OF THE AMAZON. 
487 
are securely fastened on with twine and pitch. Lighter 
arrows are made for shooting birds and other small 
game, and these alone are feathered at the base. The 
feathers generally used are from the wings of the macaw, 
and, in putting them on, the Indian shows his know- 
ledge of the principle which is applied in the spirally- 
grooved rifle-barrel : three feathers are used, and they 
are all secured spirally, so as to form a little screw on 
the base of the arrow, the effect of which of course must 
be, that the arrow revolves rapidly in its onward progress, 
and this no doubt tends to keep it in a direct course. 
The gravatana and small poisoned arrows are made 
and used exactly as I have already described in my 
Narrative (page 215). 
The small hand-nets used for catching fish are of two 
kinds, — a small ring-net, like a landing-net, and one 
spread betv/een two slender sticks, just like the large 
folding-nets of entomologists : these are much used in 
the rapids, and among rocks and eddies, and numbers of 
fish are caught with them. They also use the rod and 
line, and consume an enormous quantity of hooks : there 
are probably not less than a hunched thousand fish- 
hooks sold every year in the river Uaupes ; yet there 
are still many of their own hooks, ingeniously made of 
palm-spines, to be found among them. They have many 
other ways of catching fish : one is by a small cone of 
wicker, called a matapi,'’ which is placed in some little 
cmTent in the gapo ; the larger end is entirely open, and 
it appears at first sight quite incapable of securing the 
fish, yet it catches great quantities, for when the fish get 
in they have no room to turn round, and cannot swim 
