The Juice of the Gagus Stalk.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2018, 13 June 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Juice of the Gagus Stalk.

A Moro Deadly Lethal Drink than any known to Civilisation. "Do you know what that is ?" said tlio captain of a barque lately returned from a cruise in the Southern Seas, lie held in his hand what appoared to be a gaudily-painted barber's pole shrunken to the sine of a policeman's club. " It came from Gauptil Island, near the Molucca group. I have navigated the South Seas for many years, and I never craw it growing upon any other island, and I don't think you will find, any seafaring man who hails from those waters but will bear out what I say. Gagus stalk is as near as we sailors can get to what the natives there call it. I've heard these four-eyed scientific lubbers oall it by a name a yard long, but I might as well have tried to reef a mainsail alone as to reef it around my mental windlass. Gggus is good enough for me." •'Who painted it?" " Why, jigger mo, that's the way it grew," cried the skipper, with a laugh. "It is a species of cactus, and grows only to my knowledge on Gauptil Island. The island is a small one, but is well populated by natives of too Malay race. In the interior this plant grows wild, nourishing especially in the rooky soil. It looks beautiful when growing, as you may judge by the bright hues with which this is spotted. The main stalk is covered with sharp nettlelike protuberances, and a prick from one of them will cause moro pain than a handful of red-pepper thrown in your eyes. When young tho plant consists of but one stalk, which shoots up straight to a height of four or five feet. IL is a brilliant soarlet in hue. Toward winter a number of offshoots spring ont until the thing looks like a broom stood upright. Green and purple spooks then appear all over it. A grove of gagus shrubs is a very pretty sight. But it is the properties of the plant wbiob distinguish it. Opium is a potent

drug, but I will back the extract from the gagus stalk to effect more damage on the human system than all the opium in the world. The natives cut the plant in the early spring. After they have gathered a sufficient quantity, they put it in large bowl 3 and crush it with huge stones. A grayish sap runs out freely, and thi3 they collect and drink after letting it ferment, which it does easily. One drink of a pint is enough for an ordinary man, but I have seen natives drink more. Within half an hour after imbibing it the drinker becomes perfectly stupid and Hc3 around like a log. The spell lasts a day or more, during which time the natives say they lay in Paradise. I have known sailor 3 to iry it, but they never tackled it twice. Three years ago I had a man in my crew who was driven crazy by one drink. If you could see some of the terrible examples of gagus drinking in Gauptil you would be horrified. The first effect of the liquor is to soften the bones, and gradually eat them away. There are natives there, the victims of gagus, who are indeed boneless and unable to walk or uce their limbs. They then begin to wither away like this stalk until they die in misery and convulsions. Immediately after death, the head of a corpse becomes Bofl aa pulp, no bones can bo felt, and the skull is completely eaten away. The body then begins to swell as though it were inflated with gas, and immediate burial is necessary." " How long does it take to thus devastate & human being ?" " Usually two years will finish the hardest man. Oh, the sufferings of the slaves to the drink aro terrible."— Son Francisco Call.