The Young Yagers: A Narrative of Hunting Adventures in Southern Africa

by Mayne Reid

Now the knowledge of arrow-poison, as well as the mode of preparing it and the habit of using it, belong to tribes of savages so completely isolated, that it is not probable—hardly possible, in fact—that either they or their ancestors could ever have communicated it to one another. We cannot believe that there ever existed intercourse between the Bushman of Africa and the Chuncho of the Amazon, much less between the former and the forest tribes of North America; yet all these use the arrow-poison and prepare it in a similar manner! All make it by a mixture of vegetable poison with the subtle fluid extracted from the fang-glands of venomous serpents. In North America, the rattlesnake and moccason, with several species of roots, furnish the material; in South America, the “wourali,” or “curare,” as it is indifferently called, is a mixture of a vegetable juice with the poison extracted from the glands of the coral-snake, (Echidna ocellata), the “boiquira” or “diamond rattlesnake,” (Crotalus horridus), the lance-headed “viper,” (Trigonocephalus lanceolate) the formidable “bushmaster,” (Lachesis rhombeata), and several other species. In South Africa, a similar result is obtained by mixing the fluid from the poison-glands of the puff-adder, or that of various species of naja, the “cobras” of that country, with the juice from the root of an Amaryllis, called gift-bol (poison-bulb) in the phraseology of the colonial Dutch. It is out of such elements that the Bushman mixes his dangerous compound.

Now our Bushman, Swartboy, understood the process as well as any of his race; and it was in watching him mixing the ingredients and poisoning his arrows that Klaas and Jan spent the early portion of that day.

All the ingredients he carried with him; for whenever a “geel coppel,” (Naja haje), or a “spuugh-slang,” (Naja nigra), or the “puff-adder,” (Vipera arretans), or the horned viper, (Cerastes caudalis,)—whenever any of these was killed on the route—and many were—Swartboy took care to open the poison-gland, situated behind their fangs, and take therefrom the drop of venom, which he carefully preserved in a small phial. He also carried another ingredient, a species of bitumen obtained from certain caverns, where it exudes from the rocks. The object of this is not, as supposed by some travellers, to render the charm “more potent,” but simply to make it glutinous, so that it would stick securely to the barb of the arrow, and not brush off too easily. A similar result is obtained by the South American Indians from a vegetable gum.

The gift-bol, or poison-bulb, was easily obtained, as the species of Amaryllis that yields it grew plentifully near. But Swartboy had not trusted to this chance, as during past days he had plucked several of the roots, and put them away in one of the side-chests of the wagon, where many other little knick-knacks of his lay snugly stowed.

Klaas and Jan, therefore, had the rare chance of witnessing the manufacture of the celebrated arrow-poison.

They saw Swartboy bruise the gift-bol, and simmer it over the fire in a small tin pan which he had; they saw him drop in the precious snake-venom; they saw him stir it round, until it became of a very dark colour, and then, to their great astonishment, they saw him try its strength by tasting!

This seemed odd to both, and so may it to you, boy reader,—that a drop of poison, the smallest portion of which would have killed Swartboy as dead as a herring, could be thus swallowed by him with impunity! But you are to remember that poisons, both vegetable and mineral, are very different in their nature. A small quantity of arsenic taken into the stomach will produce death, and yet you might swallow the head of a rattlesnake, fangs, poison-gland, and all, without the slightest danger.

On the contrary, if a single grain of the latter were to enter your blood, even if it were only scratched in with a pin, its effects would be fatal, while other poisons may be introduced into the blood without any fatal result.

Swartboy knew there was no arsenic or any species of “stomach-poison,” if I am allowed to use such a phrase, in his mixture. It was only “blood-poison,” which he might taste with impunity.

The bitumen was the last thing put into the pan; and when Swartboy had stirred it a while longer, and sufficiently thickened it, so that it would adhere to the barbs, he took down a quiver of arrows already made, and dipped each of them into the poison. As soon as the barbs had cooled, and the poison became well dried, the arrows were ready for use, and Swartboy intended that some of them should be used on that very day. Before the sun should set, he designed sending one or more of them through the skin of an ostrich.