How the herb is made so poisonous, with which the Indians of Carthagena
and Santa Martha have killed so many Spaniards.
As this poisonous juice of the Indians of Carthagena and Santa Martha is
so famous, it seems well to give an account here of the way it is made,
which is as follows. This juice is composed of many things. I
investigated and became acquainted with the principal ingredients in the
province of Carthagena, in a village called Bahayre, from a cacique or
lord, whose name was Macavin. He showed me some short roots, of a yellow
colour and disagreeable smell, and told me that they were dug up on the
sea shore, near the trees which we call _mansanillos_,[198] and pieces
were cut from the roots of that pestiferous tree. They then burnt these
pieces in earthen pots, and made them into a paste. After this was done,
they sought for certain ants, as big as the beetles of Spain, which are
very black and evil, and which, by merely biting a man, cause terrible
pain. This happened when we were journeying on the expedition with the
licentiate Juan de Vadillo; for one of the soldiers was bitten by an
ant, and suffered so much pain that at last he lost all feeling, and
even had three or four bad attacks of fever, until the poison had run
its course. They also seek for certain very large spiders, and for
certain hairy worms, creatures which I shall not soon forget; for one
day, when I was guarding a river in the forests called Abibe, under the
branch of a tree, one of these worms bit me in the neck, and I passed
the most painful and wearisome night I have ever experienced in my life.
They also make the poison of the wings of a bat, and the head and tail
of a fish which is very poisonous, adding toads and the tails of
serpents, together with certain small apples, which appear in colour
and smell to be the same as those of Spain. Some of those recently
arrived in these parts, on landing, eat these apples without knowing
that they are poisonous. I knew one Juan Agraz (whom I have lately seen
in the city of San Francisco de Quito), who, when he came from Spain,
and landed on the coast of Santa Martha, ate ten or a dozen of these
apples, and I heard him swear that in colour and smell they could not be
better, except that they have a milk which becomes poison. Other roots
and herbs form ingredients of this juice, and when they want to make it,
they prepare a great fire in a place far from their houses, and take
some slave girl whom they do not value, and make her watch the pots, and
attend to the brewing of the poison; but the smell kills the person who
thus makes the juice, at least so I have heard.