462 THE URARI, OR ARROW-POISON OF THE INDIANS. 
as practised by the Macusis and Wapisianas. There is no 
danger whatever in the preparation, and the vapours which 
are disengaged are entirely innocuous. But in the same 
manner as the charlatan and empiric surrounds his sovereign 
cure against all evils flesh is the heir of v T ith mystery, thus 
the Indian, for his advantage, surrounds the preparation of 
this deadly poison with superstitious customs. The circum- 
stance that it requires several days to v T atch the pot closely 
on the fire, taking off the scum before it is properly concen- 
trated, prevents the Indian, with his natural indolence, from 
preparing the poison more than once or twice a year. 
During my third expedition, in 1837, while at Pirara, the 
Macusi village, which, as already observed, is the classical 
soil of Raleigh’s and Keymis’s El Dorado, 1 ascertained that 
an Indian lived in the vicinity who was far-famed for the 
preparation of the urari poison ; and having won him by a 
handsome present, he promised to prepare it in my presence. 
I accompanied him myself to the Canuku mountains, a jour- 
ney of two days, to be present, for surety sake, at the gather- 
ing of the plant, the Strychnos toxifera , the bark of which w-as 
stripped, and preserved in small baskets, made for that pur- 
pose. I took possession, as my share, of three of these baskets, 
w^hich I carried with me to Pirara, but w r hen the appointed 
day for commencing the preparation had arrived, the Macusi, 
prevailed upon by one of the chiefs of his tribe, refused to 
comply with his promise. I w as then so near my departure 
for Fort San Joaquim, on the Rio Branco, that I w 7 as pre- 
vented from engaging a more willing concocter, and wdth 
the pure bark, gathered in my presence, in my possession, 
I left for my destination. It was during my stay at that fort 
that I resolved to make some experiments liow far the pure 
bark of the urari plant (Strychnos toxifera), unmixed with any 
other substance , might prove fatal to animal life . I took, there- 
fore, two pounds of the bark shavings, pounded them, and 
having poured a gallon of water on the mass, allowed it to 
remain in that state for twenty-four hours. Half of it was 
filtered off, and keeping a steady but gentle coal fire, it was 
boiled in a new pot, adding from time to time more of the in- 
fusion. After having concentrated it by boiling to the con- 
sistence of very thin syrup, and having allowed it to cool, 
two arrows were poisoned w’ith this substance, with which 
two fowls were slightly wounded, one in the thigh, and the 
other in the neck. The effects became apparent after five 
minutes — the first died in twenty-seven minutes after the 
wound had been inflicted, and the other, which had been 
wounded in the neck, after twenty-eight. 
