[134] Urarí is mentioned by Raleigh. Humboldt was the first to take any considerable quantity to Europe. The experiments of Virchau and Münster make it probable that it does not belong to the class of tetanic poisons, but that its particular effect is to take away the power of voluntary muscular movement, while the involuntary functions of the heart and intestines still continue. See Ann. de Chim. et de Phys., t. xxxix., 1828, p. 24; and Schömberg's Reisen in Britisch Guiana, th. i., s. 441. The frightful poison, tieuté of India, is prepared from a Java species of strychnos.
[135] According to Lieutenant Azevedo, the latitude of Tabatinga is 4° 14' 30"; longitude, 70° 2' 24"; magnetic variation, 6° 35' 10" N.E.
[136] Herndon says (p. 241), "the Tunantíns is about fifty yards broad, and seems deep with a considerable current."
[137] Smyth says the town gets its name from the clearness of the water; but Herndon found it muddy, and, to our eyes, it was dark as the Negro.
[138] For a discussion of the barometric perturbations on the Amazon, see American Journal of Science for Sept., 1868.
[139] Official returns for 1848 give 3614; Bates (1850) reckons 3000.
[140] Darwin met a similar specimen in Banda Oriental: "I asked two men why they did not work. One gravely said the days were too long; the other that he was too poor."
[141] It is, however, one of the warmest spots on the river. The average temperature, according to Azevedo and Pinto, is only 79.7°; but the highest point readied on the Amazon in 1862 (87.3°) was at Manáos, and the extraordinary height of 95° has been noted there.
[142] Otherwise called, on Brazilian maps, Villa Bella da Imperatriz.
[143] Herndon makes Santarem 460 miles from the Negro, and 650 from the sea. Bates calls it 400 miles from the Atlantic, and nearly 50 from Obidos.