EASTWARD HO! 67 



for the quarter. I am not quite certain about the origin of 

 this title, but believe it comes from the wayback, being some 

 ancient story of an old Castilian ancestor and "el burro del 

 rey." After dinner we found early to bed and early to rise 

 was the order of the day, and as we were all tired, turned in, 

 an amusing little interlude being caused by the efforts of my 

 American friend, 6 ft. in height, weighing 230 lbs., to get into 

 a suit of pajamas of our host, 5 ft. 6 in. and 150 lbs. weight. 

 At 4 A. M. the Poo-Poo-Poo of a horn or conch-shell woke us 

 up. "Say," said Kaintuck, "is that the cows coming 

 home ? " " No, " responded I, " it is the labourers going out. ' ' 

 As our host was now bumping about with much splashing of 

 water, we judged it was time we did ditto, and at 5.30, after 

 some good coffee, we were off for the woods, a distance of 

 but three miles right in the heart of the Mora forest (Mora 

 excelsa), the great social tree of Trinidad and British Guiana. 

 Here and there the eye of the woodsman might discern a 

 solitary balata (mimusops globosa), carapa or Crapeaud, 

 (carapa guianensis), guatacare (lecythis idatimon), or laurier 

 cyp (Oreodaphne cemua), but those forest giants the Mora 

 by far eclipsed the others in quantity, size, and grandeur, 

 "lifting their shafts like some great amiral," one hundred 

 and fifty, aye, and two hundred or more feet from the ground. 

 We walked along the road on a carpet of little palms, chiefly 

 timite (manicaria) and manacques (euterpe oleracea), and 

 through irregular coppices of young Mora with their chestnut- 

 like seeds strewn around like shells on the sea-shore, to the 

 place where my workmen were busy with pit-saw, cross-cut, 

 and axe, squaring and sawing the great chestnut-coloured 

 logs. My American friend expressed himself delighted with 

 the strong and tough texture of the timber, and opined that 

 there would be a lot of money for that wood in the States for 

 railway ties. I had to explain to him that unless there was 

 a sudden local demand for the different hard-woods for large 

 contracts, the game was not worth the candle, the lack of 

 water carriage rendering an export trade utterly impossible. 

 I also told him that although the Mora wood was so tough 

 and heavy, there was a local prejudice against it as posts or 

 pillar-trees, the wise men asserting that it always rotted, 



