ITS COMPONENT HE EPS. 
411 
high, with an opening four inclies wide. This funnel was 
of all the instruments of the Indian laboratory that of 
which the poison-master seemed to be most proud. He 
asked us repeatedly if, por alia ( out yonder, meaning in 
Europe), we had ever seen anything to be compared to this 
funnel (embudo) . It was a leaf of the plantain-tree rolled up 
in the form of a cone, and placed within another stronger 
cone made of the leaves of the palm-tree. The whole of 
this apparatus was supported by slight frame-work made of 
the petioles and ribs of palm-leaves. A cold infusion is 
lirst prepared by pouring water on the fibrous matter which 
is the ground bark of the mavacure. A yellowish water 
filters during several hours, drop by drop, through the leafy 
funnel. This filtered water is the poisonous liquor, but it 
acquires strength only when concentrated by evaporation, 
like molasses, in a large earthen pot. The Indian from 
time to time invited us to taste the liquid ; its taste, more 
or less bitter, decides when the concentration by fire has 
been carried sufficiently far. There is no danger in tasting 
it, the curare being deleterious only when it comes into 
immediate contact with the blood. The vapours, therefore, 
which are disengaged from the pans are not hurtful, notwith- 
standing all that has been asserted on this point by the mis- 
sionaries of the Orinoco. Eontana, in his experiments on 
the poison of the iicuna of the Amazon, long since proved 
that the vapours arising from this poison, when thrown 
on burning charcoal, may be inhaled without danger; 
and that the statement of La Condamine, that Indian 
women, when condemned to death, have been killed by the 
vapours of the poison of the ticuna, is incorrect. 
The most concentrated juice of the mavacure is not thick 
enough to stick to the darts ; and therefore, to give a body 
to the poison, another vegetable juice, extremely gluti- 
nous, drawn from a treo with large leaves, called kiracayuero, 
is poured into the concentrated infusion. As this tree grows 
at a great distance from Esmeralda, and was at that period 
as destitute of flowers and fruits as the lejuco de mavacure, 
we could not determine it botanically. I have several times 
mentioned that kind of fatality which withholds the most 
interesting plants from the examination of travellers, while 
thousands ol others, of the chemical properties of " hie.i we 
