ed "pirijao" in other parts of South
America, and it belongs to the genus "_Gullielma_."

At the tops of these trees, under the great globe of leaves, Guapo and
Leon perceived the nuts. They were hanging in clusters, as grapes grow;
but the fruits were as large as apricots, of an oval, triangular shape,
and of a beautiful reddish yellow colour. That they were delicious
eating, either roasted or boiled, Guapo well knew; and he was determined
that some of them should be served at supper. But how were they to be
reached? No man could climb such a tree as they grew upon! The needles
would have torn the flesh from any one who should have attempted it.

Guapo knew this. He knew, moreover, that the Indians, who are very fond
of the fruit of this tree,--so much so that they plant large _palmares_
of it around their villages--have a way of climbing it to get at the
ripe clusters. They tie cross pieces of wood from one tree to the
other, and thus make a sort of step-ladder, by which they ascend to the
fruit. It is true, they might easily cut down the trees, as the trunks
are not very thick; but that would be killing the goose that gave the
golden eggs. Guapo, however, had no farther interest in this wild
orchard than to make it serve his turn for that one night; so, laying
his axe to one of the "pupunhas," he soon levelled its majestic stem to
the ground. Nothing more remained than to lop off the clusters, any one
of which was as much as Leon could lift from the ground. Guapo found
the wood hard enough even in its green state, but when old it becomes
black, and is then so hard that it will turn the edge of an axe. There
is, perhaps, no wood in all South America harder than that of the
pirijao palm.

It is with the needle-like spines of this species that many tribes of
Indians puncture their skins in tattooing themselves, and other uses are
made by them of different parts of this noble tree. The macaws,
parrots, and other fruit-eating birds, are fonder of the nuts of the
pupunha than perhaps any other species; and so, too, would be the
fruit-eating quadrupeds if they could get at them. But the thorny trunk
renders them quite inaccessible to all creatures without wings,
excepting man himself. No; there is one other exception, and that is a
creature closely allied to man, I mean the _monkey_. Notwithstanding
the thorny stem, which even man cannot scale without a contrivance;
notwithstanding the apparently inaccessi