40 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



It was almost dark when the ' Delta ' left the pier at 

 Port of Spain, and started ploughing her way through 

 the shallow waters of the Gulf along the shores of the 

 island, towards the Serpent's Mouth. The 'Delta ' carried 

 a motley lot of passengers. Most of them had slung their 

 hammocks between the stanchions supporting the upper 

 deck upon which the pilot-house and captain's cabin are 

 situated, and there they lay lazily awaiting the dinner- 

 hour. All over Venezuela hammocks are largely used for 

 sleeping. In fact, in certain places a bed is rarely seen, 

 and for cleanliness and comfort in a tropical country, 

 especially when the nights are hot, hammocks are un- 

 doubtedly the best sleeping-places. Besides, the native 

 article when well made possesses the advantage of light- 

 ness and durability, while it can be rolled up into quite 

 a small parcel, so that a man may wander about with his 

 bed, so to speak, under his arm. It takes but a few seconds 

 to sling this ready-made bed between trees, if one be 

 travelling in the forest, or between the uprights of any 

 house on the wayside where the rover may elect to spend 

 the night. This widespread use of the hammock has 

 been adopted from the aborigines, who still use no other 

 sleeping-places than these hanging nets. Pulleyn, in his 

 ' Etymological Compend,' says that the natives of Brazil 

 used to sleep in nets composed of the rind of the hamack- 

 tree suspended between poles. Hence the sailor's hammock 

 derived its name. The word is more probably of West 

 Indian origin, for Columbus in the narrative of his first 

 voyage tells us : ' A great many Indians in canoes came 

 to the ship to-day for the purpose of bartering their cotton 

 and hamacas or nets in which they sleep.' Strangel)' 

 enough the word hamaca, although the correct word 

 for hammock, is rarely used in Venezuela, where the 



