follow in order to reach his destination. We sat down on the ground
and looked at each other for quite a while, and thus I had my first
chance of studying a blow-gun and the poisoned arrows, outside a
museum, and in a place where it was part of a man's life. At the time
I did not know that I was to have a little later a more thorough
opportunity of examining this weapon. I asked the Indian, Jerome
acting as interpreter, to demonstrate the use of the gun, to which he
consented with a grin. We soon heard the chattering of monkeys in the
tree-tops, and deftly inserting one of the thin poisoned arrows in the
ten-foot tube he pointed the weapon at a swiftly moving body among the
branches, and filling his lungs with air, let go. With a slight noise,
hardly perceptible, the arrow flew out and pierced the left thigh of a
little monkey. Quick as lightning he inserted another arrow and caught
one of the other monkeys as it was taking a tremendous leap through
the air to a lower branch. The arrow struck this one in the shoulder,
but it was a glancing shot and the shaft dropped to the ground. In the
meantime the Indian ran after the first monkey and carried it up to
me. It seemed fast asleep, suffering no agony whatever; and after five
or six minutes its heart ceased beating. The other monkey landed on the
branch it was aiming for in its leap, but after a short while it seemed
uneasy and sniffed at everything. Finally, its hold on the branch
relaxed, it dropped to the ground and was dead in a few minutes. It
was a marvellous thing to behold these animals wounded but slightly,
the last one only scratched, and yet dying after a few minutes as if
they were falling asleep. It was then explained to me that the meat
was still good to eat and that the presence of poison would not affect
the consumer's stomach in the least; in fact, most of the game these
Indians get is procured in this manner. I was lucky enough to secure
a snap-shot of this man in the act of using his blow-gun. It proved
to be the last photograph I took in the Brazilian jungles. Accidents