408 THE URARI, OR ARROW POISON OF THE INDIANS. 
brought new accounts of its preparation and effects; the 
relation still surrounded with marvels, amongst which the 
admixture of snakes’ teeth played a great figure. At the 
commencement of the nineteenth century, the Nestor of 
scientific travellers, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, gave an 
authentic account of its preparation, attesting that neither 
snakes’ teeth nor stinging ants formed any of its component 
parts, and that the active principle was derived from a plant, 
which he considered to belong to the Strychnea. VonMartius, 
the great Brazilian traveller, attests that the chief ingredient 
of the arrow poison of the Indians of the Yupura, is the bark 
of a slender tree, which in the Tupi tongue is called Urari- 
riva, the Rouhamon Guianensis of Aublet, much allied to a 
plant which Mr. Bentham, in the enumeration of my Guiana 
plants, has called Strycknos cogens , which is still employed by 
some of the Indian tribes for the preparation of their arrow 
poison. Dr. Peeppig, in his 4 Reise in Chili, Peru, und auf 
dem Amazonenstrome,’ observes with respect to the arrow 
poison of Peru : “ The supposition occasionally met with in 
Peru, that animal poisons were mixed in the composition, has 
not met any confirmation.” The preparation of the urari, as 
practised by the Juris, Passes, Miranhas, and Ticunas, Indian 
tribes of the rivers Amazon and Yupurara, was witnessed by 
Yon Martius, who asserts that no animal / substance was 
added to it. 
Not contented with the report of the simple method of its 
preparation, Mr. Charles Waterton, the author of ‘ Wander- 
ings in South America’ (a book delightful to read, vivid and 
animated in the descriptions of the glorious scenes which 
nature presents in Guiana, but devoid of scientific researches), 
introduced again the account given by Herrera, Gumilla, &c., 
reinstating snakes’ teeth, stinging ants, &c. But Mr. Water- 
ton had never been present when the poison was prepared, 
nor had he seen the plant in its native growth which fur- 
nishes the active principle. He reports merely what had 
been communicated to him in this regard by some of the 
crafty Indians, whose interest it was to surround the whole 
with mystery. 
The name by which Mr. Waterton introduces this famous 
poison is even spurious. The Macusi Indians, the most 
famed tribe for the preparation of the true poison, call the 
plant which furnishes it Urari-ye, and the poison itself urari, 
which the Carabisis or Caribs, who are not able to make a 
proper distinction between the sound of r and l , have cor- 
rupted into Ulari and Urali, of which Mr. Waterton has 
made Wourali. Raleigh had heard, during his voyage, that 
the Indians call a vegetable substance, with which they 
