“A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred to a thousand pounds’ weight, was tied to a stake by a rope sufficiently long to allow him to move to and fro. Having no large Coucourite spikes at hand, it was judged necessary, on account of his superior size, to put three wild-hog arrows into him. One was sent into each thigh just above the hock, in order to avoid wounding a vital part, and the third was shot transversely into the extremity of the nostril.
“The poison seemed to take effect in four minutes. Conscious as though he would fall, the ox set himself firmly on his legs, and remained quite still in the same place, till about the fourteenth minute, when he smelled the ground, and appeared as if inclined to walk. He advanced a pace or two, staggered, and fell, and remained extended on his side, with his head on the ground. His eye, a few minutes ago so bright and lively, now became fixed and dim; and though you put your hand close to it, as if to give him a blow there, he never closed his eyelid.
“His legs were convulsed, and his head from time to time started involuntarily; but he never showed the least desire to raise it from the ground; he breathed hard, and emitted foam from his mouth. The startings, or subsultus tendinum, now became gradually weaker and weaker; his hinder parts were fixed in death; and in a minute or two more his head and fore-legs ceased to stir.
“Nothing now remained to show that life was still within him, except that his heart faintly beat and fluttered at intervals. In five-and-twenty minutes from the time of his being wounded, he was quite dead. His flesh was very sweet and savoury at dinner.
“On taking a retrospective view of the two different kinds of poisoned arrows, and the animals destroyed by them, it would appear that the quantity of poison must be proportioned to the animal; and thus those probably labour under an error who imagine that the smallest particle of it introduced into the blood has almost instantaneous effects.
“Make an estimate of the difference in size betwixt the fowl and the ox, and then weigh a sufficient quantity of poison for a blow-pipe arrow, with which the fowl was killed, and weigh also enough poison for three wild-hog arrows, which destroyed the ox, and it will appear that the fowl received much more poison in proportion than the ox. Hence the cause why the fowl died in five minutes, and the ox in five-and-twenty.
“Indeed, were it the case that the smallest particle of it introduced into the blood has almost instantaneous effects, the Indian would not find it necessary to make the large arrow; that of the blow-pipe is much easier made, and requires less poison.
“And now for the antidotes, or rather the supposed antidotes. The Indians tell you that if the wounded animal be held for a considerable time up to the mouth in water, the poison will not prove fatal; also that the juice of the sugar-cane, poured down the throat, will counteract the effects of it. These antidotes were fairly tried upon full-grown healthy fowls, but they all died, as though no steps had been taken to preserve their lives. Rum was recommended, and given to another, but with as little success.
“It is supposed by some that wind introduced into the lungs by means of a small pair of bellows would revive the poisoned patient, provided the operation be continued for a sufficient length of time. It may be so: but this is a difficult and a tedious mode of cure, and he who is wounded in the forest, far away from his friends, or in the hut of the savages, stands but a poor chance of being saved by it.
“Had the Indians a sure antidote, it is likely they would carry it about with them, or resort to it immediately after being wounded, if at hand; and their confidence in its efficacy would greatly diminish the horror they betray when you point a poisoned arrow at them.