e about a score of them, all ugly _caboclos_,
or half-breed _caucheros_, hunting rubber and no doubt out also for
prey in the shape of young Mangeroma girls, as was their custom. The
traps set by the Indians, as described in a previous chapter, would
be of no avail in this case, as the number of Peruvians was greater
than in any previous experience.

The enemy had been observed more than ten miles off, in an easterly
direction, when our two hunters were on the trail of a large
herd of peccaries, or wild boars, they had sighted in the early
morning. The Peruvians were believed to be heading for the _maloca_
of the Mangeromas, as there were no other settlements in this region
excepting the up-creek tribe, but this numbered at least five hundred
souls, and would be no easy prey for them.

I now had a remarkable opportunity to watch the war preparations
of these savage, cannibal people, my friends, the Mangeromas. Their
army consisted of twelve able-bodied men, all fine muscular fellows,
about five feet ten in height, and bearing an array of vicious-looking
weapons such as few white men have seen. First of all were three
club-men, armed with strong, slender clubs, of hard and extremely
tough Caripari wood. The handle, which was very slim, was provided
with a knob at the end to prevent the club from slipping out of the
hand when in action. The heavy end was furnished with six bicuspid
teeth of the black jaguar, embedded in the wood and projecting about
two inches beyond the surface. The club had a total length of five
feet and weighed about eight pounds. The second division of the
wild-looking band consisted of three spear-men, each provided with
the three-pronged spears, a horrible weapon which always proves fatal
in the hands of these savages. It is a long straight shaft of Caripari
wood, about one inch in thickness, divided into three parts at the end,
each division being tipped with a barbed bone of the sting-ray. These
bones, about three and a half inches long, were smeared with wourahli
poison, and thus rendered absolutely fatal even when inflicting only
a superficial wound. Each man carried two of these spears, the points
being protected by grass-sheaths. The third division was composed
of three bow-and-arrow men, the youngest men in the tribe, boys of
sixteen and seventeen. They were armed with bows of great length,
from six to seven feet, and each bore, at his left side, a quiver,
containing a dozen big-game arrow