7fi THE AMAZON AND MADEIRA RIVERS. 
into the ncnghboiivhood of the I’orte do Priufdpe du Beivti, where they 
have killed several soldiers urulor the very guns of the decaying fort ; 
and they have ascended the Mamor6, almost up to tlie old Mission of 
Exaltacion ; some of whose members, who had gone down stream in a 
boat to gather cacao, Averc once driven back by a discharge of arrows) 
Avhich killed and Avouiidcd several of them. Such is the audacity of these 
dangerous banditti that, a few years ago, they seized upon the steersman 
of a Bolivian boat who had leaped ashore, as it glided along a sand-bank, 
in quest of gulls’ eggs. Under the very eyes of his companions, and 
notwithstanding his own desperate resistance, he was dragged into the 
forest, where the savages lay concealed. The surprise was so sudden 
that the Bolivians did not fire a single shot after them; and, though 
tliey pursued them immediately, and heard the piteous cries of the poor 
kidnapped man piercing far through the Avood, they could not saA'C him, 
cither from being roasted, or from a slavery perhaps Avorse than even 
death. The rapidity Avith AA^hich the naked son of the forest makes his 
Avay through the thorny shrubberies, Avithout so much as scratching his 
smooth broAAm skin, is quite astonishing, and is unattainable, not only by 
the AAdiite man but also by the half-civilised Moxos Indians of the 
Missions. It is matched only by the swiftness of the tapir and the 
jaquar 
From these repeated attacks, the Bolivians stand in such terror of the 
treacherous savages that they ahvays encamp on the farthest end of some 
great sand-bank, so as to have as much open space as possible between 
the canoes and the forest-border ; a position Avhich at least gives them 
time to take up their arms, unless the red-skins follow their usual tactics 
of sending, unseen, their murderous shafts from behind the dense screen 
of shnibs.* 
Of coiu-se, the danger is much loss in the descent, Avhen the canoes 
glide along in the middle of the stream with the swiftness of arrows, 
than it is in the ascent; Avhen they advance but slowly, and must, 
besides, be kept near to the shore to escape the full force of the current. 
After all I heard from our companions, I cannot but ascribe it to 
our good luck — and also, perhaps, to the shai’p crack of our rifles, 
AA^hich Ave used of evenings to fire at the ugly flat skull oi some 
* A Dr. Eiras, of Itio de Janeiro, sent out to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia as 
Brazilian consul, was mortally wounded on the way hy several arrows discharged from 
hehiud the trees as he stoic along close to the shore to shoot some water-foAvl. 
I 
