410 PREPARATION OF THE CURARE. 



and tone of pedantry of which the pharmacopolists of 

 Europe were formerly accused. " I know," said he, " that 

 the whites have the secret of making soap, and manufac- 

 turing that black powder which has the defect of making a 

 noise when used in killing animals. The ciware, which we 

 prepare from father to son, is superior to anything you can 

 make down yonder (beyond sea) . It is the juice of an herb 

 which kills silently, without any one knowing whence the 

 stroke comes." 



This chemical operation, to which the old man attached 

 so much importance, appeared to us extremely simple. The 

 liana (bejuco) used at Esmeralda for the preparation of the 

 poison, bears the same name as in the forests of Javita. It 

 is the bejuco de Mavacure, which is gathered in abundance 

 east of the mission, on the left bank of the Orinoco, beyond 

 the Bio Amaguaca, in the mountainous and rocky tracts of 

 Guanaya and Yumariquin. Although the bundles of bejuco 

 which we found in the hut of the Indian were entirely bare 

 of leaves, we had no doubt of their being produced by 

 the same plant of the strychnos family (nearly allied to the 

 rouhamon of Aublet) which we had examined in the forest 

 of Pimichin.* The mavacure is employed fresh or dried 

 indifferently during several weeks. The juice of the liana, 

 when it has been recently gathered, is not regarded as 

 poisonous; possibly it is so only when strongly concen- 

 trated. It is the bark and a part of the alburnum which 

 contain this terrible poison. Branches of the mavacure 

 four or five lines in diameter are scraped with a knife, and 

 the bark that comes off is bruised, and reduced into very 

 thin filaments on the stone employed for grinding cassava. 

 The venemous juice being yellow, the whole fibrous mass 

 takes that colour. It is thrown into a funnel nine inches 



* I may here insert the description of the curare or bejuco de Mavacure, 

 taken from a manuscript, yet unpublished, of my learned fellow-labourer 

 M. Kunth, corresponding member of the Institute. " Ramuli lignosi, 

 oppositi, ramulo altero abortive, teretiusculi, fuscescenti-tomentosi, inter 

 petiolos lineola pilosa notati, gemmula aut processu filiformi (pedunculo ?) 

 terminati. FOLIA opposita, bereviter petiolata, ovato-oblonga, acuminata, 

 iutergerrima, reticulato-triplinervia, nervo medio subtus prominente, 

 membranacea, ciliata, utrinque glabra, nervo medio fusceseente-tomentoso, 

 lacte viridia, subtus pallidiora, H-2 pollioes Jonga, 8-9 lineas lata. 

 PETIOLI liiieam longi, tomentosi, inarticuluti." 



