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A turn of the river brought us upon it before we had time to pull to the opposite side, when a number of the inhabitants came forth with pacunas, their deadly blow-pipes, in their hands, prepared to shoot at us. Our Indians instantly hailed them, and informed them that a great chief was in the canoe, and entreated their hospitality.
Among the fibres there are some coarser ones, with which the Dyaks of Borneo manufacture arrows for their blow-pipes, and occasionally the Malays use them for pins. Interwoven with them is a mass of small fibre almost as soft as cotton. This, from its combustible nature, is used as tinder. From the tree, also, a refreshing beverage is extracted.
I saw the boys dropping arrows into their blow-pipes, and the old men getting ready their bows. Even Arthur, though hating the thought of injuring a fellow-creature, was fixing an arrow to his bow. The enemy advanced slowly, extending their line on both sides. In a little time they were near enough for their arrows to reach us.
They had only one gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected, but their poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their blow-pipes hung from the roof of the hut, carefully suspended by a silk-grass cord, and on taking a nearer view of them no dust seemed to have collected there, nor had the spider spun the smallest web on them, which showed that they were in constant use.
They have not the same terror of firearms as their forefathers had, but they have heard enough to know that they are weapons of war, and much more formidable than their own bows and arrows, or the poisoned darts of their blow-pipes.” Stephen accordingly never went out, even to visit the falls, where he spent the greater portion of his time, without his rifle.
With a roar that rebounded from the face of the high cliff and echoed through the valley like a peal of thunder, he sprang out and rushed at the savages in front, who scattered like chaff right and left. But at the same instant fifty blow-pipes sent their poisoned shafts into his body, and, after a few convulsive bounds, the splendid monarch of the American forests fell dead on the ground.
Bob finally confided to me that he straightened his rods by softening the wood in steam; but I found that they did not long retain their straightness; and, there being no use for them, except the delight of the eye, I presently lost interest in them. Then Bob showed me how to make blow-pipes by pushing out the pith from the stems of some species of bushy shrub that grew outside the walls.
At a sign from the Indians I lifted my rifle and fired. The ball passed through the jaguar's neck. Though wounded, the fierce animal stood snarling savagely, with its fore-feet on the trunk of the tree, as if prepared to make a spring into the canoe. While I was reloading, the Indians raised their blow-pipes and sent two of their slender arrows quivering into its body.
Escrocevitch untied it before the young prince's eyes appeared a mass of metallic grains, at which he gazed not without inward pleasure. "How are you going to make a test?" he asked. "We have no blow-pipes nor test-tubes here?" "Make your mind easy, your excellency! We shall find everything we require blow-pipes and test-tubes and nitric acid, and even a decimal weighing machine.
Balloons, tubes, pipettes, pneumatic vats, receivers, cupels, lamps, bell-glasses, blow-pipes, and mortars, he passed in review to assure himself that during his absence nothing had been damaged. He carefully dusted his jars, examined the labels, made sure that none of his treasures were cracked, that his gauges were not out of order.
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