Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/274

 green palisade. Around the whole stood the taller forest trees; palmate-leaved Cecropiæ; slender Assai palms, thirty feet high, with their thin feathery heads crowning the gently-curving, smooth stems; small fan-leaved palms; and as a back-ground to all these airy shapes, lay the voluminous masses of ordinary forest trees, with garlands, festoons, and streamers of leafy climbers hanging from their branches. The pool was nowhere more than five feet deep, one foot of which was not water, but extremely fine and soft mud.

Cardozo and I spent an hour paddling about, I was astonished at the skill which the Indians display in shooting turtles. They did not wait for their coming to the surface to breathe, but watched for the slight movements in the water, which revealed their presence underneath. These little tracks on the water are called the Sirirí; the instant one was perceived an arrow flew from the bow of the nearest man, and never failed to pierce the shell of the submerged animal. When the turtle was very distant, of course the aim had to be taken at a considerable elevation, but the marksmen preferred a longish range, because the arrow then fell more perpendicularly on the shell, and entered it more deeply.

The arrow used in turtle shooting has a strong lancet-shaped steel point, fitted into a peg which enters the tip of the shaft. The peg is secured to the shaft by twine made of the fibres of pine-apple leaves, the twine being some thirty or forty yards in length, and neatly wound round the body of the arrow. When the missile enters the shell the peg drops out, and the pierced