Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: August 23, 2024
A quantity of the strongest Indian red pepper was lastly added; and as the ingredients boiled, more of the juice of the wourali was poured in as was required. The scum having been taken off, the compound remained on the fire till it assumed the appearance of a thick syrup of a deep brown colour. Whether all these ingredients are necessary, I cannot say.
They are highly valued as pets; but being of a delicate constitution, seldom live long when transported from their native district. The native hunter, on wishing to obtain one of these creatures alive, goes forth with his blow-pipe, and arrows tipped with diluted wourali poison.
Having thus found the necessary ingredients, he scrapes the wourali vine and bitter root into thin shavings and puts them into a kind of colander made of leaves. This he holds over an earthen pot, and pours water on the shavings: the liquor which comes through has the appearance of coffee. When a sufficient quantity has been procured the shavings are thrown aside.
"I know the poison well; it was brought over by Mr. Waterton, whose amusing works you may have read. It is called the wourali poison, and is said to be extracted from a sort of creeping vine, which grows in the country. The natives, however, add the poison of snakes to the extract; and the preparation is certainly very fatal, as I can bear witness to." "Have you ever seen it tried?"
Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of the wourali poison has engaged thy attention, probably thou mayest recollect that the traveller took leave of thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Rio Branco. Shouldest thou wish to know what befell him afterwards, excuse the following uninteresting narrative.
The most deadly weapon the Indian of the Pampas uses is his pacuna or blow-pipe, out of which he sends his arrows, dipped in the fatal wourali poison. The poison takes its name from the wourali vine, the scraped wood of which, and some bitter roots, form the chief ingredients, boiled together.
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 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.
Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier and collected a sufficient quantity of the wourali poison, nothing remains but to give a brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses and its supposed antidotes.
He walked about as usual and ate his food as though all were right. After an hour had elapsed the bandage was untied, and ten minutes after death overtook him. A she-ass received the wourali poison in the shoulder, and died apparently in ten minutes. An incision was then made in its windpipe and through it the lungs were regularly inflated for two hours with a pair of bellows.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking