A BIT OF USELESSNESS 115 



can eradicate the love of flowers. It would be 

 a wonderful thing to know about the first garden 

 that ever was, and I wish that "Best Beloved" 

 had demanded this. I am sure it was long before 

 the day of dog, or cow, or horse, or even she who 

 walked alone. The only way we can imagine 

 it, is to go to some wild part of the earth, where 

 are fortunate people who have never heard of 

 seed catalogs or lawn mowers. 



Here :n British Guiana I can run the whole 

 gamut of gardens, within a few miles of where 

 I am writing. A mile above my laboratory up- 

 river, is the thatched benab of an Akawai Indian 

 — whose house is a roof, whose rooms are ham- 

 mocks, whose estate is the jungle. Degas can 

 speak English, and knows the use of my 28- 

 gauge double barrel well enough to bring us a 

 constant supply of delicious bushmeat — peccary, 

 deer, monkey, bush turkeys and agoutis. But 

 Grandmother has no language but her native 

 Akawai. She is a good friend of mine, and we 

 hold long conversations, neither of us bothering 

 with the letter, but only the spirit of communi- 

 cation. She is a tiny person, bowed and wrin- 

 kled as only an old Indian squaw can be, al- 

 ways jolly and chuckling to herself, although 



