"Nature, who in almost all things has established an equilibrium, supplies the natives with remedies against the bite of the serpent. One of the cures most generally resorted to is the root of the amarucachu (_Polianthes tuberosa_,[185] Linn.), cut into slips and laid upon the wound. Another is the juice of the creeping plant called vijuco de huaco (_Mikania huaco_,[186] Kunth), which is already very widely celebrated. "This latter remedy was discovered by the negroes of the equatorial province Choco. They remarked that a sparrow-hawk, called the _huaco_, picked up snakes for his principal food, and when bitten by one it flew to the vejuco and ate some of the leaves. At length the Indians thought of making the experiment on themselves, and when bitten by serpents they drank the expressed juice of the leaves of the vejuco, and constantly found that the wound was thereby rendered harmless. The use of this excellent plant soon became general, and in some places the belief of the preservative power of the vejuco juice was carried so far that men in good health were inoculated with it. In this process some spoonfuls of the expressed fluid are drunk, and afterwards some drops are put into incisions made in the hands, feet, and breast. The fluid is rubbed into the wounds by fresh vejuco leaves. After this operation, according to the testimony of persons worthy of credit, the bite of the poisonous snake fails for a long time to have any evil effect. Beside the two plants mentioned above, many others are used with more or less favourable results. The inhabitants of the montana also resort to other means, which are too absurd to be detailed here: yet these medicines are often of benefit, for their operation is violently reactive. They usually produce the effect of repeated emetics and cause great perspiration. There is much difference in the modes of external treatment of the wound, and burning is often employed. I saw an Indian apply to his wife's foot, which had been bitten, a plaster consisting of moist gunpowder, pulverised sulphur, and finely-chopped tobacco mixed up together. He laid this over the wounded part, and set fire to it. This application in connexion with one of the nausea-exciting remedies taken inwardly had a successful result. An English officer, engaged in the wars which freed the South American republics from the Spanish dominion, thus speaks of a plant which is probably the same _Mikania_. His account is curiously confirmatory of the accuracy of Bruce:--