In passing over-land from the Essequibo to the Demerara we fell in with a
herd of wild hogs. Though encumbered with baggage and fatigued with a hard
day's walk, an Indian got his bow ready and let fly a poisoned arrow at one
of them. It entered the cheek-bone and broke off. The wild hog was found
quite dead about one hundred and seventy paces from the place where he had
been shot. He afforded us an excellent and wholesome supper.

Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the common weapons of
destruction, has it in his power to prepare a poison by which he can
generally ensure to himself a supply of animal food: and the food so
destroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature has been bountiful to
him. She has not only ordered poisonous herbs and roots to grow in the
unbounded forests through which he strays, but has also furnished an
excellent reed for his arrows, and another still more singular for his
blow-pipe, and planted trees of an amazing hard, tough and elastic texture
out of which he forms his bows. And in order that nothing might be wanting,
she has superadded a tree which yields him a fine wax and disseminated up
and down a plant not unlike that of the pine-apple which affords him
capital bow-strings.

Having now followed the Indian in the chase and described the poison, let
us take a nearer view of its action and observe a large animal expiring
under the weight of its baneful virulence.

Many have doubted the strength of the wourali poison. Should they ever by
chance read what follows, probably their doubts on that score will be
settled for ever.

In the former experiment on the dog some faint resistance on the part of