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.