United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Three years elapsed after arriving in England before the ague took its final leave of him. During that time several experiments were made with the wourali-poison. In London an ass was inoculated with it, and died in twelve minutes. The poison was inserted into the leg of another, round which a bandage had been previously tied a little above the place where the wourali was introduced.
I think in about six or seven minutes the animal was dead. Mr W said that the effects would have been more instantaneous, if the virtue of the poison had not somewhat deteriorated from its having been kept so long." "The wourali poison only acts upon the nerves, I believe?" said the Major.
To it is attached a bunch of silk-grass, a small piece of bone for scratching the point of the arrows, and a basket for holding wild honey secured round the blunt end. The points of the arrows are tipped with the deadly wourali or urali poison. Another kind of gravatana is made of two separate pieces of wood, each scooped out so as to form one half of the tube.
It was in the possession of a gentleman who was collecting curiosities. He wished to have it killed in order to preserve the skin, and the wourali poison was resorted to as the easiest death. Of all animals, not even the toad and tortoise excepted, this poor ill- formed creature is the most tenacious of life.
After a little talk with the Indians, they consented to do as he wished. First they showed us some long sticks of a thin vine the wourali itself. This, with the root of a plant of a very bitter nature, they scraped together into thin shavings. They were then placed in a sieve, and water poured over them into an earthen pot, the liquid coming through having the appearance of coffee.
Thus it appears that the making the wourali poison is considered as a gloomy and mysterious operation; and it would seem that they imagine it affects others as well as him who boils it, for an Indian agreed one evening to make some for me, but the next morning he declined having anything to do with it, alleging that his wife was with child!
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.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel through the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, in South America. The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongest wourali poison and to reach the inland frontier-fort of Portuguese Guiana.
Thus any curve existing in the one is counteracted by that of the other. The arrows are tipped with the far-famed wourali poison, which quickly kills any animal they wound. Next morning we returned to the tree, and worked away as before.
It is then placed on a slow fire, and as it boils more of the juice of the wourali is added, according as it may be found necessary, and the scum is taken off with a leaf: it remains on the fire till reduced to a thick syrup of a deep brown colour. As soon as it has arrived at this state a few arrows are poisoned with it, to try its strength.
Word Of The Day