It seemed fast asleep, suffering no agony whatever; and after five
or six minutes its heart ceased beating. The other monkey landed on the
branch it was aiming for in its leap, but after a short while it seemed
uneasy and sniffed at everything. Finally, its hold on the branch
relaxed, it dropped to the ground and was dead in a few minutes. It
was a marvellous thing to behold these animals wounded but slightly,
the last one only scratched, and yet dying after a few minutes as if
they were falling asleep. It was then explained to me that the meat
was still good to eat and that the presence of poison would not affect
the consumer's stomach in the least; in fact, most of the game these
Indians get is procured in this manner. I was lucky enough to secure
a snap-shot of this man in the act of using his blow-gun. It proved
to be the last photograph I took in the Brazilian jungles. Accidents
and sickness subsequently set in, and the fight for life became too
hard and all-absorbing even to think of photographing. He left us
after an hour's conversation, and we resumed our journey homewards.
We had a slight advantage in retracing our former path. Although the
reedy undergrowth had already choked it, we were travelling over
ground that we knew, and it was also no longer necessary to delay
for the building of _tambos_; we used the old ones again.
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