A HUNT FOR HOATZINS 103 



injured has ever affected me as profoundly as 

 this. 



Thus the primary object of the trip was 

 accomphshed. But that is a poor expedition 

 indeed which does not yield another hundred per 

 cent, in oblique values, of things seen out of the 

 corner of one's eyes. 



If one is an official or an accredited visitor to 

 Berbice, the Colony House is placed at one's 

 service. I am sure that it is quite the ugliest 

 of all colony houses, and surrounded by what I 

 am equally sure is one of the most beautiful of 

 tropical gardens. If Berbice held no other at- 

 traction it would be worth visiting to see this 

 garden. The first floor of Colony House is 

 offices, the second is the Supreme Court, and 

 when I peeped in I saw there were three occu- 

 pants — a great yellow cat curled up in the 

 judge's chair, and two huge toads solemnly 

 regarding each other from the witness-box and 

 the aisle. 



Three stories in Guiana constitute a sky- 

 scraper, and that night I slept on a level with 

 the palm fronds. It was a house of a thousand 

 sounds. During the day hosts of carpenters 

 tore off uncountable shingles devastated by 



