4S8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Under these trees tall, sturdy grasses rise up to your shoulders 

 and with great straggling bushes do their best to prevent the 

 fruit trees from gaining a living for themselves, much less for the 

 parasites that swarm over their branches. 



The house itself is almost hidden in foliage. On the brick pil- 

 lars wild figs have germinated and already insinuated their aerial 

 roots into every crevice, while their glossy stems and leaves 

 almost cover the sides of the building. Then, that ramjjant 

 creeper, the cissus (C. sicyoides), is running up the walls and over 

 the roof, which it covers entirely. Clearing away the vegetation 

 which blocks the entrance, you find the stairs falling to pieces, 

 and only by climbing can you reach what was once the front 

 door. After hacking with the cutlass, room is made to push 

 through and you enter. But don't be in a hurry ; take care of 

 the flooring; hold on to the creepers until you have sounded the 

 boards, or you may fall through. Crash ! There goes one foot 

 through the first board. Draw it up and try another. It cracks 

 but does not yield, and as your eyes become accustomed to the 

 half light a dark cave with brown stalactites is dimly seen. These 

 stalactites are the aerial roots of the cissus, which have been 

 thrown straight down through holes in the roof, and now spread 

 great masses of fibers over the floor, some finding their way 

 into cracks and joints and thence to the earth below. In the 

 corners of the rooms are great oval brown masses, the nests of 

 termites or wood ants, the inhabitants of which are hard at work 

 tunneling every board and rafter until they will become so brittle 

 as to almost fall to pieces by their own weight. Ultimately, 

 when the house frame is thus weakened, the structure will be 

 only kept in shape by its wild figs and creeper stems, the roof will 

 fall in, and the whole become an intricate jungle of interlacing 

 stems. 



A few years later trees have grown up to smother the creepers, 

 and only an expert can say that a clearing once existed here. 



If an estate of several hundred acres can be so easily effaced, 

 what shall we say of the ordinary squatter's clearing ? On the 

 upper Demerara River are hundreds of little settlements in the 

 possession of negroes and half-Indians. Some are crowded with 

 fruit trees struggling with a thick and almost impregnable under- 

 growth, which is partly cleared now and then to admit of picking 

 the fruit. Near the river stands the dwelling house a shed 

 thatched with palm leaves on either side of which will be one oi- 

 two calabash trees to supply the substitute for plates and dishes 

 which is so indispensable. On these grow scarlet rodriguezias and 

 other small orchids, while even a specimen of the "baboon's 

 throat" {Corijanthes) or " thick-leaf parasite'' {Oncidium lancea- 

 num) may have been put up in the forks. If there are any young 



