FIRST JOURNEY. 



59 



you been ignorant that it was wounded with a poisoned 

 arrow, you would never have suspected that it was 

 dying. Its mouth was shut, nor had any froth or 

 saliva collected there. 



There was no >subsultus tendinum, or any visible 

 alteration in its breathing. During the tenth minute 

 from the time it was wounded it stirred, and that was 

 all ; and the minute after, life's last spark went out. 

 From the time the poison began to operate, you would 

 have conjectured that sleep was overpowering it, and 

 you would have exclaimed, " Pressitque jacentem, dulcis 

 et alta quies, placidasque simillima niorti." 



There are now two positive proofs of the effect of 

 this fatal poison : viz. the death of the hog, and that 

 of the sloth. But still these animals were nothing 

 remarkable for size ; and the strength of the poison in 

 large animals might yet be doubted, were it not for 

 what follows. 



A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred 

 up^anox 11 * ^° a thousand pounds' weight, was tied to 

 a stake by a rope sufficiently long to allow 

 him to move to and fro. Having no large Coucourite 

 spikes at hand, it was judged necessary, on account of 

 his superior size, to put three wild-hog arrows into him. 

 One was sent into each thigh just above the hock, in 

 order to avoid wounding a vital part, and the third was 

 shot transversely into the extremity of the nostril. 



The poison seemed to take effect in four minutes. 

 Conscious as though he would fall, the ox set himself 

 firmly on his legs, and remained quite still in the same 

 place, till about the fourteenth minute, when he smelled 

 the ground, and appeared as if inclined to walk. He 

 advanced a pace or two, staggered, and fell, and re- * 



