Gabb.] 524 [Aug. 20, 



to apply to the traders for medicines for fever. All go to Mr. Lyon in 

 case of snake-bite, and when taken in time, he s^ys he has never failed 

 to cui-e a case with either ammonia or iodine, as seemed to be indicated. 

 It may be interesting to note that after obtaining no relief with one of 

 these medicines, he has given the other, and with immediate good results. 

 He gives the iodine in the form of alcoholic tincture in 10 to 15-drop 

 doses, every 10 to 15 minutes. Some of them seem to believe in the in- 

 cantations of the Awas or doctors, but foreign medicines are gradually 

 gaining ground over sorcery. For rheumatic pains, headaches, &c., 

 there are two remedies used. The simplest is counter-irritation by whip- 

 ping with nettle leaves. The other is bleeding. The lancet is made usually 

 from the tongue of a jew's-harp, broken off at the angle and sharpened to 

 a point. This is set at right angles in a little stick for a handle, and is 

 used by holding it over the affected part and striking it briskly with a 

 finger. They never regularly open a vein and draw off a quantity of 

 blood, but every stroke makes a separate puncture, from which only a 

 few di'ops exude. At Borubeta I saw a man bled to relieve the aching of 

 fatigue in his arms. He had been scraping agave leaves, to extract the 

 fibre for hammocks. He had at least fifty punctures made over his two 

 arms. 



The natural products of the country are principally sarsaparilla root 

 and India rubber. The sarsaparilla vine is green, angular, and covered 

 with thorns. It grows very long and climbs over bushes and even trees 

 in the more open parts of the forest. At short distances it is jointed, and if 

 it touches the ground every joint sends out a new set of roots. The leaves 

 are large and acuminately oval and have three longitudinal ribs, the mid- 

 rib and two parallel ones, half way between the middle and the edge. The 

 fruit is round and grows in a cluster something like grapes. The vine 

 has a tap-root, and besides sends out a large number of horizontal roots 

 near the surface of the ground, and from six to ten feet long. The sarsa- 

 parilla hunter first clears away carefully all the bushes and undergrowth 

 with his machete. He then, with a hooked stick, digs into the ground 

 at the base of the vine until he loosens the earth and finds where the best 

 roots are. The tap-root is never disturbed, and it is customary to dig up 

 only half the roots at a time, to avoid killing the vine. Having selected 

 those that look most promising, he places his hand under one or two and 

 gently lifting them, follows their course with his hooked stick, loosening 

 the soil and lifting them out, following them to their ends. They are 

 then cut off, the dirt carefully replaced around the vine, and the roots 

 laid in the sun, or hung up to dry. A vine yields generally from four to 

 nine pounds of green roots. When dry they are tied into cylindrical rolls 

 a foot long and four or five inches thick, weighing about a pound. 



India rubber is obtained by scoring the bark of the trees obliquely. 

 Several cuts are placed one above another and in pairs converging down- 

 wards ; the sap being directed in its fiow by a leaf placed at the bottom, 

 which serves as a spout, to direct it into the vessel placed to receive it. 



