The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-08-12


| Written for The Salt Lake HERALD
There are so many sorts of living
treasures valuable to the naturalist in
tropical countries that are scattered to
the four winds by the first report of
gun that he soon finds himself driven
perforce to resort to the noiseIess and
almost equally deadly blowgun,
weapon which appears to have reached
| its highest development in the Atlas
Amazonas region of South America.
| 1t is not only the noiseleSsness of the
air gun that strongly recommends it TO
him, for the ability that it gives him
to deal only temporary paralysis to
| coveted trophy where death by the
shotgun would thwart his purposes, is
no minor consideration.
A BIT or NICE WORKMANSHIP.
The skill with which a native of the
! interior of Brazil, Venezuela, or Ecua-
dor will construct perfectly accurate
blowgun from the simplest materials
and with the most primitive tools
never ceases to be a wonder of won
dersl to the traveller. To construct a
straight. evenly-tapered, handsomely
! polished pole eight feet long and only
one and one-half inches in diameter at
| the large end is no easy task with the
best tools known to the joiner of civil
iZation; to do this work with the crud-
est jack-knife and shell and bone
scrapers alone is a much more difficult
job. But to make through the length
! of this pole a three-quarters of an inch
hole in which the most critical eye can
! detect no blemish or deflexion what
ever is an achievement worthy of the
most unbounded admiration. Yet that
F! is the contract that almost any man in
I 10 IL 3
triHing sum of a couple of dollars.
With this gun, firmly wrapped with
pita-fibre thread and more or less dec
GRATED, as the artistic taste of it's
maker may dictate, is furnished bun
die of delicate, needle-pointed arrows
made from the hard midrib of the CO.
coanut palm leaf and so wrapped with
native raw cotton as to fiji tightly in
the bore of the gun. With this weapon
"a weapon which attracts no more at
tention from colony of monkeys than
bamboo fishing rod. while they soon
learn to dread anything shaped like a
gun-the native, or the explorer, after
patient practice, can bring most game
out of the tops of the taller trees. Add
10 this the fact that for a trifiing cost
the arrows may be tipped with poison,
the effect of which is to completely
! paralyze the motor centers while com
mon salt is perfect antidote therefor.
! enabling the hunter TO bring his game
TO earth, yet spare its life, and an idea
! OF It's value to the hunter of small
meragerie animals will be had.
A THRILLING BLOW-GUN ADvEN-
TURE
| The most exciting blow-gun sport
! that ever fell to my lot was mine one
| afternoon after long and tiresome
! tramp through the Bolivian iungIes
| For several 6aVc
get live monkey of very rare species
which l believed then and now know
| has never been seen in northern me-
nageries. Notwithstanding every pre-
caution, however, / had been unable to
get within shot of these elusive crea-
lures, the grey coats and white breasts
of which / ccasionally caught a
glimpse high in the tree tops moving
along at wonderful speed. Motion in
tropical jungle is a continuous battle
with innumerable vines. thorny plants,
clinging creepers, pOnderous masses of
rotting vegetation, often waist deep,
that must be experienced to be appre-
ciated. Such travel is apt to take ali
| the energy and caution in ones make
up in the mere going itself, and when
| the care of an S-feet blow-gun, easily
| broken twisted out of true, and the
wa itching for rapidly vanishing monks
are added thereto, the task is an almost
impossible one.
Twice during the day 1 had suddenly
found myself close upon a large snake,
and while in each case the crawling
thing was a 'squeezer" and not
bitter the sensation was a most I'M
pleasant one, for either of them was
we'll able to give a man his final hug.
For while each time 1 was rather
more cautious as to my path. but as
tie day began to grow old and the mon
keys became rather less wary l lost all
thought of caution; especially was this