Palms of British Guiana. 247 
some tiny streamlet, hidden in the forest ; but the tem- 
porary, or rather the occasional houses, which they used 
when they went down to the great river or even to the 
sea, to catch the fish or crabs which form their chief 
subsistence, were probably, as they still certainly are, 
among the troolie palms of the river, or sea-side, swamp. 
If the place was very swampy, these occasional houses, 
were built on piles, which raised and placed them 
among the not very lofty, but huge, living leafage 
of the surrounding troolie. And on the floors of these 
pile-dwellings fires were made, on hearths of clay ; 
and the light from the fires, shining among the palm 
leaves — leaves almost the largest in the world— may 
well have gleamed with marvellous effect, broad blaze 
of light here sharply contrasted with great space of 
deepest shadow there, in the eyes of those passing 
navigators. It may be added that the floors of these 
dwellings raised among the palm-leaves were pro- 
bably, as they now are, made of palm-stems, laid 
parallel to each other, not however the stems either of 
the aeta {Mauritid) or\he\xooX\e.(Manicaria), for both 
of these are too heavy to be used whole and too dense 
to be split for such a purpose, but the slender slight 
stems of the manicole {Euterpe eduli.s, Mart :) which 
grows intermingled with the troolie. But, again, if the 
ground on which these occasional houses are built is not 
sufficiently swampy to stir to the labour of erecting 
pile-dwellings, they are made in this other way ; a number 
of troolies are cut, their stems, stripped of leaves, are 
laid, parallel to each other, on the mud, and over the 
floor thus formed the roof is raised. Mauritia palms, 
even if occasionally one or two of them grow near 
