redit to the famous boab of Java, I made
experiments at Sumatra on the sort of poison of which the Malays make
use to poison their weapons. I discovered that it was simply a strong
solution of arsenic in citron juice, with which they coated their arms
several times. I tried to find the poison used by the Ajetas. They
led me to the foot of a large tree, and tore off a piece of its bark,
and told me that that was the poison they used. I chewed some of it
before them; it was insupportably bitter, but otherwise not injurious
in its natural state. But the Ajetas make a preparation of it, the
secret of which they refused to impart to me. When their poison is
made up as a paste, they give to their arms a thin coating of it,
about an eighth of an inch in thickness.

The Ajetas in their movements are active and supple to an incredible
degree; they climb up the highest trees like monkeys, by seizing the
trunk with both hands, and using the soles of their feet. They run
like a deer in the pursuit of the wild animals: this is their favourite
occupation. It is a very curious sight to see these savages set out on
a hunting excursion; men, women, and children move together, very much
like a troop of ourang-outangs when going on a plundering party. They
have always with them one or two little dogs, of a very special breed,
which they employ in tracking out their prey whenever it is wounded.

I enjoyed quite at my ease the hospitality exercised towards me by
these primitive men. I saw amongst them, and with my own eyes, all
that I was desirous of knowing. The painful life which I had led
since my departure from home, without any shelter but the trees,
and eating nothing but what the savages provided, began to tire me
exceedingly: I resolved to return to Jala-Jala. Having previously
noticed several graves at a short distance from our bivouac, an idea
struck me of carrying away a skeleton of one of the savages, which
would, in my judgment, be a curiosity to present to the Jardin des
Plantes or to the Museum of Anatomy at Paris. The undertaking was one
of great danger, on account of the veneration of the Ajetas for their
dead. They might surprise us while violating their graves, and then
no quarter was to be expected. I was, however, so much accustomed to
overcome whatever opposed my will, that the danger did not deter me
from acting upon my resolution. I communicated my intentions to my
Indians, who did not oppose my project.

Some few