3$ HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



To draw the bow with unerring skill, to wield the 

 club with dexterity and strength, to swim with agili- 

 ty and boldness, to catch fish, and to build a cottage, 

 were acquirements of indispensable necessity, and 

 the education of their children was well suited to the 

 attainment of them. One method of making their 

 boys skilful, even in infancy, in the exercise of the 

 bow, was to suspend their food on the branch of a 

 tre, compelling the hardy urchins to pierce it with 

 their arrows, before they could obtain permission to 

 eat. || But these were subordinate objects: The 

 Charaibes instructed their youth, at the same time, 

 in. lessons of patience and fortitude ; they endeavour- 

 ed to inspire them with courage in war, and a con- 

 tempt of danger and death; above all things, to in- 

 stil into their minds an hereditary hatred, and impla- 

 cable thirst of revenge towards the Arrowauks. The 

 means which they adopted for these purposes were in 



|f See Rochefprt, c. xxviii. p. 555, and Gumilla, torn. ii. p. 283,, 

 Their arrows were commonly poisoned, except when they made their mi- 

 litary excursions by night. On those occasions they converted them into 

 instruments of still greater mischief; for by arming the points with pled- 

 gets of cotton dipt into oil, and set on flame, they fired whole villages of 

 their enemies at a distance.* The poison which they used, was a concoc- 

 tion of noxious gums and vegetable juicesf, and had the property of 

 being perfectly innocent when received into the stomach, but if communi- 

 cated immediately to the blood, through the slightest wound, it was ge- 

 nerally mortal. The Indians of Guiana still prepare a similar poison. It 

 is supposed however, that sugar speedily administered in large quantities, 

 is an antidote. (See Relation Abregee d^un Voyage y &c. par Mans, de la 

 Candamine ; and Bancroft's Hist, of Guiana.) 



* Rochefort, ch. xx. p. 559. f Oviedo, lib. iii. 



