Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/251

 rendered as sharp as needles by scraping the ends with a knife or the tooth of an animal. They are winged with a little oval mass of samaüma silk (from the seed-vessels of the silk-cotton tree, Eriodendron samaüma), cotton being too heavy. The ball of samaüma should fit to a nicety the bore of the blowpipe; when it does so, the arrow can be propelled with such force by the breath that it makes a noise almost as loud as a pop-gun on flying from the muzzle. My little companion was armed with a quiver full of these little missiles, a small number of which, sufficient for the day's sport, were tipped with the fatal Urarí poison. The quiver was an ornamental affair, the broad rim being made of highly-polished wood of a rich cherry-red colour (the Moira-piránga, or red-wood of the Japurá). The body was formed of neatly-plaited strips of Maranta stalks, and the belt by which it was suspended from the shoulder was decorated with cotton fringes and tassels.

We walked about two miles along a well-trodden pathway, through high caäpoeira (second-growth forest). A large proportion of the trees were Melastomas, which bore a hairy yellow fruit, nearly as large and as well flavoured as our gooseberry. The season, however, was nearly over for them. The road was bordered every inch of the way by a thick bed of elegant Lycopodiums. An artificial arrangement of trees and bushes could scarcely have been made to wear so finished an appearance as this naturally decorated avenue. The path at length terminated at a plantation of mandioca, the largest I had yet seen since I left the neighbourhood of Pará. There were probably ten acres of