540 
BUSHMEN'S POISONED ARROWS: — 
15 Feb. 
always constitutes an essential part. This shows how attentively the 
nation have studied the horrid art, and how well they understand the 
effect of their combinations ; for they must have perceived that the 
poison of serpents operates in a manner different from that of 
vegetables ; the former attacking the blood, while the latter corrupts 
the flesh. 
From such a wound, if the poison be fresh, there is little 
hope of surviving, unless it happen to have been made in some part 
of the body where all the surrounding flesh can be instantly cut out. 
Yet examples of a cure are sufficiently numerous to encourage every 
unfortunate sufferer to try all the remedies within his reach ; for it 
may be possible, that the poison have, by age, lost much of its 
strength, or that the manufacturers of it, not having the most dan- 
gerous materials at hand, may have been obliged to employ a less 
fatal kind. 
As the Bushmen endeavour to conceal from strangers a know- 
ledge of the different substances which they use, it is not easy to 
find out exactly what they are. Of serpents, they select several 
kinds as preferable ; but, on necessity, often take others. Of 
vegetables^ they occasionally make use of various sorts, which are all 
endowed with an acrid thick juice, capable of being inspissated, such 
as Eupho7'bias, several species of different genera of AmaryllidecE, and 
Apocynece ; with many others. To these, are to be attributed, the 
great pain and heat of the wound ; and all the inflammatory symp- 
toms. On lightly touching the arrow-poison with my tongue, I have, 
in most cases, experienced a highly acrimonious taste. 
Medical men, especially those of the Cape Colony, could not 
dedicate their time and study to a more important object than the 
discovery of an antidote to this poison, and of some certain mode of 
treatinty such wounds. This would in effect be nothino; less than to 
disarm these dangerous tribes of their most formidable weapon, and 
to relieve the bordering colonists of the greatest portion of those 
fears which render their abode in such parts of the colony exceed- 
ingly uneasy. From what has been stated above respecting the 
component parts of the arrow-poison, it naturally follows that the 
