A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN VENEZUELA. 89 



of Other engagements. A wilderness wcleomc is as genial and 

 inevitable as the tropical sunshine. Your visit is an event — 

 a mile-stone in the long road of lonely months of exile — 

 months which sometimes lengthen into years. Our very 

 interesting friend iMr. Eugene Andre of Trinidad told us 

 that on one of his many orchid-hunting expeditions he had 

 chanced to land at a certain God-forsaken little port on the 

 west coast of Colombia. Mr. Andre had wondered why 

 the fare to this port from Panama should be $30 — while the 

 return passage was $100. The problem was solved after he 

 had seen the port — desolate, barren, inaccessible and fever 

 and insect ridden — one might be induced to pay $30 to get 

 there provided one knew not what manner of place it was. 

 But to get away — one would pay any sum and gladly. So 

 it is that the little coastwise steamboat company calmly 

 demands $100 to return the unfortunate traveller to Panama 

 — and gels it. 



At this forlorn spot there were stationed two young men, I 

 forget now in what capacity, who for many months had not 

 seen an intelligent human being. Into the empty monotony 

 of their lives. Mi. Andre appeared. It mattered not to those 

 lonely young men who he was, nor where he came from. 

 His welcome was — "Stay with us. Stay a year — or ten 

 years. We know all about each other. We've talked about 

 everything until there is nothing left to say — we even know 

 how much sugar we each like in our tea and who our great 

 grandmothers were, and who we think wrote Shakespeare's 

 plays; — - and we are so bored and so glad to see a new face. " 



Thus it is that everywhere in the South American wil- 

 derness the English-speaking stranger is made welcome by 

 his kind, and we found Guanoco no exception to this rule. 



The pretty Spanish greeting is — "The house is yours" 

 and during our stay at the Pitch Lake, the headquarters be- 

 came really ours. We were given the best room; the servants 



