getting them together.

First, then, for the blow-tube itself he had cut stems of a slender
palm-tree, a species of _Iriartea_, but not that sort already described.
It was the _Pashiuba miri_ of the Indians. This little palm grows to the
height of from twelve to twenty feet, and is never thicker than a man's
wrist. Its roots, like the others of its genus, rise above the ground,
but only a few inches. The stems which Guapo had chosen were of
different sizes. One was about the thickness of the handle of a
garden-rake, while the other was not over the diameter of a
walking-cane. Both were hollow in the heart, or rather they contained
pith like the alder-tree, which when forced out left a smooth bore.

Having cut these stems to a length of about ten feet, and pushed out the
pith, Guapo inserted the smaller one into the bore of the larger, which
fitted tightly all the way--for he had chosen it of the proper thickness
to this end. The object of thus using two stems instead of one will not,
at first, be understood. It was for the purpose of making the tube
perfectly straight, as this is a most important consideration in the
gravatana. The outer and stronger stem corrected any bend that there
might be in the inner one, and they were carefully arranged so that the
one should straighten the other.

Had it not been perfectly straight, Guapo would have bound it to a post
and made it so; but it happened to come quite right without further
trouble. The tube of the lesser one was now cleaned out thoroughly, and
polished by a little bunch of the roots of a tree-fern, until it was as
smooth and hard as ebony. A mouthpiece of wood was placed at the smaller
end of the table, and a sight was glued on the outside. This "sight" was
the tooth of an animal,--one of the long curving incisors of a rodent
animal called the "paca," which is found in most parts of tropical
America. To make the instrument look neater, Guapo had procured the
tough shining bark of a creeping plant, which he wound spirally around
the outside from the mouthpiece to the muzzle; and then the gravatana
was finished.

There was yet much to be done before it could be used. Arrows were to be
made, and a quiver in which to carry them, and poison to dip their
points in--for the arrows of the blow-gun do not kill by the wound they
inflict, but by the poison with which they are charged.

The next thing, then, to which Guapo turned his attention was the
manufacture of the a