time in every
direction."]

The women do most of the work, while their lazy lords drink up the
chicha and swing in their hammocks, or possibly do a little
hunting.[101] They catch fish with bone hooks, seines, spears, and by
poisoning the water with _barbasco_.[102] This last method is quite
common throughout equatorial America. Mashing the root, they throw it
into the quiet coves of the river, when almost immediately the fish rise
to the surface, first the little fry and then the larger specimens. The
poison seems to stupefy rather than kill, for we observed that some
individuals behaved in a most lively manner shortly after they were
caught. The Indians drink the water with impunity.

[Footnote 101: Some of these feminines, however, have a method of
retaliation which happily does not exist further north. They render
their husbands idiotic by giving them an infusion of _floripondio_, and
then choose another consort. We saw a sad example of this near Riobamba,
and heard of one husband who, after being thus treated, unconsciously
served his wife and her new man like a slave. _Floripondio_ is the seed
of the _Datura sanguinea_, which is allied to the poisonous _stramonium_
used by the priests of Apollo at Delphi to produce their frantic
ravings.]

[Footnote 102: _Jacquinia armillaris_, an evergreen bush. The Indians on
the Tapajos use a poisonous liana called _timbo_ (_Paullinia pinnata_).]

The Napos are not brave; their chief weapons for hunting are spears of
chonta wood, and blowpipes (_bodaqueras_) made of a small palm having a
pith, which, when removed, leaves a polished bore, or of two separate
lengths of wood, each scooped out with patient labor and considerable
skill by means of the incisor teeth of a rodent. The whole is smeared
with black wax, a mouth-piece fitted to the larger end, and a sight made
of bone imbedded in the wax. Through this tube, about ten feet long,
they blow slender arrows cut from the leaf-stalks of a palm. These are
winged with a tuft of silk-cotton (common cotton would be too heavy),
and poisoned with _urari_, of which we shall speak hereafter. This
noiseless gun is universally used on the Upper Amazon.[103]

[Footnote 103: It is there called _zarabatana_ or _gravatana_; by the
Peruvians _pucuna_. It corresponds to the _sumpitan_ of Borneo. It is
difficult to recognize the use of the blow-gun, but the natives will
kill at the distance of 150 feet. One which we brought home sent the
s