row in
the upper part of the abdomen, the arrow having been shot with such
terrible force that about a foot of the shaft projected from the
man's back. The arrow-head had been broken off by striking a vertebra.

The battle was over. Soon the _urubus_, or vultures, were hanging
over the tree-tops waiting for their share of the spoils. The men
assembled in front of the Chief for roll-call. Four of our men were
killed outright by rifle-bullets, and it was typical of these brave men
that none were killed by machete stabs. The entire marauding expedition
of twenty Peruvians was completely wiped out, not a single one escaping
the deadly aim of the Mangeromas. Thus was avoided the danger of being
attacked in the near future by a greater force of Peruvians, called
to this place from the distant frontier by some returning survivor.

It is true that the Mangeromas lay in ambush for their enemy
and killed them, for the greater part, with poisoned arrows and
spears, but the odds were against the Indians, not only because the
_caboclos_ were attacking them in larger numbers, but because they
came with modern, repeating fire-arms against the hand weapons of the
Mangeromas. These marauders, too, came with murder and girl-robbery
in their black hearts, while the Mangeromas were defending their homes
and families. But it is true that after the battle, so bravely fought,
the Indians cut off the hands and feet of their enemies, dead or dying,
and carried them home.

The fight lasted only some twenty minutes, but it was after sunset
when we reached the _maloca_. The women and children received us
with great demonstrations of joy. Soon the pots and pans were boiling
inside the great house. I have previously observed how the Mangeromas
would partake of parts of the human body as a sort of religious rite,
whenever they had been successful with their man-traps; now they
feasted upon the hands and feet of the slain, these parts having been
distributed among the different families.

I crept into my hammock and lit my pipe, watching the great mass of
naked humanity. All the men had laid aside their feather-dresses and
squirrel tails, and were moving around among the many fires on the
floor of the hut. Some were sitting in groups discussing the battle,
while women bent over the pots to examine the ghastly contents. Here,
a woman was engaged in stripping the flesh from the palm of a hand
and the sole of a foot, which operation finished, she thr