An awful thought coursed through my brain when I beheld the men bend eagerly over the pans to see if the meat were done.  How long would it be, I said to myself, before they would forget themselves and place my own extremities in the same pots and pans.  Such a possibility was not pleasant to contemplate, but as I had found the word of these Indians to be always good, I believed I was safe.  They were never false and they hated falsehood.  True, they were cunning, but once their friend always their friend, through thick and thin.  And the Chief had promised that I should not be eaten, either fried or stewed!  Therefore I slept in peace.

I had long desired to see the hunters prepare the mysterious wourahli poison, which acts so quickly and painlessly, and which allows the game killed by it to be eaten without interfering with the nutritive qualities.  Only three men in this village understood the proper mixing of the ingredients, although everybody knew the two plants from which the poisonous juices were obtained.  One of these is a vine that grows close to the creeks.  The stem is about two inches in diameter and covered with a rough greyish bark.  It yields several round fruits, shaped like an apple, containing seeds imbedded in a very bitter pulp.  The other is also a vine and bears small bluish flowers, but it is only the roots of this that are used.  These are crushed and steeped in water for several days.  The three men in our village who understood the concoction of this poison collected the plants themselves once a month.  When they returned from their expedition they set to work at once scraping the first named vine into fine shavings and mixing these in an earthen jar with the crushed pulp of the roots of the second plant.  The pot is then placed over a fire and kept simmering for several hours.  At this stage the shavings are removed and thrown away as useless and several large black ants, the Tucandeiras, are added.  This is the ant whose bite is not only painful but absolutely dangerous to man.  The concoction is kept boiling slowly until the next morning, when it has assumed a thick consistency of a brown colour and very bitter to the taste.  The poison is then tried on some arrows and if it comes up to the standard it is placed in a small earthen jar which is covered with a piece of animal skin and it is ready for use.  The arrows, which are from ten to twelve inches long, are made from the stalks of a certain palm-leaf, the Jacy palm.  They are absolutely straight and true; in fact, they resemble very much a lady’s hat-pin.  When the gun is to be used, a piece of cotton is wound around the end of an arrow and the other end or point inserted first in the barrel, the cotton acting as a piston by means of which the air forces the shaft through the tube.

The men always carry a small rubber-pouch containing a few drams of the poison; the pouch was worn strapped to the waist on the left side, when on their hunting excursions, and they were extremely careful in handling it and the arrows.  The slightest scratch with the poison would cause a quick and sure death.