provided it does not touch the blood. However, this is certain: when a
sufficient quantity of it enters the blood, death is the inevitable
consequence; but there is no alteration in the colour of the blood, and
both the blood and flesh may be eaten with safety.

All that thou wilt find here is a concise, unadorned account of the wourali
poison. It may be of service to thee some time or other shouldst thou ever
travel through the wilds where it is used. Neither attribute to cruelty,
nor to a want of feeling for the sufferings of the inferior animals, the
ensuing experiments. The larger animals were destroyed in order to have
proof positive of the strength of a poison which hath hitherto been
doubted, and the smaller ones were killed with the hope of substantiating
that which has commonly been supposed to be an antidote.

It makes a pitying heart ache to see a poor creature in distress and pain;
and too often has the compassionate traveller occasion to heave a sigh as
he journeys on. However, here, though the kind-hearted will be sorry to
read of an unoffending animal doomed to death in order to satisfy a doubt,
still it will be a relief to know that the victim was not tortured. 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. It is from this that the poison takes its name, and it
is the principal ingredient. When he has procured enough of this he digs up
a root of a very bitter taste, ties them together, and then looks about for
two kinds of bulbous plants which contain a green and glutinous juice. He
fills a little quake which he carries on his back with the stalks of these;