" The system
of signalling which he employed was by far the most ingenious device
I saw while in Brazil, and considering their resources and their low
state of culture the affair was little short of marvellous.
Before the canoes were launched, a man fastened two upright forked
sticks on each side of one, near the middle. About three and a
half feet astern of these a cross-piece was laid on the bottom of
the craft. To this was attached two shorter forked sticks. Between
each pair of upright forked sticks was placed another cross-piece,
thus forming two horizontal bars, parallel to each other, one only
a few inches from the bottom of the boat and the other about a foot
and a half above the gunwales. Next, four slabs of Caripari wood of
varying thickness, about three feet long and eight inches wide, were
suspended from these horizontal bars, so as to hang length-wise of
the canoe and at an angle of forty-five degrees. Each pair of slabs
was perforated by a longitudinal slit and they were joined firmly at
their extremities by finely carved and richly painted end-pieces.
The operator strikes the slabs with a wooden mallet or hammer, the
head of which is wrapped with an inch layer of caoutchouc and then
with a cover of thick tapir-skin.
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