THE BLOW-GUN. 



135 



glass. I never heard it doubted, until my return home, that these ani- 

 mals were blood-suckers; but the distinguished naturalist, Mr. T. R. 

 Peale, tells me that no one has ever seen them engaged in the operation, 

 and that he has made repeated attempts for that purpose, but without 

 success. On one occasion, when a companion had lost a good deal of 

 blood, the doors and windows of the house in which his party was lying 

 were closed, and a number of these bats, that were clinging to the roof, 

 killed ; but none of them were found gorged, or with any signs of having 

 been engaged in blood- sucking. I also observed no apparatus proper 

 for making a delicate puncture. The tusks are quite as large as those 

 of a rat, and, if used in the ordinary manner, would make four wounds 

 at once, producing, I should think, quite sufficient pain to awaken the 

 most profound sleeper. Never having heard this doubt, it did not 

 occur to me to ask the Indians if they had ever seen the bat sucking, 

 or to examine the wounds of the horses that I had seen bleeding from 

 this supposed cause. On one occasion I found my blanket spotted with 

 hk>od, and supposed that the bat (having gorged himself on the horses 

 outside) had flown into the house, and, fastening himself to the thatch 

 over me, had disgorged upon my covering and then flown out. There 

 was no great quantity of blood, there being but five or six stains on the 

 blanket, such as would have been made by large drops. I presumed, 

 likewise, from the fact of the drops being scattered irrregularly over a 

 small surface, that the bat had been hanging by his feet to the thatch, 

 and swinging about. The discovery of the drops produced a sensation 

 of deep disgust ; and I have frequently been unable to sleep for fear of 

 the filthy beast. Every traveller in these countries should learn to sleep 

 with body and head enveloped in a blanket, as the 'Indians do. 



I saw here, for the first time, the blow-gun of the Indians, called, by 

 the Spaniards, cerbatana ; by the Portuguese of the river, gravatana, 

 (a corruption, I imagine, of the former, as I find no such Portuguese 

 word ;) and by the Indians, pucuna. It is made of any long, straight 

 piece of wood, generally of a species of palm called chonta — a heavy, 

 elastic wood, of which bows, clubs, and spears are also made. The pole 

 or staff, about eight feet in length, and two inches diameter near the 

 mouth end, (tapering down to half an inch at the extremity,) is divided 

 longitudinally ; a canal is hollowed out along the centre of each part, 

 which is well smoothed and polished by rubbing with fine sand and 

 wood. The two parts are then brought together ; nicely woolded with 

 twine ; and the whole covered with wax, mixed with some resin of the 

 forest, to make it hard. A couple of boar's teeth are fitted on each side 

 of the mouth end, and one of the curved front teeth of a small animal 



