410 
PREPARATION OF THE CURARE. 
and tone of pedantry of which the pharmacopolists of 
Europe were formerly accused. “I know,” said he, “that 
the whites have the secret of making soap, and manufac- 
turing that black powder which has the defect of making a 
noise when used in killing animals. The curare, which we 
prepare from father to son, is superior to anything you can 
make down yonder (beyond sea). It is the juice of an herb 
which kills silently, without any one knowing whence the 
stroke comes.” 
This chemical operation, to which the old man attached 
so much importance, appeared to us extremely simple. The 
liana (bejuco) used at Esmeralda for the preparation of the 
poison, bears the same name as in the forests of Javita. It 
is the bejuco dc Mavacure, which is gathered in abundance 
east of the mission, on the left hank of the Orinoco, beyond 
the Rio Amaguaca, in the mountainous and rocky tracts of 
Guanaya and Yumariquin. Although the bundles of bejuco 
which we fouud in the hut of the Indian were entirely bare 
of leaves, we had no doubt of their being produced by 
the same plant of the strychnos family (nearly allied to the 
rouhamon of Aublet) which we had examined* in the forest 
of Pimichin.* Tho mavacure is employed fresh or dried 
indifferently during several weeks. The juice of the liana, 
when it has been recently gathered, is not regarded ns 
poisonous ; possibly it is so only when strongly concen- 
trated. It is the bark and a part of the alburnum which 
contain this terrible poison. Branches of the mavacure 
four or five lines in diameter are scraped with a knife, and 
the bark that comes off is bruised, and reduced into very 
thin filaments on the stone employed for grinding cassava. 
The venemous juice being yellow, the whole fibrous mass 
takes that colour. It is thrown into a funnel nine inches 
* I may here insert the description of the curare or bejuco de Mavacure, 
taken from a manuscript, yet unpublished, of my learned fellow-labourer 
M. Kunth, corresponding member of the Institute. " Ramuli lignosi, 
oppositi, rumulo altero abortivo, teretiusculi, fuscescenti-tomentosi, inter 
petiolos lineola pilosa notati, gemmula aut proeessu filiformi (pedunculo?) 
terminati. Folia opposita, bereviter petiolata, ovato-oblonga, acuminata, 
intergerrima, reticulato-triplinervia, nervo medio subtus prominente, 
membranacea, ciliata, utrinque glabra, nervo medio fuscescente-tomentoso, 
lacte viridia, subtus pallidiora, 11-24 pollices longa, 8-9 tineas lata 
Pbtioli linoam longi, tomentosi, inarticulati. ’ ’ 
