OG THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



with which she ministers in this way to liis wants. They 

 swarm in such shoals that in some places they are caught 

 withoait art or industry. In others the natives have discovered 

 a method of infecting the water with the juice of certain 

 plants, by which the fish are so intoxicated that they float on 

 the surface, and are taken with the hand. 



In one of the shallow lagunes of the Amazons, the French 

 traveller Castelnau witnessed fish-caiching by this means on a 

 grand scale. On the previous evening a quantity of branches 

 of the Barb^sco (Jacquinia aQ^millaris), after having been 

 beaten with clubs, and divided among the canoes that were to 

 take part in the sport, had been steeped in waiter, and then 

 flung with the infusion into the lagune. At least five hundred 

 Indians stood 6n the banks among the high rushes or on 

 the trunks of trees, armed with arrows, harpoons, and clubs. 

 At first only small fishes appeared upon the surface, and as if 

 .stunned, and then, suddenly awakening, sought to leap upon 

 the bank. Then the larger species were seen to float on the 

 water, or to make similar efforts to escape from the poisoned 

 ■element. During the whole day the canoes of the Indians were 

 passing on the lagune, and the same bustle reigned along the 

 banks. The whistling of the arrows was incessantly heard, to- 

 gether with the beating of the clubs upon the water, while on 

 land no less activity was displayed in cutting up, smoking, and 

 salting the fish. Castelnau counted thirty-five different species, 

 and estimated the number caught at 50,000 or 60,000, many 

 ■measuring a foot or more in length. Although the lagune was 

 thus poisoned, the Indians drank tlie water with impunity, and 

 the river tortoises and alligators seemed to be equally un- 

 touched by the Barbasco juice which proved so fatal to the fishes. 



The prolific quality of the rivers in South America induces 

 many of the natives to resort to their banks, and to depend 

 almost entirely for nourishment on what their waters so abun- 

 dantly supply. But this mode of life requires so little enter^ 

 prise or ingenuity that the petty nations adjacent to the 

 jMaranon and Orinoco are far inferior, in point of activity, 

 intelligence, and courage, to the tribes w^hich principally 

 depend upon hunting for their subsistence. To form a just 

 estimate of the intellectual capacities of the American, he 

 piust be seen when following the exciting pursuits of the chase. 



