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The two ends proposed have been obtained. The Portuguese inland frontier fort has been reached, and the Macoushi wourali-poison acquired. The account of this excursion through the interior of Guiana has been submitted to thy perusal, in order to induce thy abler genius to undertake a more extensive one.
There is also a small species a harmless, pretty little fish, of a bright green colour on the back, and a white belly streaked with pink. The teeth are used by the Macoushi Indians for sharpening the points of their poisoned arrows. This they do by drawing them rapidly between two of the teeth, in the way that knives are sharpened by two circular steel files, now in common use.
The witness now produced the sharp wooden needle, the stem of the leaf of the coucourite palm, which he had found among Johnson's tattooing materials, in the upper chamber of the Hit or Miss. This needle had been, he said, the tip of one of the arrows used for their blowpipes, by the Macoushi of Guiana.
"It is made," said the Wondersmith, swallowing another great goblet-full of wine ere he replied, "in the wild woods of Guiana, in silence and in mystery. But one tribe of Indians, the Macoushi Indians, know the secret. It is simmered over fires built of strange woods, and the maker of it dies in the making. The place, for a mile around the spot where it is fabricated, is shunned as accursed.
Superior in size and beauty to every parrot of South America, the ara will force you to take your eyes from the rest of animated nature and gaze at him: his commanding strength, the flaming scarlet of his body, the lovely variety of red, yellow, blue, and green in his wings, the extraordinary length of his scarlet and blue tail seem all to join and demand for him the title of “emperor of all the parrots.” He is scarce in Demerara till you reach the confines of the Macoushi country; there he is in vast abundance; he mostly feeds on trees of the palm species.
The two ends proposed have been obtained. The Portuguese inland frontier-fort has been reached and the Macoushi wourali poison acquired. The account of this excursion through the interior of Guiana has been submitted to thy perusal in order to induce thy abler genius to undertake a more extensive one.
It has been already remarked that in the extensive wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, far away from any European settlement, there is a tribe of Indians who are known by the name of Macoushi. Though the wourali poison is used by all the South American savages betwixt the Amazons and the Oroonoque, still this tribe makes it stronger than any of the rest.
The wourali-poison destroys life’s action so gently, that the victim appears to be in no pain whatever; and probably, were the truth known, it feels none, saving the momentary smart at the time the arrow enters. A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares his poison, he goes into the forest in quest of the ingredients. A vine grows in these wilds, which is called wourali.
The wourali poison destroys life's action so gently that the victim appears to be in no pain whatever; and probably, were the truth known, it feels none, saving the momentary smart at the time the arrow enters. A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares his poison he goes into the forest in quest of the ingredients. A vine grows in these wilds which is called wourali.
There is also attached to the quiver a little kind of basket to hold the wild cotton which is put on the blunt end of the arrow. With a quiver of poisoned arrows slung over his shoulder, and with his blow-pipe in his hand, in the same position as a soldier carries his musket, see the Macoushi Indian advancing towards the forest in quest of powises, maroudis, waracabas and other feathered game.
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