68 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



forest trees ; in vain the sloth clings like a heap of moss to 

 the bough ; touched by the fatal poison they both let go their 

 aerial hold, and their lifeless bodies, whizzing through the 

 air as they drop down, fall with a loud crash to the ground. 



In a diluted form the wourali poison merely benumbs or 

 stuns the faculties without killing, and is thus made use of 

 by the Indians when they wish to catch an old monkey alive, 

 and tame him for sale. On his falling down senseless, they 

 immediately suck the wound, and wrapping him up in a 

 strait jacket of palm leaves, dose him for a few days with 

 sugarcane juice or a strong solution of saltpetre. This method 

 generally answers the purpose, but should his stubborn temper 

 not yet be subdued, they hang him up in smoke. Then, after 

 a short time, his useless rage gives way, and his wild eye, 

 assuming a plaintive expression, humbly sues for deliverance. 

 His bonds are now loosened, and even the most unmanageable 

 monkey seems to forget that he ever roamed at liberty in the 

 boundless woods. 



It is chiefly on the Camuku mountains in Guiana that the 

 formidable Urari plant is found, whose sombre-coloured, 

 brown-haired leaves and rind seem by their sinister appearance 

 to betray its deadly qualities. 



The savage tribes of the South American woods know how 

 to poison their arrows with the juices of various other plants, 

 but none equals this in virulence and certainty of execution, 

 and yearly the Indians of the Orinoco, the Eio Negro, and even 

 of the Amazons, wander to the Camuku mountains to purchase 

 by barter the renowned Urari or Wourali poison of the Macusis. 

 Nature has vouchsafed to these sons of the wilderness an in- 

 estimable gift in these venomous juices, which she has instilled 

 in various plants of the forest, for by no other means would 

 they be able to kill the birds and monkeys on whose flesh they 

 chiefly subsist. How, or at what time, they made the dis- 

 covery of their powers is unknown ; at all events the combina- 

 tion of so many means for the attainment of the end in view 

 — the preparation of the poison, the blow-pipe, and the arrows 

 — denotes a high degree of ingenuity. 



The tropical Indians are generally as free from the incum- 

 brance of dress as it is possible to conceive, paint seeming to 

 be looked upon as a suJBficient clothing. Eed, furnished by the 



