THE EQUINOCTIAL ZONE. 55 



by other countries. A much larger quantity is 

 consumed in France ; in Spain it is commonly 

 drunk, in the shape of chocolate, for breakfast ; 

 in Mexico it is considered an article of prime 

 necessity. 



In Guiana grows the Strychnos toxicaria, a 

 creeping plant, from the fruit and bark of 

 which the natives prepare the woorali poison, 

 one of the most deadly known. Arrows dipped 

 in the prepared juice are blown through tubes, 

 formed from the internodes of a reed, (Arundi- 

 naria Schomburgkii,) and with a precision that 

 rarely fails of its victim. Schomburgk thus 

 speaks of its effects : " We were travelling 

 over the Savannahs, girt by the Paracaima 

 Mountains ; a deer was discovered browsing in 

 the high grass before us. One of the Indians 

 took a poisoned spike from his sarima, and 

 fixed it to his arrow. Cautiously he stole upon 

 the unsuspecting deer, and shot the arrow into 

 its neck ; it made a jump in the air, fled with 

 the speed of the wind over the Savannahs, but 

 had scarcely run forty yards when it fell pant- 

 ing to the ground, and expired. I have seen 

 the tapir swimming across the Eupumuni, so 

 slightly wounded that the spike had scarce 

 penetrated its thick skin ; nevertheless, it took 

 effect, and the animal expired." The blow- 

 pipes above alluded to are the produce of a 

 singular reed, allied to the bamboos, and hollow 

 inside ; they are called curata by the natives. 

 The stem is about one and a half inches in 

 diameter, or five inches in circumference > and 



