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 in 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 
