26 TlMEHRI. 
The house which we built and, as it turned out, inha- 
bited for nearly a month, was close to Siedel's. Exter- 
nally it was an ordinary Indian house, thatched, however, 
on roof and walls with the leaves of a large and hand- 
some palm, a Geonoma of a species new to me but very 
abundant higher up the mountain. Inside, in the centre 
of the house, between our two hammocks, was a 
gridiron-like staging or babracot of hard green wood, 
under which a large fire was kept burning day and 
night ; this arrangement being partly suggested by 
the extreme coldness of the temperature, which at 
night sank as low as 48 Fahr., but was chiefly in- 
tended to afford means of drying the botanical paper, 
which, because of the great dampness of the air 
and the feebleness of such few rays of sun as forced 
their way through the almost constant mists, it was 
quite impossible to dry by ordinary means. Even though 
the paper not in use was thus kept constantly over the 
fire, and although almost every minute of my day during 
which I was not working in one way or another away 
from the house was devoted to turning and changing 
these papers, it was a matter of most extraordinary- 
difficulty to dry the plants. 
Our own house was finished even on the day on 
which we ascended ; and the next day our Pomeroon 
Indians built a similar but larger house for themselves. 
Later on we built another house for the living plants 
collected ; and two parties of Arekoonas who came up 
and attached themselves to us, each built a similar 
house. Moreover, SlEDEL, beside his own house and 
that for his men, had two very large buildings which he 
gradually filled with the Cattleya. In fact before we 
