of feeling for the sufferings of the inferior ani- 

 mals, the ensuing experiments. The larger 

 animals were destroyed in order to have proof 

 positive of the strength of a poison which hath 

 hitherto been doubted : and the smaller ones were 

 killed with the hope of substantiating that which 

 has commonly been supposed to be an antidote. 



It makes a pitying heart ache to see a poor 

 creature in distress and pain; and too often has 

 the compassionate traveller occasion to heave a 

 sigh as he journeys on. However, here, though 

 the kind-hearted will be sorry to read of an unof- 

 rending animal doomed to death, in order to sat- 

 isfy a doubt, still it will be a relief to know that 

 the victim was not tortured. The wourali-poison 

 destroys life's action so gently, that the victim 

 appears to be in no pain whatever ; and probably, 

 were the truth known, it feels none, saving the 

 momentary smart at the time the arrow enters. 



A day or two before the Macouslii Indian pre- 

 pares his poison, he goes into the forest in quest 

 of the ingredients. A vine grows in these wilds, 

 which is called Wourali. It is from this that the 

 poison takes its name, and it is the principal in- 

 gredient. When he has procured enough of this, 

 he digs up a root of a very bitter taste, ties them 

 together, and then looks about for two kinds of 

 bulbous plants, which contain a green and glutin- 

 ous juice. He fills a little quake, which he carries 

 on his back, with the stalks of these; and lastly, 

 ranges up and down till he finds two species of 

 ants. One of them is very large and black, and so 

 venomous, that its sting produces a fever; it is 

 most commonly to be met with on the ground. The 



