30 JUNGLE ISLAND 



content to keep still while Necto at bow and 

 Santiago at stern paddled us out between the 

 stumps of dead trees. 



All this was once a valley forest drowned when 

 Gatun Lake rose. Some of the trees are very- 

 hard and solid and will stay in the water a long 

 time unless they are dynamited to pieces. Through 

 the dry season the water of the lake creeps a 

 little lower every time the locks are emptied to 

 let a ship out to sea. The dead snags of trees 

 that were well under water in the rainy summer 

 are close enough to the lowered surface to scrape 

 the bottom of a cayuca whose boatsmen are not 

 watching with sharp eyes. 



The few houses of Frijoles village are built of 

 lumber and screened. Farther out the roofs are 

 of thatch, made of palm leaves, with walls of 

 sheet iron or odd bits of board. Presently the 

 walls disappear completely. The picture (Fig. 14) 

 shows one of these, which Molino explained was a 

 real palace, a casa grande. A whole negro family 

 lived there, and they had room besides to take 

 our Necto as a boarder. 



I asked Santiago once how long it took to build 

 such a house. 



"Not too long," said Santiago. "Maybe three 

 weeks if the moon is right." 



Perhaps I should explain that he did not mean 

 that the builder worked by moonhght, but that 

 he thought the palm leaves would not dry into 



