LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 51 



an " adder's fork," and a " blind worm's sting," will increase the 

 potency of their unearthly brew. Arguing from old European 

 superstitions, Waterton surmised that the wild, untaught Indian was 

 the dupe of similar delusions. " If," he says, " enlightened man lets 

 his better sense give way, certainly the savage may imagine that the 

 ants, whose sting causes a fever, and the teeth of the labarri and 

 counacouchi snakes, which convey death in a very short space of 

 time, are essentially necessary in the composition of his poison; and 

 being once impressed with this idea, he will add them every time he 

 makes the poison, and transmit the absolute use of them to posterity." 

 Most of the medicines set down by physicians in the complicated pre- 

 scriptions of former days were merely traditional remedies, which had 

 no effect upon the disease, and modern science has not yet emanci- 

 pated itself entirely from the false and hasty inferences of the savage. 



Both in South America, and after he got back to England, 

 Waterton made numerous experiments with the wourali poison. 

 The main result was the discovery, that if artificial respiration be 

 maintained till the action of the poison has passed off, life may be 

 preserved. With regard to the second and minor object of his 

 journey, Waterton could hear nothing of the inland sea, though he 

 questioned the Indians closely, and he came to the conclusion that 

 the flooding of a great plain in the rainy season was the origin of 

 the tradition of Lake Parima. 



On his return from the forest, Waterton made a short stay in the 

 colony, sailed thence to Granada, visited the island of Saint Thomas, 

 and so to England. He had suffered from fever in Guiana, and 

 after his return a tertian-ague troubled him for some time. But he 

 longed to enjoy again the wonders of the tropics, and in 1816 sailed 

 for Pernambuco. In its neighbourhood he collected many beauti- 

 ful birds. He did not travel far into the interior of Brazil, but his 

 stay was not without adventures. 



" One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from Monteiro, 

 these adventures were near being brought to a speedy and final 

 close. Six or seven blackbirds, with a white spot betwixt the 

 shoulders, were making a noise, and passing to and fro on the lower 

 branches of a tree in an abandoned, weed-grown orchard. In the 



