In a straight line with the fort, and within a few yards of the river, stand the commander’s house, the barracks, the chapel, the father confessor’s house, and two others, all at little intervals from each other; and these are the only buildings at Fort St. Joachim. The neighbouring extensive plains afford good pasturage for a fine breed of cattle, and the Portuguese make enough of butter and cheese for their own consumption.
On asking the old officer if there were such a place as Lake Parima, or El Dorado, he replied, he looked upon it as imaginary altogether. “I have been above forty years,” added he, “in Portuguese Guiana, but have never yet met with anybody who has seen the lake.”
So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the White Sea. Its existence at best seems doubtful; some affirm that there is such a place, and others deny it.
“Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est.”
Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier, and collected a sufficient quantity of the wourali-poison, nothing remains but to give a brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses, and its supposed antidotes.
It has been already remarked that in the extensive wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, far away from any European settlement, there is a tribe of Indians who are known by the name of Macoushi.
Though the wourali-poison is used by all the South American savages betwixt the Amazons and the Oroonoque, still this tribe makes it stronger than any of the rest. The Indians in the vicinity of the Rio Negro are aware of this, and come to the Macoushi country to purchase it.
Much has been said concerning this fatal and extraordinary poison. Some have affirmed that its effects are almost instantaneous, provided the minutest particle of it mixes with the blood; and others again have maintained that it is not strong enough to kill an animal of the size and strength of a man. The first have erred by lending a too willing ear to the marvellous, and believing assertions without sufficient proof. The following short story points out the necessity of a cautious examination:—
One day, on asking an Indian if he thought the poison would kill a man, he replied that they always go to battle with it; that he was standing by when an Indian was shot with a poisoned arrow, and that he expired almost immediately. Not wishing to dispute this apparently satisfactory information, the subject was dropped. However, about an hour after, having purposely asked him in what part of the body the said Indian was wounded, he answered without hesitation that the arrow entered betwixt his shoulders, and passed quite through his heart. Was it the weapon, or the strength of the poison, that brought on immediate dissolution in this case? Of course the weapon.