Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/332

284 which they make the masato, their only comfort and drink. They seldom taste water, which, in consequence of the heat, and of the innumerable morasses, is of a very noxious quality. To cultivate the yuca, they clear a small portion of the forest with hatchets of stone, wrought with much patience, and having burned the felled wood, turn up the earth, that it may dry and fall in pieces, with a kind of stick shaped like a sword. They likewise cultivate cotton, the pods of which supply them with the greater part of the materials they employ in the manufacture of the ustis and pampanillas.

Their attention is, however, so little occupied by agriculture and manufactures, that it may be asserted, that their sole occupations are hunting, fishing, and war. For these three purposes they employ the same instruments, consisting of tubes, spears, clubs, chinganas, poniards, and darts and arrows, made of the hardest woods, and having their points imbued with active poisons derived from the vegetable kingdom. For the fishes, they usually have recourse to the tubes and arrows; and for the quadrupeds, to the latter, and to the darts, throwing them with the greatest dexterity. For this reason they are not afraid, in their forests, to defy