Among several tribes the young men are not permitted to marry until they have given such proofs of their skill in hunting as put it beyond doubt that they are capable of providing for a family. Their ingenuity, always on the stretch and sharpened by emulation, as well as necessity, has struck out many inventions which greatly facilitate success in the chase. Slow, and with noiseless step, so as scarcely to disturb the fallen leaves beneath his feet, the wily Macusi Indian approaches. His weapons are strong, and peculiar, and of so slight an appearance as to form a strange contrast to their terrific power. A colossal species of Bamboo (_Arundinacea Schomburgkii_), whose perfectly cylindrical culm often rises to the height of fifteen feet from the root before it forms its first knot, furnishes him with his blow-pipe; and the slender arrows which he sends forth with unerring certainty of aim, are made of the leaf-stalks of a species of palm tree (_Maximiliana regia_), hard and brittle, and sharp-pointed as a needle. You would hardly suppose these fragile missiles capable of inflicting the slightest wound at any distance, and yet they strike more surely and effectively than the rifleman’s bullet, for their point is dipped in the deadly juice of the Strychnos Urari, whose venomous powers are not inferior to those of the bush-master’s fang. In vain, suspended by his prehensile tail, the Miriki, the largest of the Brazilian monkeys, retires to the highest forest trees; in vain the sloth clings like a heap of moss to the bough; touched by the fatal poison they both let go their aërial hold, and their lifeless bodies, whizzing through the air as they drop down, fall with a loud crash to the ground. In a diluted form the wourali poison merely benumbs or stuns the faculties without killing, and is thus made use of by the Indians when they wish to catch an old monkey alive, and tame him for sale. On his falling down senseless, they immediately suck the wound, and wrapping him up in a strait jacket of palm leaves, dose him for a few days with sugar-cane juice or a strong solution of saltpetre. This method generally answers the purpose, but should his stubborn temper not yet be subdued, they hang him up in smoke. Then, after a short time, his useless rage gives way, and his wild eye, assuming a plaintive expression, humbly sues for deliverance. His bonds are now loosened, and even the most unmanageable monkey seems to forget that he ever roamed at liberty in the boundless woods. It is chiefly on the Camuku mountains in Guiana that the formidable Urari plant is found, whose sombre-coloured, brown-haired leaves and rind seem by their sinister appearance to betray its deadly qualities.