302 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



very scarce and the inclemency of the weather made 

 the work doubly difficult. The plants were hung up on 

 creepers under the eaves of the house, where the pigs and 

 other animals could not get at them. Every day I 

 prepared a few for packing by cutting away the old roots 

 and bulbs, and we also made the crates to hold them. By 

 the 25th we were ready to depart, but I determined to wait 

 until the end of the month in the vague hope of the men 

 turning up. For the first time I ate Indian corn prepared 

 in a fashion quite new to me. The corn having been 

 soaked in water is dropped into boiling lard. The grains 

 expand and burst and become white in colour, looking 

 somewhat like jasmine buds. This was one of the few 

 delicacies these people prepare. On June 29 at three o'clock 

 in the afternoon we bade adieu to our hospitable hostess 

 and the other inhabitants of La Prision, with the inten- 

 tion of passing the night at Temblador and reaching 

 Puerto Antonio Liccioni on the following day. One of 

 the boats was in such a terribly leaky condition that by 

 the time we reached Temblador ail the articles placed at 

 the bottom were wet. We had to land everything, and 

 again the greater part of a day was spent in repairing and 

 caulking the thin rotten shell which bore us, so that we 

 only left in the afternoon, arriving at Suapure after eight 

 o'clock at night. On the following day we reached 

 Puerto Antonio Liccioni. There we got some slight news 

 of what had happened since we had been cut off from 

 the civilised world eight months before. We learnt that 

 Queen Victoria was dead, and the Boer war was still in 

 progress. We read and re-read every bit of printed 

 matter we could lay our hands on while we were awaitin,g 

 the arrival of a large bongo which was to take us down 

 the Orinoco to Ciudad-Bolivar. At last, on July 4, the 



