178 JUNGLE PEACE 



was cut through coarse, high grass and belts 

 of cedar, which in time became the Appian 

 Way. And a herd of aurochs breasting in 

 single file dense shrubby oaks and heather 

 toward a salt lick may well have foreshadowed 

 Regent Street; the Place d'Etoile was perhaps 

 first adumbrated by wild boars concentrating 

 on a root-filled marsh. And why should not 

 the Indian trail which became a Dutch road and 

 our Fifth Avenue, have had its first hint in a 

 moose track down the heart of a wooded island, 

 leading to some hidden spring! 



We left our boats stranded on the Mazaruni 

 River bank and climbed the steep ascent to our 

 new home in the heart of British Guiana. Our 

 outfit was unpacked, and the laboratory and 

 kitchen and bedrooms in the big Kalacoon house 

 were at last more than names. 



And now we surveyed our little kingdom. 

 One path led down to our boats, another mean- 

 dered eastwards through the hills. But like 

 the feathered end of the magnetic arrow, we 

 drifted as with one will to the south. Here at 

 the edge of our cleared compound we were 

 confronted by a tangle. It was not very high 

 twenty feet or so but dense and unbroken. 



