ON THE PACIFIC COAST 319 
over the savanna, burst suddenly into leaves and 
flowers. All this was interesting enough, but there 
was a reverse to the picture. As a shower of rain 
is such a rare event at Chanduy, the inhabitants 
think their houses sufficiently protected by a slight 
roof of the leaves of Arrow-cane (Gynerium sp.), 
through which the heavy and continued rains of 
the present year have passed as through a sieve. 
Figure to yourself, then, my dwelling flooded by 
night — bed and everything else soaked — so much 
wet out of doors that I could not take even such 
exercise as my slender forces permitted, and it 
will not surprise you to learn that I had a severe 
attack of jaundice. A little after the equinox the 
weather grew drier and cooler, and my illness 
began to leave me, although I have still not quite 
shaken it off. 
The sea-breezes, which blow from the west and 
south-west, are strong and cool. We have already 
had the thermometer once down to 66^\ and in 
June and July we may expect to see it still lower. 
I walk about as much as I can, and amuse myself 
with gathering and preserving the flowers, although 
they are now fast drying up. The beach is rather 
too steeply inclined to be pleasant to walk on, and 
shells and seaweeds are rather scarce ; but the antics 
of the burrowing crabs are diverting, and especially 
their battles with my dog, who disinters them from 
their holes in the sand. It is singular, however, 
to have been nearly four months by the seashore 
and only to have eaten flsh three times, nor once 
to have gone out in a boat. . . . 
The industry of the Chandiiyenians, who are 
nearly all pure Indians, is almost limited to the 
