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 
