Chap. IV. AVENUE OF TREES. 237 



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 samaiima silk (from the seed-vessels 

 of the silk-cotton tree, Eriodendron samaiima), cotton 

 being too heavy. The ball of samaiima 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 Urari poison. The quiver was an ornamental 

 affair, the broad rim being made of highly-polished 

 wood of a rich cherry-red colour (the Moira-piranga, or 

 red-wood of the Japura). The body was formed of 

 neatly-plaited strips of Maranta stalks, and the belt by 

 which it was suspended from the shoulder was deco- 

 rated with cotton fringes and tassels. 



We walked about two miles along a well-trodden 

 pathway, through high caapoeira (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 Lycopo- 

 diums. 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 mandi- 

 oca, the largest I had yet seen since I left the neigh- 

 bourhood of Para. There were probably ten acres of 



