SOUTH AMERICA. 57 

 bone snatched from the iaws of a fastme^ bitch, and -f'^^^ 



~ Journey. 



a feather from the whig of a night owl, — " ossa ab ore 

 rapta jejunse canis, plumamque noctm'nse strigis," — were 

 necessary for Canidia's incantations. And in aftertimes, 

 parson Evans, the Welshman, was treated most ungen- 

 teelly by an enraged spirit, solely because he had 

 forgotten a fumigation in his witch-work. 



If, then, enlightened man lets his better sense give way, 

 and believes, or allows himself to be persuaded, that 

 certain substances and actions, in reality of no avail, 

 possess a virtue which renders them useful in producing 

 the wished for effect ; may not the wild, untaught, unen- 

 lightened savage of Guiana, add an ingredient which, on 

 account of the harm it does him, he fancies may be useful 

 to the perfection of his poison, though in fact it be of no use 

 at all.'* If a bone snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch 

 be thought necessary in incantation ; or if witchcraft have 

 recourse to the raiment of the owl, because it resorts to ^ 

 the tombs and mausoleums of the dead, and wails and 

 hovers about at the time that the rest of animated nature 

 sleeps ; 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 com- 

 position 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 his posterity. 



I 



