WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



271 



arrow, these four sticks would form the arrow's head ; so 

 that one end of the four united sticks answered to the 

 point of the arrow-head, while the other ends of the 

 sticks expanded at equal distances round the rope, thus 



Now it is evident, that if the cayman swallowed this, (the 

 other end of the rope, which was thirty yards long, being 

 fastened to a tree,) the more he pulled, the faster the barbs 

 would stick into his stomach. This wooden hook, if you 

 may so call it, was well baited with the flesh of the 

 acouri, and the entrails were twisted round the rope for 

 about a foot above it. 



Nearly a mile from where we had our hammocks, the 

 sand-bank was steep and abrupt, and the river very still 

 and deep ; there the Indian pricked a stick into the sand. 

 It was two feet long, and on its extremity was fixed the 

 machine ; it hung suspended about a foot from the water, 

 and the end of the rope was made fast to a stake driven 

 well into the sand. 



The Indian then took the empty shell of a land tortoise 

 and gave it some heavy blows with an axe. I asked him 



