14a JUNGLE PEACE 



mora in full bloom. Then, like the good fairy- 

 prince in a well-regulated tale, he waved his 

 wand toward it, and said, "That is Kalacoon; 

 take it and use it if you want it." Only his 

 wand was a stout walking-stick, and for the 

 nonce the fairy prince had taken the form of a 

 tall, bronzed, very good-looking Englishman, 

 who had carved a rubber plantation out of the 

 very edge of the jungle, and with wife and 

 small daughter lived in the midst of his clean- 

 barked trees. 



And now we had had a gift of a great house 

 in the heart of the Guiana wilderness, a house 

 built many years before by one who was Pro- 

 tector of the Indians. This we were to turn 

 into a home and a laboratory to study the wild 

 things about us — birds, animals, and insects ; not 

 to collect them primarily, but to photograph, 

 sketch, and watch them day after day, learning 

 of those characters and habits which cannot be 

 transported to a museum. And exactly this had 

 not been done before; hence it took on new 

 fascination. 



I had never given serious thought to the de- 

 tails of housekeeping, and I suddenly realized 

 how much for granted one takes things in civi- 



