With us this apparatus is only a toy, but in several parts of the world it becomes a deadly weapon, namely, in Borneo and over a large part of tropical America. In both cases the arrows are poisoned, as has already been mentioned when treating of poisoned weapons. * * * * * THE first and best known of these weapons is the dreaded Sumpitan, or Blow-gun, of Borneo, the arrows of which are poisoned with the deadly juice of the upas-tree. Here I may as well mention that the scientific name of the upas-tree is _Antiaris toxicaria_. It belongs to a large group of plants, all of which have an abundance of milk-like and sometimes poisonous juice. We are most of us familiar with the old story of the upas-tree and its deadly power, and how the tree stood in a valley, in which nothing else could live, and that condemned criminals might compound for their inevitable fate by venturing into the valley of death and bringing back a flask of the dread poison. Even birds were supposed to be unable to fly over the valley, but to fall into it, being poisoned by the exhalations of the tree. Now, there is a saying that there is no smoke without fire, and though this account is evidently incredible, it is not altogether without foundation. In Java, as in many other parts of the world, there are low-lying places where carbonic acid gas exudes from the earth, and no living creature can exist in them. Even in this country scarcely a year passes without several deaths occurring from inhalation of the same fatal gas, which has collected in some disused excavation. That there is, therefore, a deadly valley in Java may be true enough, and it is also true that the juice of the upas-tree is poisonous when it mixes with the blood. But the two have no connection with each other, and, so far from the upas-tree poisoning the valley by its exhalations, it could not exist in such an atmosphere. Now for the Sumpitan and the arrows. The former is a tube, some seven feet in length, with a bore of about half an inch in diameter, and often elaborately inlaid with metal. I have one in which the whole of the mouthpiece is brass, and the other end of the weapon has been fitted with a large spear-head, exactly on the principle of the bayonet. The arrows are very slight, and, in order to make them fit the tube, are furnished at their bases with a conical piece of soft wood. In themselves they would be almost useless as weapons, but when the poison with which their points are armed is fresh, these tiny arrows, of which sixty or seventy are but an ordinary handful, carry death in their points. Though they have no great range, they are projected with much force, and with such rapidity that they cannot be avoided, their slender shafts being almost invisible as they pass through the air. * * * * *