The Abipones have a great variety of arrows. Some are longer and thicker, as being intended to kill larger beasts. The form of the points is also various. Some are plain and have a straight point; some are barbed either on one or both sides, and others armed with a double row of barbs. You can never extract an arrow of this kind from the flesh, unless you turn it about with both hands, by which means you will open a way to extricate the barbs, but with what pain! When the Abipones see the remains of an arrow occupying any fleshy part of the body, as the thigh, or arm, they cut out the piece of flesh with the inherent particle themselves. The Cacique Ychoalay, in a sharp contest with his rival Oaherkaikin, was dangerously wounded with a bone arrow, which stuck in the back part of his head, and breaking in being extracted, remained fixed there as firm as a nail. At our advice he visited Sta. Fè, to obtain the aid of a surgeon, who found it necessary to make an incision before he could lay hold of the bony arrow point with his forceps. The operation was successfully performed, but not without severe pain, which the Indian bore with the utmost fortitude, not allowing a single expression of pain to escape him; he even exhorted the surgeon, who, unwilling to inflict so much torture, was hesitating in his task, to proceed; "Do you see me shrink?" said he: "fear nothing, I beseech you; cut, pierce, do what ever you like with confidence. I have long been accustomed to pain, wounded as I have so often been with different weapons." At length when the bony point was extracted, such a quantity of blood gushed out, you would have thought an artery had been opened. The Indian beheld this with a calm countenance, and thanked his deliverer in the best terms he was master of.