Walter Raleigh and Urari Poison. 
349 
944. Though the ascent of this scene of devastation and seat of 
intensive volcanic disturbance was dangerous, the perils were increased 
still further during the descent, in the course of which we were at last 
forced to abandon the ravine, and clear a road for ourselves through the 
wild underwood : we reached the settlement at sundown exhausted and 
fatigued after our indescribable troubles and covered with innumerable 
cuts, during the receipt of which every plant had claimed a share of my 
clothing. I found comforting refreshment after all this exertion in the 
small but finger-long fruits of a banana brought me by the Indians. 
Though I was so tired and my swollen feet smarted so painfully, 
curiosity to know the species which bore this hitherto unknown fruit 
left me no peace : I still had to go to the provision field. The plant was 
as dwarfed as the fruit which did not reach a height even of four 
feet: I took it for a variety of Musa chinensis Sweet. ( Musa Gavendishii 
Paxton), which it exactly resembles in shape, its habitat alone probably 
hindering the luxuriance that it develops on the coast. 
945. Before I pass on to a description of the poison itself I may be 
allowed to include here the experiences of my brother, who discovered 
the chief ingredient of this vegetable poison. 
946. The celebrated and unfortunate Walter Raleigh was the first 
to bring to Europe accurate information of the existence of a frightful 
and rapidly-acting extract called “Ourari,” which the aborigines of the 
Orinoco and Rio Negro used for the poisoning of their fighting and 
hunting arrows:. Although, since receipt of the first news, a sort of 
general attention had been paid to the subject, it is only within recent 
times, as shown by the many mysterious accounts concerning the in- 
gredients and manufacture of the poison, that one has succeeded in 
sifting the true from the false. (The accounts of the older travellers 
and missionaries, like ITartzinck, Gumilla, Gili and others, rival one 
another in fabulous and mysterious particulars. The first one even states 
that in order to try the strength and rapid working of the prepared 
poison, the Indians shoot an arrow streaked with it into a young tree, 
and if the tree dies within three days, the poison has the strength 
required: fables of this nature need not lie further discussed. 
947. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Alexander von 
Humboldt was the first to give an authentic account of the preparation 
of this terribly effective poison which he had witnessed in Esmeraldaf. 
Later travellers naturally found the process mentioned by him there far 
too simple and sought afresh to veil the preparation of the poison in 
mystery : it was maintained that the vegetable extract was only the 
medium of the deadly material, and that the Urari received its life- 
destroying powers only through the addition of the teeth of the most 
venomous snakes, such as Triyonocephahis , Crotalus, etc., together with 
dangerous ants such as Ponera and Cryptocerus, as well as from 
Capsicums , etc. None of these individuals, however, could have 
witnessed its preparation and seen the addition of these ingredients : 
their information is always supported only by the accounts of the 
t — Voyages aux Regions Equinoxiales. Tome VIII page 153, 
