IT rained heavily during the night of Tuesday and nearly until daybreak, so it was half-past six o’clock before we were able to leave Andòvorànto. Hitherto we had followed the seashore southwards; now we were to start westwards into the interior. After an immense deal of shouting and some quarrelling on the part of our bearers, who seemed to think it necessary for everyone to give his opinion at the same moment, we pushed off in six large canoes and paddled away up the river Ihàroka. For several miles the stream is upwards of a mile in width. It was a fine calm morning after a stormy night, and as we glided rapidly over the broad smooth expanse of water, and turned our canoe’s prow towards the interior mountains, I began really to feel that I was on my way to the capital.

After half-an-hour we came to a point where the river is a junction of three streams, the one we took being about half the width of the main current. We passed many canoes and overtook others; some of these were filled with rice and other produce, and had but a single rower; he sat generally at the stern and gave a few strokes with the paddle on each side of the canoe alternately, so as to keep the craft in a fairly straight course through the water. Other canoes were filled with what was evidently a family party, going together to some market held in one of the neighbouring villages. Our men seemed to enjoy the exercise of paddling, which was a change from bearing our palanquins and baggage on their shoulders, and they took us up the stream at a great speed. More than once, indeed, I wished they had been less vigorous, for they commenced racing with the other crews, making me not a little apprehensive of being upset. It would not have mattered much to them, as they swam fearlessly and had nothing to lose; but it would have been unpleasant and dangerous for us, even apart from the risk of crocodiles, which abound in most of the rivers of Madagascar.

These reptiles are so numerous in many parts as to be a great pest; they often carry off sheep and cattle, and not unfrequently women and children who incautiously go into or even near the water. The Malagasy, however, have a superstitious dread of these monsters, which prevents them from attempting to kill them. They rather try to propitiate the creature by prayers and offerings thrown into the water, and by acknowledging its supremacy in its own element. At Itàsy, a lake fifty miles west of the capital, the people believe that if a crocodile be killed a human life will, within a very short time, be exacted by the animal’s brother reptiles, as an atonement for his death. Two or three French travellers once shot a crocodile in this lake, and such was the people’s consternation and dread of the consequences that their visitors found it expedient to quit the neighbourhood as quickly as possible. The eggs of the crocodile are collected and sold for food in the markets, and are said to be perfectly good, but I confess I never brought myself to test their merits.

We kept near the banks of the river, and so were able to examine and admire the luxuriant vegetation with which they were covered. In many places the bamboo is conspicuous, with its long-jointed, tapering stem, and its whorls of minute leaves, of a light delicate green; but it is small here compared with what we afterwards saw in the main forest. Plantations of sugar-cane and manioc were mingled with banana-trees, palms, pandanus and other trees, many not unlike English forms. Numbers of great water-lilies with blue flowers were growing in the shallow water, and convolvuli, as well as numerous other flowers of new kinds and colours, everywhere met the eye. The shores were flat at first, but became more hilly, and the scenery more varied, as we proceeded.

As we sailed up the river the traveller’s tree (Ravenala madagascariensis) became very plentiful, and soon gave quite a peculiar character to the landscape. This remarkable and beautiful tree belongs to the order which includes the plantains and bananas, although in some points its structure resembles the palm rather than the plantain. It is immediately recognised by its graceful crown of broad green leaves, which grow at the top of its trunk in the form of an immense fan. The leaves are from twenty to thirty in number, and are from eight to ten feet long by a foot and a half broad. They very closely resemble those of the banana, and when unbroken by the wind have a very striking and beautiful appearance. The name of “traveller’s tree” is given on account of its affording at all times a supply of cool pure water upon piercing the base of the leaf-stalk with a spear or pointed stick. This supply is owing to the broad surface of the leaves, which condenses the moisture of the atmosphere, and from which the water trickles down into the hollow, where the leaf-stalks join the stem. Each of these forms a little reservoir, in which water may always be found. The leaves, as are also those of the banana, are used to beat the thatched roofs in case of fire, on account of the amount of water which they contain.

The name of “builder’s tree” might be given to it with equal or greater propriety, for it is as useful to the coast people as the cocoanut-palm is to the South Sea islanders. The leaves are used for thatching, and the long leaf-stems fastened together form the filling-in of the framework for the walls and partitions; the bark is beaten out flat and forms the flooring; while the trunk supplies timber for the framing. Quantities of the fresh leaves are used every day and take the place of plates and dishes; and at the New Year’s festival the jàka, or meat eaten at that time, was always served up, together with rice, upon pieces of the leaves of this tree or of the banana; and a kind of spoon or ladle was, and is still, formed, made by twisting up part of a leaf and tying it with the tendrils of some climbing plant. The tree ranges from the sea-coast to the height of about fifteen hundred feet, after which it begins rapidly to disappear. At an elevation of about a thousand feet it is extremely abundant, much more so, in fact, than any other tree, and is the one striking and peculiar feature in the vegetation. It is not found so much in the forests as on the hillsides in the open country; it has some half-dozen or more different names among the various tribes on the eastern side of the island.

Our canoe voyage was nearly twenty miles in length, the last two or three up a narrow creek not above twenty or thirty feet in width. In one of the narrowest parts of the stream we were stopped by a tree which had fallen across the creek, just above the surface of the water. With some trouble and difficulty the canoes were each hoisted over the obstruction, the luggage being shifted from one to another. Some friends who came up about five months afterwards told me that the tree was still there. Probably it had caused a stoppage hundreds of times, yet no one dreamed of taking the little extra trouble necessary to remove it altogether from the passage. It was just the same in the forest: when a tree fell across the path, there it lay for months until it rotted away. Palanquins had to be hoisted over it, or with difficulty pushed beneath it, but it was never removed until nature helped in the work. It was no one’s business to cut it up, or to take it out of the way; there were no “turnpike trusts,” and the native government never gave themselves any concern about the matter.

We were glad to land at Maròmby at ten o’clock, for rain came on, and before we were well housed it poured down heavily for some time. Here we got as dessert, after breakfast, a quantity of wild raspberries, which, while not equal in flavour to the English kind, are very sweet and refreshing. Close to the house where we stayed for our meal was a coffee plantation; the shrubs grow to a height of seven or eight feet, and have dark glossy leaves, with a handsome white flower. The small scarlet fruit, in which the seed—what we term the “berry”—is enclosed, contains a sweetish juice. The coffee plant thrives in most parts of the island, and its produce probably will become an important part of its exports.

Near the house were also a number of orange-trees, and here I had the gratification of seeing an orange grove with the trees laden with thousands of the golden-hued fruit. We were allowed to take as many as we liked, and as the day was hot and sultry we were not slow to avail ourselves of the permission. Perhaps there are few more beautiful sights than an orange grove when the fruit is ripe on the trees. The “golden apples” of the Hesperides must surely have been the produce of an orange plantation.

The rain ceased after a time, but we did not get off until past two o’clock, for our men became rather obstinate, and evidently wanted to stay at Maròmby for the rest of the day. This we were not at all disposed to allow. At last we started, and in a few minutes had a specimen of the adventures that were in store for us in passing through the forest. In attempting to ford a stream, one of my men suddenly sank nearly to his waist in a thick yellow mud. It was by the barest chance that I was not turned over into the water; however, after some scrambling from one man’s shoulder to another, I managed to reach dry land. There was a shaky, rickety bridge a little higher up the stream, and by this I contrived to get across.

We now struck right into the hills, up and down, down and up, for nearly four hours. The road was a mere footpath, and sometimes not even that, but the bed of a torrent made by the heavy rains. It wound sometimes round the hills and sometimes straight up them, and then down into the valleys at inclinations difficult enough to get along without anything to carry but oneself, but, with heavy loads, requiring immense exertion. My palanquin described all kinds of angles; sometimes I was resting nearly on my head, and presently almost on my feet. When winding round the hills we were continually in places where a false step of my bearers might have sent us tumbling down sixty or seventy, and sometimes a hundred, feet into the valley below. A dozen times or so we had to cross streams foaming over rocks and stones, to scramble down to which, and out again, were feats requiring no ordinary dexterity. Again and again I expected to be tumbled over into the water or down the rocks, the path being often steeper than the roof of a house. Several times I got out and walked up and down the hills in order to relieve the men; but I afterwards found that I need not have troubled myself, as they easily carried me up much steeper ascents. Some of these scenes were exceedingly beautiful and, with the rushing, foaming waters, overhung with palms, ferns, plantains and bamboos, made scores of scenes in which a landscape artist would have delighted.

In passing along I was struck with the peculiar outline of the hills; they are mostly rounded cones or mamelle-shaped, not connected together in chains, but detached, so it appeared that road-making would be very difficult and would have to be very circuitous. In almost every sheltered hollow were clumps of the traveller’s tree, together with palms and bamboos. The hills increased in height as we advanced, while beyond them all in the far distance we could see the line of the mountains forming the edge of the central highland, and covered with dense forest in every part. The scene, but for the tropical trees, resembled the Lancashire and West Riding scenery, along the Todmorden valley. As far as I could make out, the hills appeared to be mostly of bright clay, interspersed with quartz. Great black masses of gneiss rock crop out on the sides of many of them in most curious, fantastic shapes.

On the east coast and for some way westward there is no distinct rainy season, as in the interior of Madagascar; it rains more or less all through the year. The temperature did not exceed that of warm summer days in England, with cool mornings and evenings. We reached Rànomafàna as it was getting dusk, my lads bringing me in, as usual, at a smart trot, after doing fifteen or sixteen miles in less than four hours. The name of this village means “hot waters,” and is derived from some hot springs which bubble up in a small stream not far from the houses. The water close to this spot is too hot to touch with the hand or foot; but as it mingles with the cold river water it soon becomes tepid, and I found that in wading in the stream I could have any degree of heat or cold as I chose. Many people come to bathe in these hot waters, and find benefit in certain complaints.

At this place I procured specimens of that remarkable vegetable production, the lace-leaf plant, or water yam (Ouvirandra fenestralis). The existence of this plant had long been known to botanists, but it was introduced into Europe by the Rev. W. Ellis after his first visit to Madagascar (1853-1854); and from plants brought by him to England it was propagated, and specimens were sent to many of the chief botanical collections, as well as to Kew, Chiswick and the Crystal Palace. I knew of this plant being abundant in some of the streams on the east side of the island, and I therefore described it as well as I could to one of my bearers. A little time after our arrival at the village he brought me three or four plants, together with the roots, and in one case with the flower also attached. The leaves were from six to eight inches long and an inch and a half wide; but I afterwards found at Mauritius that they grew to more than double this size in the Royal Gardens at Pamplemousses.

As the name implies, the leaf is like a piece of lace-work, or, more strictly speaking, like a skeleton leaf, the spaces between the veining being open. The veining is something like that of a lily leaf, the longitudinal fibre running through the whole length, and crossed at very regular intervals by the transverse veins, which are of thread-like fineness. The specific name, fenestralis (“windowed”), conveys this idea of a regular arrangement of structure. The leaf-stalk varies in length with the depth of the water, always keeping a little below the surface. Each plant has ten or a dozen leaves branching from the root, which in the specimens brought to me resembled a small potato. It can be eaten, as its taste is like the farinaceous yam, common to most tropical countries; and from this likeness the generic name, ouvirandra, is derived—ouvy or òvy being the native word for yam. The plant grows in running water and thrives best in warm situations. The flower grows on a long stalk and rises a little above the surface of the water; it is of a pinkish colour, dividing into two curved hairy tufts. Few objects can be imagined more beautiful or interesting for cultivating in an aquarium than this lace-leaf plant, which Sir W. J. Hooker termed “one of the most curious of nature’s vegetable productions.” It is an endogenous plant, included in the order Juncaginaceæ, to which the arrow-grasses and the rushes belong; it is found not only in the eastern region, but occurs in streams near the upper belt of forest in the interior. It is said to be very tenacious of life, retaining its vitality even if the stream where it grows is dried up; the leaves in their various stages of growth pass through a gradation of colour, from a pale yellow to a dark olive-green. When full grown, its dark green leaves form the limit of a circle two or three feet in diameter.

Taking a walk round the village before it was dark, I noticed several houses raised on posts five or six feet above the ground. At the top of each post, just under the floor, was a projecting circle of wood a foot or more in diameter and polished very smooth. I found that these buildings were granaries, and were raised in this way to protect the rice from rats, which are a great annoyance in most parts of the country. The smooth ring of wood effectually prevented them from getting any farther than the top of the upright posts. The ladder for getting up to these granaries is a very primitive contrivance; it consists merely of a round pole with notches cut in the upper side to prevent the foot from slipping. On a subsequent visit to Madagascar my wife and I had to use one of these tràno àmbo (“raised houses”), as they are called, as a bedroom, and very clean and comfortable we found it, free from all insect plagues; the floor was of plaited bamboo, springy to walk on, although the getting up to it or down from it was a somewhat difficult feat.

We were astir early on the Wednesday morning and left our quarters at six o’clock. It was a beautiful morning as we commenced our journey and began to mount hills and descend valleys and cross streams as before—with this difference, that the hills became higher and steeper, and the paths more difficult. How our men managed to carry themselves up and down, to say nothing of the heavy loads on their shoulders, puzzled me, but they did their work apparently without much fatigue. I noticed that many of those who carried heavy loads had the flesh and muscles on the shoulders thickened into a sort of pad, caused, I suppose, from the constant weight and friction of their burdens. When carrying they wore but little clothing, merely the salàka or loin-cloth, and sometimes a sleeveless jacket of hempen cloth or other coarse material. In the cool mornings they generally wore over the shoulders the làmba[4] of rofìa, or of hemp cloth; but during the rest of the day this was bound tightly round the waist, or thrown upon the palanquin. The two sets of four bearers used to take the work in “spells” of a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at a time; when the others relieved them they did not stop, but those taking the poles of the palanquin would stoop under and take it on their shoulders with hardly any jerk, even when running at full speed. Occasionally one set would take the duty for an hour or more, while if going fast, or on very difficult ground, they relieved each other very frequently. Every three or four minutes they changed the load from one shoulder to another, the leaders lifting the pole over their heads.

In proceeding on our journey we met great numbers of men bringing poultry, manioc, potatoes, rice, and other produce from the interior to the coast. These articles are mostly brought to Tamatave and other ports, so that the ships trading to these places are supplied with abundance of provisions at a very moderate rate. The poultry were enclosed in large open panniers or baskets made of strips of bamboo plaited together and slung at each end of a bamboo or a pole of light wood. We also overtook many men taking European goods up to the capital—quantities of cheap and gaudily painted crockery, iron cooking-pots, and a variety of other articles. Many also carried salt, and others the same open wicker baskets in which fowls are brought down, but now containing quantities of the fibre of the rofìa palm. This is taken up into the interior to be manufactured into cloth. Sometimes these men were met singly, or two or three together, but more often they travelled in companies of ten, twenty or thirty. Occasionally we met a Hova officer in a palanquin borne by his slaves, and often with his wife and other members of his family, also in palanquins, with female slaves attending them and running at a good pace to keep up with the men.

In one day we often saw a great variety of face and colour, and met representatives of several of the different tribes which people the island; and these differ considerably in colour and features. Among the faces we saw, although there were few that could be called handsome, judging by a European standard, there was yet a large proportion of good heads, with high, well-formed foreheads, and a general look of quickness and intelligence. The impression given was certainly not that of a race low in mental organisation or capabilities.

At Ambàtoharànana, where we breakfasted, we were favoured with a little native music while our meal was being prepared. The instrument consisted of a piece of bamboo about four feet long, with parts of the strong outer fibre detached and strained over small pieces of pumpkin shell like the bridge of a violin. With this simple contrivance the performer produced a soft plaintive kind of music, not unlike the tones of a guitar. This instrument is called a valìha, and is played by the fingers. A simpler and ruder musical effect is obtained by a kind of bow of wood, with two or three strings, and to which, at one end, the half of a large gourd is fixed to give resonance; this is called lokàngam-bòatàvo (vòatàvo, pumpkin), but its sound is poor and monotonous.

Although the paths we traversed were most difficult, the scenery was singularly delightful. There are few more beautiful forms in tropical vegetation than the bamboo, which unites the most perfect symmetry and bright colour, and in some places a particular species[5] gave quite a special character to the scenery. The long elastic stems, thirty or forty feet in length, three inches or more in diameter at the base, and tapering to a fine point, were curving over the path in every direction, and with their feathery whorls of leaves, yellowish-green in colour, growing from every joint, were a constant delight to the eye. Sometimes a whole valley seemed filled with bamboos; while in others the rofìa palm and the tree-ferns were the prevailing forms.

Our midday journey this day was a continual ascent, until we were evidently at a considerable elevation above the sea. From one ridge we had a most extensive prospect and could see the Indian Ocean fifty or sixty miles behind us, while before us was a yet higher chain of hills, dark with dense woods of the main line of forest. As we rode along, I could not but observe the capabilities of the country and its vast powers of production, were it brought extensively under cultivation. The country is rich also in mineral wealth—iron, gold, copper, and other metals, as well as graphite and probably also petroleum.

We came this day into a belt of tree-ferns, some of large size, with their great graceful fronds arranged horizontally in a circle round the top of the trunk. There were also numbers of pine-apples growing wild, with the magnificent scarlet flowers just developing into fruit. We descended to, crossed, and for some time went along a beautiful river, resembling in many parts the Dove at Dovedale, and in others the Wharfe at Bolton. The view from the top of an immense hill of the river winding far below was most charming. The paths by which we ascended and descended would have astonished us in England, but by this time a moderately level and smooth path had become an object of surprise. In some places there was only a narrow passage between rocks overhung with vegetation, most picturesque, but most difficult to travel by.

We got in early in the afternoon to Ampàsimbé, a rather large village. While waiting for dinner we watched the women at the opposite house preparing the material from which they make the rofìa cloths, called rabannas in Mauritius. It is the inner fibre of the long glass-like leaves of the rofìa-palm.[6] The cuticle on each side is peeled off, leaving a thin straw-coloured fibrous substance, which is divided by a sort of comb into different widths, according to the fineness or otherwise of the material to be made. The fibre is very strong and is the common substitute for string in Madagascar. In other villages we saw the women weaving the cloth with most rude and primitive looms, consisting merely of four pieces of wood fixed in the mud floor of the house, and a framework of two or three pieces of bamboo. The material they make, however, is a good, strong-looking article, with stripes of various colours and patterns woven into the stuff, and is extensively used by the poorer classes. With the same simple loom the Hova women make many kinds of woven stuffs; of hemp, cotton, rofìa fibre, and of this last, mingled with silk or cotton, very pretty and useful cloth of a straw colour, being made in this way. Of the strong native silk they also weave very handsome làmbas of bright and varied colours and patterns, such as used to be worn on all festive occasions by the higher classes, as well as the more sombre dark red làmbas which are used by all classes for wrapping the dead.

We had now reached a part of the country where the rofìa palm was the most prominent object in the vegetation, not on the hills, however, like the traveller’s tree, but chiefly in the valleys, where there is plenty of moisture. This palm grows very abundantly and can easily be distinguished from the other trees of its order. The trunk has a rough and rugged surface, and this reaches the height of twenty to thirty feet; but the leaves are its most striking feature; they are magnificent plumes, of enormous length, quite as long as the trunk itself. The midrib of these leaves has a very strong but light structure, some four to five inches wide at the base, and on this account it is largely used for ladders, for palanquin poles, for roofing, and indeed for anything needing lightness as well as strength. On these midribs are set a great number of grass-like pinnate fronds, from which, as already noticed, string and fibre are prepared for weaving. Great clusters of seeds (or fruits?), which are enclosed in a shiny brown skin, hang down from the top of the trunk. These are used for boxes to enclose small articles, as jewellery, etc. At one part of our journey the only road was through an extensive sheet of water, through which rose hundreds of rofìas, like the interior of some great temple, a most peculiar and beautiful sight, the great fronds above us quite shutting out the sunshine and making a green twilight below them.

If we had been disposed to copy the titles of some popular evening entertainments, the nights preceding this Wednesday’s one might have been termed: “A Night with the Fleas,” and “A Night with the Mosquitoes,” but this was emphatically “A Night with the Rats.” We saw and heard them racing round the eaves of the house before we lay down, but as soon as the light was put out they descended and began to rattle about our pots and pans in search of food. We got up and fired a pistol among them, and this appeared for a time to scare them away; but later on their attentions became so personal that we were obliged to light a candle and keep it burning on the floor all night. After this we had comparative quiet, but before lighting the candle they had been scampering over my companion in his hammock and over myself as I lay on the floor.

Thursday’s journey, although shorter than that of most days, was perhaps the most difficult of all, especially the morning division of it—hills steeper than ever, and, if possible, rougher footpaths, so that we were often obliged to get down and walk, making the journey very fatiguing. For nearly three hours we were passing through dense forest, and in some places the path was really frightful. I do not wonder that a small company of soldiers brought up in the early years of the century by Captain Le Sage laid themselves down in despair at the difficulties of the roads they had to traverse. I found along the roadside several varieties of those beautiful-leaved plants, veined with scarlet and buff, which were so much cultivated in England about that time. Ferns of all kinds were very abundant, from the minutest species to the great tree-fern.

Our afternoon’s journey took us for some distance along a beautiful river which foamed and roared over the rocks in its course, and which we forded repeatedly. The path was most picturesque, but very fatiguing; in many places the track could hardly be distinguished at all from the dense rank growth of plants and long grass. We arrived at Béfòrona at one o’clock and fully intended to have proceeded another stage, as it was so early in the afternoon, but we found our men so exhausted that we were obliged to stay there for the rest of the day.

Here it may be noted that we had now entered some way into the lower and wider of the two belts of dense forest which extend for several hundred miles along the eastern side of Madagascar, and cover the mountains which form the great ramparts of the highland of the interior. There is continuous forest from nearly the north of the island to almost the southern extremity; its greatest width is about fifty miles, north of Antongil Bay; but to the south of the Antsihànaka province it divides into two. Of these two belts, the upper one, which clothes the edge of the highland, is the narrowest, being not much above ten or twelve miles across, but the lower belt is from twice to three times that breadth. On the western side of Madagascar there is no such continuous line of forest; there are, it is true, many extensive portions covered with wood, but in many places the vegetation consists more of scattered clumps of trees; while in the south-west, which is the driest part of the island, the prevailing trees and shrubs are euphorbia, and are spiny in character. Mr Baron reckoned that an area of nearly thirty thousand square miles of the whole surface is forest-covered country. We shall have other opportunities of examining these extensive forest regions, so all we need say further at present about them is, that no one with any eye for the beautiful and wonderful can pass through them without astonishment and delight. The variety and luxuriance of the foliage, the great height of many of the trees, the countless creeping and climbing plants that cover their trunks and branches, the multitude of lianas that bind everything together in a maze of cordage and ropes, the flowers which sometimes cover whole trees with a mass of colour, crimson, or golden, or purple—all these make a journey through these Madagascar forests a new pleasure and lead one to exclaim: “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!”

We were now also ascending towards the central highland of the interior, which lies at an elevation of from five to six thousand feet above the sea-level. Above this general elevation, which, however, is broken up by lesser hills and mountains in all directions, so that there is no level country except what have been the beds of ancient lakes, now dried up, the highest mountains do not rise to great altitudes. The massif of Ankàratra, which forms the south-western boundary of Imèrina, the home of the Hova tribe, does not quite reach nine thousand feet in height above the sea. Until quite recently the summits of Ankàratra were always supposed to be the highest points of the island, but it has lately been discovered that there is a mountain called Ambòro, about eighty miles from the northernmost point, which is still higher, being nine thousand four hundred feet above sea-level. On my return to the coast in 1867 I found how much less difficult the journey from Antanànarìvo to Andòvorànto was than that in the opposite direction, owing, of course, to our descending nearly five thousand feet instead of ascending the same.

Béfòrona is situated in an almost circular valley, with a river running through it and surrounded by forest-covered hills. The village, like most in this part of the country, has the houses arranged in a square. Their floors are generally raised a foot or two above the surface of the ground, and are formed of bark, beaten out flat and laid on bamboos. The framing and roof are made of poles or bamboo, filled in with the stalks of the traveller’s tree, and thatched with leaves of the same tree. In the centre of these village squares was a flagstaff, and in others a pole with the skulls and horns of bullocks fixed to it. These are mostly memorials of the festivities connected with the last observance of the circumcision ceremonies, which are very important events with all the Malagasy tribes. We had a visit from the wife of the chief of the village, who brought us a present of fowls and rice.

After resting a while we strolled along one of the streams with our guns, to try to obtain specimens of some of the birds peculiar to the neighbourhood. On our way back we observed some boys using an instrument called tsìrika, with which they were able to kill small birds. It consists of a long and straight palm stem, taken from a small and beautiful palm with a stem resembling a bamboo. A small arrow, tipped with an iron point, is inserted and is discharged by blowing at the larger end. About three inches of the end has wool to fill up the aperture and prevent any windage. They use this blow-gun with great precision and can strike a mark at a considerable distance. A very similar weapon, but with poisoned arrows, is used by the Indians of South America in the countries bordering the Amazon and its tributaries.