294 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN BIRDS. 



Go to the Indian, white man ! go, 

 And learn his ourah reed to blow — 

 Compound wourali poison, — deep 

 The arrow in the fell juice steep, 

 Then shoot — the bird, with scarce a sigh, 

 Will thank thee for such death, and die.* 



And are we not, 'tis painful thus 

 To speak of what relates to Us — 

 I here more strictly now apply 

 The word to sparrows such as I — 



* We learn from Waterton's Wanderings, that the Blow- 

 Pipe, with which the Indians of Guiana shoot their poisoned 

 arrows at birds, consists of a long hollow reed without a joint* 

 The part used is ten or eleven feet long; it is called Ourah i 

 the case consists of another reed called Samourah. The 

 arrow, which is made from the leaf of a palm tree, is hard and 

 brittle, and pointed as sharp as a needle. About an inch of the 

 pointed end is dipped in the poison called Wourali, which de- 

 stroys life's action so gently that the victim appears to be in no 

 pain whatever. This powerful and fatal drug is a syrupous de- 

 coction made from several vegetables, the chief of which is 

 called wourali, whence the poison has obtained its name, and 

 from venomous ants and the fangs of some snakes. It is pre- 

 pared by the Indians with many superstitious rites. With this 

 blow-pipe the Indian can send an arrow three hundred feet : he 

 puts the arrow, round one end of which some cotton is wound 

 to resist the air, into the tube, and, collecting his breath for the 

 fatal puff, after taking aim, sends it on the work of death ; the 

 birds, it is said, are not at all injured by the poison, — in three 

 minutes the victim generally falls to the ground. The plant 

 called wourali is one of the scandent tribe, and allied to the 

 genus strychnos. — The particular species does not appear to be 

 yet ascertained. 



