THE URARI, OR ARROW POISON OF THE INDIANS. 409 
poison their arrows, “ Ourari,” and under that name it occurs 
again in the list of “ names and rivers” as a poisonous herb. 
Herrera mentions the word Urari, and it exists to this day in 
the name of the rivers Urari-Capara and Urari-Cuera, which' 
at their confluence form the Rio Branco. Yon Martius and 
Von Spix, in their f Travels in Brazil/ observe that during 
their exploring tours up the Amazon, Yupura, Rio Negro, 
&c., they heard the poison pronounced as Urari, but never 
Wourali. It is surprising, therefore, why a spurious name 
should have been substituted in England for the true one, 
which Raleigh already reported in 1595 to be Ourari. 
I had made myself acquainted with these facts before I 
commenced my exploring expeditions in the interior of 
Guiana, and it may be conceived that I was most anxious to 
become acquainted with the ingredients which formed the 
famous urari poison, and the plants which furnished its com- 
ponent parts. I was fortunate enough to accomplish my 
wish during the first expedition, which, under the direction 
of the Royal Geographical Society of London, and under the 
patronage of the British Government, I undertook, in 1835, 
to explore the interior of Guiana. The plant which Humboldt 
was prevented from seeing, and which was one of the chief 
objects of Mr. Waterton’s c Wanderings, 5 but without success, 
I saw growing at its natural place in 1835. Humboldt, with 
his usual sagacity, pronounced, from the mere sticks which 
the Indians had brought to Esmeralda for the preparation 
of the poison, that the plant from which they came belonged 
to the Strychnem ; and such I found it to be, although it was at 
that time not in flower. I have described it as Strgchnos toxifera. 
The plant which furnishes the active principle of the urari 
poison having been discovered, it remained now to ascertain 
the mode of its preparation, and to learn what other materials 
are added to it. This I could only ascertain during my third 
expedition in 1837. The Wapisianas, but principally the 
Mausi Indians, are the most famed for the preparation of the 
urari poison. The Indians of the Orinoco itself acknowledge 
it, and only use the Curare, the preparation of which Hum- 
boldt witnessed at Esmeralda, when they cannot procure 
any of the poison made by the Macusis ; the Maiongkong and 
Guinare Indians, who inhabit the northern tributaries of the 
upper Orinoco, undertake journeys to the country of the 
Macusis, merely for the purpose of bartering the urari, giving 
in return the Curata, that admirable reed, which is sometimes 
sixteen feet long without an internode, and of which the 
celebrated blowpipes or sarbacans are mad Pharmaceutical 
Journal . 
(To he continued .) 
