138 
THE CURAEE T0I80IT. 
interest shall call new settlers thither. Habitual evils are 
those which are least felt; and men horn in America do 
not suffer the same intensity of pain as Europeans recently 
arrived. Perhaps, also, the destruction of forests round 
the inhabited places, although slow, will somewhat tend to 
diminish the torment of the tipulary insects. San Fer- 
nando de Atabapo, Javita, San Carlos, and Esmeralda, 
appear (from their situation at the mouth of the Guaviare, 
the portage between Tuamini and the Eio Negro, the con- 
fluence of the Cassiquiare, and the point of bifurcation of 
the Upper Orinoco) to promise a considerable increase of 
population and prosperity. The same improvement will 
taue place in the fertile but uncultivated countries through 
which flow the Guallaga, the Amazon, and the Orinoco; 
as well as at the isthmus of Panama, the lake of Nicaragua, 
and the Eio Huasacualco, which furnish a communication 
between the two oceans. The imperfection of political 
institutions may for ages have converted into deserts places 
where the commerce of the world should be found co j- 
centred; hut the time approaches when these obstacles \</li 
exist no longer. A vicious administration cannot always 
struggle against the united interest of men ; and civilization 
will be carried insensibly into those countries, the great 
destinies of which nature itself proclaims, by the physical 
configuration of the soil, the immense windings of the rivers, 
and the proximity of two seas, that bathe the shores of 
Europe and of India. 
Esmeralda is the most celebrated spot on the Orinoco for 
the preparation of that active poison, which is employed in 
war, in the chase, and, singularly enough, as a remedy for 
gastric derangements. The poison of the ticunas or the 
Amazon, the v/pas-tieute of Java, and the curare of Guiana, 
are the most deleterious substances that are known. Ea- 
leigh, about the end of the sixteenth century, had heard of 
urari* as being a vegetable substance with which arrows 
were envenomed ; yet no fixed notions of this poison had 
reached Europe. The missionaries Gumilla and Gili had 
not been able to penetrate into the country where the 
curare is manufactured. Gumilla asserts that “this pre- 
* In Tamanac maratia in Maypnre, macuri . 
