Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/333

Rh defy the tiger, or any other ferocious animal. They insult him, and calmly wait his attack, entertaining so firm a persuasion of the violence of the poison, as to be satisfied that, on the infliction of a wound with one of their arrows, still more terrible than those of Hercules, when dipped in the blood of the hydra of Lerne, the most powerful quadruped must fall dead. They have an equal address in fishing, wounding the large fishes in the head with their arrows, as soon as they perceive them, and employing nets, and hooks made of bones, for the smaller ones. From the age of five years, both males and females are accustomed to the canoes ; and they are accordingly very powerful as well as skilful in the management of them. They navigate and stop alternately, one of them being stationed at the stern, with an oar which supplies the place of a rudder, and the other at the prow, to discover, as the canoe proceeds, the shelves which are wont to be formed by the large trees swept along by the rivers.

But the ruling passion, the object of their rejoicings, of their pleasures, and of their greatest felicity, is war. To undertake it, a general congress of all the nation, presided either by the cacique, or by the individual who is to command the warlike