Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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It Was
Feared That, By The Practice Of Smoking Tobacco, Englishmen Would
Degenerate Into A Barbarous State.* (* This Remarkable Passage Of
Camden Is As Follows, Annal.
Elizabet.
Page 143 1585; "ex illo sane
tempore [tabacum] usu cepit esse creberrimo in Anglia et magno pretio
dum quamplurimi graveolentem illius fumum per tubulum testaceum
hauriunt et mox e naribus efflant; adeo ut Auglornm corporum in
barbarorum naturam degenerasse videantur, quum iidem ac barbari
delectentur." We may see from this passage that they emitted the smoke
through the nose; but at the court of Montezuma the pipe was held in
one hand, while the nostrils were stopped with the other, in order
that the smoke might be more easily swallowed. Life of Raleigh volume
1 page 82.)
When the Ottomacs of Uruana, by the use of niopo (their arborescent
tobacco), and of fermented liquors, have thrown themselves into a
state of intoxication, which lasts several days, they kill one another
without ostensibly fighting. The most vindictive among them poison the
nail of their thumb with curare; and, according to the testimony of
the missionary, the mere impression of this poisoned nail may become a
mortal wound if the curare be very active and immediately mingle with
the mass of the blood. When the Indians, after a quarrel at night,
commit a murder, they throw the dead body into the river, fearing that
some indications of the violence committed on the deceased may be
observed. "Every time," said Father Bueno, "that I see the women fetch
water from a part of the shore to which they are not accustomed to go,
I suspect that a murder has been committed in my mission."
We found in the Indian huts at Uruana the vegetable substance called
touchwood of ants,* (* Yesca de hormigas.) with which we had become
acquainted at the Great Cataracts, and which is employed to stop
bleeding. This substance, which might less improperly be called ants'
nests, is in much request in a region whose inhabitants are of so
turbulent a character. A new species of ant, of a fine emerald-green
(Formica spinicollis), collects for its habitation a cotton-down, of a
yellowish-brown colour, and very soft to the touch, from the leaves of
a melastomacea. I have no doubt that the yesca or touchwood of ants of
the Upper Orinoco (the animal is found, we were assured, only south of
Atures) will one day become an article of trade. This substance is
very superior to the ants' nests of Cayenne, which are employed in the
hospitals of Europe, but can rarely be procured.
On the 7th of June we took leave with regret of Father Ramon Bueno. Of
the ten missionaries whom we had found in different parts of the vast
extent of Guiana, he alone appeared to me to be earnestly attentive to
all that regarded the natives. He hoped to return in a short time to
Madrid, where he intended to publish the result of his researches on
the figures and characters that cover the rocks of Uruana.
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