FIRST JOURNEY. 57 



encumbered with baggage, and fatigued with a hard 



day's walk, an Indian got his bow ready, and let 



fly a poisoned arrow at one of them. It 



ho j m a wild entered the cheek-bone, and broke off. The 



wild hog was found quite dead about one 



hundred and seventy paces from the place where he had 



been shot. He afforded us an excellent and wholesome 



supper. 



Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the com- 

 mon weapons of destruction, has it in his power to 

 prepare a poison, by which he can generally ensure to 

 himself a supply of animal food ; and the food so de- 

 stroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature has 

 been bountiful to him. She has not only ordered 

 poisonous herbs and roots to grow in the unbounded 

 forests through which he strays, but has also furnished 

 an excellent reed for his arrows, and another, still more 

 singular, for his blow-pipe ; and planted trees of an 

 amazing hard, tough, and elastic texture, out of which 

 he forms his bows. And in order that nothing might 

 be wanting, she has superadded a tree which yields him 

 a fine wax, and disseminated up and down a plant not 

 unlike that of the pine-apple, which affords him capital 

 bow-strings. 



Having now followed the Indian in the chase, and 

 described the poison, let us take a nearer view of its 

 action, and observe a large animal expiring under the 

 weight of its baneful virulence. 



Many have doubted the strength of the wourali 

 poison. Should they ever by chance read what follows, 

 probably their doubts on that score will be settled 

 for ever. 



In the former experiment on the hog, some faint 



