92 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



the poison in large animals might yet be doubted, 

 were it not for what follows. 



A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred to a 

 thousand pounds weight, was tied to a stake by a 

 rope sufficiently long to allow him to move to and 

 fro. Having no large Coucourite spikes at hand, 

 it was judged necessary, on account of his supe- 

 rior size, to put three wild-hog arrows into him; 

 one was sent into each thigh just above the hock, 

 in order to avoid wounding a vital part, and the 

 third was shot transversely into the extremity of 

 the nostril. 



The poison seemed to take effect in four min- 

 utes. Conscious as though he would fall, the ox 

 set himself firmly on his legs, and remained quite 

 still in the same place, till about the fourteenth 

 minute, when he smelled the ground, and ap- 

 peared as if inclined to walk. He advanced a pace 

 or two, staggered, and fell, and remained ex- 

 tended on his side with his head on the ground. 

 His eye, a few minutes ago so bright and lively, 

 now became fixed and dim, and though you put 

 your hand close to it as if to give him a blow there, 

 he never closed his eyelid. 



His legs were convulsed, and his head from 

 time to time started involuntarily; but he never 

 showed the least desire to raise it from the ground ; 

 he breathed hard, and emitted foam from his 

 mouth. The startings, or subsultus tendinum, now 

 became gradually weaker and weaker ; his hinder 

 parts were fixed in death ; and in a minute or two 

 more his head and fore-legs ceased to stir. 



Nothing now remained to show that life was 

 still within him, except that his heart faintly beat 



