CUAP. VlII. 
BUSHMEN’S POISONS. 
171 
again by a Kon driving them off to a very great distance. The 
lions here are not often heard. They seem to have a vdiolesome 
dread of the Bushmen, who, when they observe evidence of a 
lion’s having made a full meal, follow up his spoor so quietly that 
his slumbers are not disturbed. One discharges a poisoned arrow 
from a distance of only a few feet, while his companion simul¬ 
taneously throws his skin cloak on the beast’s head. The sudden 
surprise makes the hon lose his presence of mind, and he bounds 
away in the greatest confusion and terror. Our friends here 
showed me the poison wliich they use on these occasions. It is 
the entrails of a caterpillar called N’gwa, half an mch long. 
They squeeze out these, and place them all around the bottom of 
the barb, and allow the poison to dry in the sun. They are very 
careful in cleaning theh nads after working with it, as a small 
portion mtroduced into a scratch acts like morbid matter in dis¬ 
section wounds. The agony is so great that the person cuts hun- 
self, calls for his mother’s breast as if he were returned in idea to 
Ills cliildhood again, or flies from human- habitations a raging 
maniac. The effects on the hon are equaUy terrible. He is heard 
moaning in distress, and becomes furious, biting the trees and 
gTOund in rage. 
As the Bushmen have the reputation, of curing the wounds of 
this poison, I asked how tliis was effected. They said that they 
administer the caterpillar itself in combination with fat; they 
also rub fat into the wound, saying that “the N’gwa wants fat, 
and, when it does not find it in the body, kills the man: we give 
it what it wants, and it is content ’’—a reason which will com¬ 
mend itself to the enlightened among omrselves. 
The poisoii more generally employed is the milky juice of 
the tree Euphorbia (A', arborescens). This is particularly ob¬ 
noxious to the equine race. When a quantity is mixed with the 
water of a jiond a whole herd of zebras will fall dead from the 
effects of the poison before they have moved away two miles. It 
does not, however, kill oxen or men. On them it acts as a drastic 
purgative only. This substance is used all over the country, 
though in some places the venom of serpents and a certain bulb, 
Amaryllis toxicaria, are added, in order to increase the virulence. 
Father Pedro, a Jesuit, who hved at Zumbo, made a balsam, 
containing a number of plants and castor oil, as a remedy for 
