124 A NATURALIST IN THE GUI AN AS 



Venezuela, is the total absence of comfort in the homes 

 of the people ; and this is not confined to the poorer 

 class of peasants, for men of means, owning large cattle 

 hatos or coffee-plantations, are content to live in the same 

 miserable manner. A rough table, a bench, a few plates, 

 perhaps a glass, the hammocks of the family : that is the 

 entire furniture of the home of a man like Medina, who 

 owns more property than anyone else at La Prision. Not 

 a single person at this settlement could read or write. 

 Once every two or three months a sort of travelling scribe 

 visits the place, and stays for a few weeks answering 

 letters and arranging accounts. During his absence 

 notes of the transactions between Medina and his peons are 

 kept by a system of symbols peculiar to the place. I was 

 much puzzled during my first visit by the coal marks which 

 disfigured the posts of the house. These consisted mostly 

 of long and short bars, and other irregular characters. 

 By degrees I managed to master the significations of most 

 of these symbols. Each post was devoted to a peon — was 

 in fact his pass-book. A long bar meant a day's work, a 

 short one half a day ; the other strange characters repre- 

 sented the coffee, beans, salt, and other necessaries with 

 which he was charged. Five thousand years have passed 

 away since a similar system did duty in Egypt and 

 Assyria. To-day, in its most primitive form, this system 

 of symbols meets the wants of these inhabitants of a 

 secluded part of South America. 



The houses or mud huts in which these people live 

 are built on the same principle as those met with all over 

 Venezuela and Colombia. Not a single nail is used in 

 their construction. Whenever any fastening has to be 

 performed it is done by means of creepers procured in the 

 forest. The word bejuco is applied to all creepers without 



