Pagan races of the Malay Peninsula - Sabrizain.org

CHAP. VI NEGRITOS OF PERAK 291
herring-bone stitching, with the lower ends of the
scores pointing inwards. At the bottom of each
series of scores was put a leaf, fastened to the bark
with clay, to lead the sap which trickled down into
a baml)oo. Only about three ounces of sap was got
the first day ;
but
two days afterwards, by erecting a
scaffolding around the tree and extending the scores
up the trunk, about one pint was obtained. Three
ounces of sap, the Semang declared, was enough to
poison a hundred blowpipe-darts.'
The sap having been collected from the trees, a
spatula-shaped piece of wood was taken and heated
over a clear wood fire, and a small quantity of the sap
poured on to it and spread out with another but
smaller wooden spatula, and held over the fire till
nearly dry, and the process repeated till all the sap
was evaporated. There remained on the spatula a
dark brown gummy substance, on which the points of
the darts were rubbed three times, being dried over
the fire between each application of the poison. This
simple process completed the preparation ol the
poison, with the exception of the other things that
are sometimes mixed with the Ipoh.
The sap, which proved to be bitter and biting in
taste, and decidedly acid to test-paper, on exposure to
the air quickly darkened to a brown colour, and
yielded, when dried on a water-bath, twenty-nine per
cent of solid Ipoh. This substance, if put thinly on a
slip of glass and examined by a microscope, is seen to
contain numerous crystals of antiarin.
In the course of the same account Mr. Wray
further observes that what Griffith says about the
poisonous properties of the Ipoh being derived from
' L. Wray in/. A. /. vol. xxi. (1S92), pp. 476, 477-