238 EXCURSIONS AROUND EGA. Chap. IT. 



cleared land, and part of the ground was planted with 

 Indian corn, water-melons, and sugar-cane. Beyond 

 this field there was only a faint hunter's track, leading 

 towards the untrodden interior. My companion told me 

 he had never heard of there being any inhabitants in 

 that direction (the south). We crossed the forest from 

 this place to another smaller clearing, and then walked, 

 on our road home, through about two miles of caapoeira 

 of various ages, the sites of old plantations. The only 

 fruits of our ramble were a few rare insects and a Japu 

 (Cassicus cristatus), a handsome bird with chestnut and 

 saffron-coloured plumage, which wanders through the 

 tree-tops in large flocks. My little companion brought 

 this down from a height which I calculated at thirty 

 yards. The blowpipe, however, in the hands of an 

 expert adult Indian, can be made to propel arrows so as 

 to kill at a distance of fifty and sixty yards. The aim 

 is most certain when the tube is held vertically, or 

 nearly so. It is a far more useful weapon in the forest 

 than a gun, for the report of a firearm alarms the whole 

 flock of birds or monkeys feeding on a tree, whilst the 

 silent poisoned dart brings the animals down one by 

 one until the sportsman has a heap of slain by his side. 

 None but the stealthy Indian can use it effectively. 

 The poison, which must be fresh to kill speedily, is 

 obtained only of the Indians who live beyond the cata- 

 racts of the rivers flowing from the north, especially the 

 Rio Negro and the Japura. Its principal ingredient is 

 the wood of the Strychnos toxifera, a tree which does 

 not grow in the humid forests of the river plains. A 

 most graphic account of the Urari, and of an expedition 



