My Eiest Üeaei Plant» 
ä46 
themselves in this chaos of rocky rubble: and yet they only had one hand 
free, the other holding a gun. In most cases they had enjoyed half-an- 
hour's rest by the time 1 caught up with them, or else they waited at 
some larger boulder to hand me from the top a pole by which to drag me 
up. The stone consisted partly of granite, partly of gneiss with and 
without rather abundant layers of mica, and almost generally had many 
garnets imbedded in it. Now and then a rubble of weathered mica- 
schist put in an appearance. The vegetation that had developed upon 
the steep slopes and upon the huge boulders of gneiss was as fairy-like 
as the rocky chaos was fantastic. Creepers crept over the blocks like 
snakes in a number of coils, or, robbed of every point of support, hung 
over the deep ravine of the river-bed. On the isolated projecting 
pinnacles, wherever a little earth had collected, ferns, Myrtace ße and 
Clusiae and various orchids as Pleurothallis , Brassavola and Tillandsia 
were to be seen sprouting: forest giants bent their dark leafy vaults over 
the walls of the summit. When we had climbed about (500 feet my guide 
pointed out the first plant with the exclamation “Urari-yeli, Urari-yeh”f : 
it rose up from under a thick heap of rubble. With a certain amount of 
dread I regarded this mischief-making plant, the rapidly acting pro- 
perties of which I had now so frequently seen, and still was so often to 
see again, and for which an antidote had so far not been discovered. 
Even its external conformation had something suspicious about it: the 
brown hairy young twigs and leaves, the rough dark-coloured bark of the 
older shoots, everything betrayed its awful properties. My eyes sought 
in vain for a blossom, but they did not even find a fruit. As this seemed 
to be a young plant, T comforted myself with the hope that perhaps 
among older {specimens I would discover one or the other: yet even this 
hope remained unfulfilled, for after we had climbed some 100 feet higher 
I found indeed quite aged plants with trunks as thick as one’s arm and 
with many a twist, but neither flowers nor fruit. The flower must in 
general be very small and simple because my Indians, who search for the 
plant at all seasons of the year, said that it, does not bloom at all. The 
Macusi Indians knew of only three spots where this species of Strychnos 
is found in the Canuku Ranges. One is Ilamikipang, the second is where 
the Rupununi breaks its way through the range, some two days’ journey 
from Aripai, a Wapisiana settlement: the third one T am not intimately 
acquainted with. On my subsequent travels T was fortunate enough to 
find the plant in blossom in two hitherto unknown localities, localities 
where I would have least expected them, the banks of the Pomeroon and 
its tributary, the Sururu. The banks of both streams belong to the 
area occupied by the Caribs, but as these are ignorant of the preparation 
t — I must mention here that the Indians do not call the poison Wurali but Urari. . Walter 
Raleigh already quoted the name Ourari, and it is this name that is exclusively applied to it 
by the tribes of British G-uiana. The Macusis, the most excellent poison-preparers, call it 
Urari, the same term that it bears among the Tarumas, Wapisianas, Arekunas, Woyawais 
Atorais and Akawais. The fact of the Caribs sounding the letter r almost like an 1 seems to 
be the reason for the adoption of the name Wurali now and again. Yon Martius also states 
that during his travels on the Amazon, Rio Negro and Yupura, he only heard the poison 
called Urari and never W urali as in Surinam : (Travels in Brazil, by Spix and Martius, Vol. 
Ill p, 1155. 
