70 TROPICAL WILD LIFE IN BRITISH GUIANA 



in the shade at my side registered 78 degrees. Without 

 moving my seat I shifted the instrument a yard, thirty-six 

 inches of horizontal space, and the mercury straightway 

 climbed almost seventy vertical degrees. In five minutes 

 the metal frame had become too hot to hold and the silvery 

 column came to rest at 147 degrees. With such heat less 

 than a yard away I was comfortable in the shade, and in 

 the dim, cool depths of the jungle I could walk or write for 

 hours without feeling any due oppression. The highest 

 shade temperature known in the colony is 93 degrees, not 

 unworthy of comparison with the 105 degrees which I have 

 seen more than once in a Nassau Street business office. The 

 minimum temperature of coastal Guiana is 67 degrees and 

 the average for the region about Bartica 78 degrees. The 

 nights are cool, and one, sometimes two blankets were al- 

 ways necessary. Re calories, our first misconception, q. e. d! 

 As to dangers in the jungle, unfortunately we cannot 

 deal with statistics or definite degrees or figures of any sort, 

 so that whatever I write may be thought discounted by per- 

 sonal bias. I may say at once that in the last six months 

 I have been very near death once and the rest of the time 

 the danger has been equal to that of going black-berrying 

 in a New England pasture. Rarely, very rarely, I saw a 

 poisonous snake, and with leather puttees this danger is quite 

 negatived. If one thrusts one's hand into every hole or rot- 

 ten log, in the course of time one will be bitten by a scorpion 

 or centipede or tarantula. If one's blood is in good condi- 

 tion a few days of painful swelling will follow. If one tastes 

 all the delicious looking nuts in the trail, or the delectable 

 appearing mushrooms, illness is certain to follow sooner or 

 later, while a good draught of amber jungle water will as 

 likely as not bring amoebic death. But if one avoids these 

 senseless actions and is too much absorbed in exciting pur- 

 suit of bird or beast or insect to think of dangers, one may, 

 as we have done, walk, or crawl or squirm one's way day after 

 day through the heart of the jungle, along dry hill-sides 



