Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/183

Rh year is seed time, every day is harvest time. Plants in various stages of maturity, plants in flower and in fruit and ready for the machete, stand side by side, and there is no winter to interrupt the process of vegetation. While the fruit is still quite green the plant is cut down, and the bunches being removed, these are carried to the river bank, where they are made into heaps and covered with the large leaves of the plant, so that the rain and sun may not unduly hasten the ripening. Only the largest bunches are reserved; the others are thrown into the river and left to drift away with the current.

—Rama is a town of about eight hundred inhabitants and, like Bluefields, is dependent chiefly upon the banana industry for its prosperity. It is situated right on the boundary line between the Mosquito Reservation and Nicaragua, and its population is a cross-breed of Spaniards and Indians. While at Rama I heard of a mysterious individual, a white man, who makes his home in a tree. Satisfying myself as to the substantial truth of the rumors, I determined to have a sight of the strange house of this eccentric person.

As the river steamer Hendy was to make a trip up the Rama River the following morning, passing the house in the tree, I accepted the invitation of Captain Tucker to accompany him. The captain was a typical Yankee, who had lived several years on the rivers of Nicaragua, and whose fund of information seemed inexhaustible. He kindly offered me his guidance to the house. After steaming several miles we came upon the "clearing" of Captain Henry Wilderson, for such is the name of the tree-dweller; and here, within a hundred yards of the river, stood this remarkable structure, its white painted sides and green window blinds making a striking object against the dark jungle surrounding it. Imagine a tall tree trunk nearly four feet in diameter and stripped of branches, rising fifty feet or more straight up into the air, and perched upon its summit this strange abode, looking for all the world like a huge lantern. It is said that Wilderson objects to visitors on curiosity bent, and a photographic camera pointed at the house would be quite apt to bring forth protests from the inmate, backed up if necessary by force and violence. Fortunately, on the day of our visit the captain was not at home, so our investigations were carried on without interruption. The tree upon which the house is built is a variety called the ebo; its wood is of great strength and hardness, and, as it would require days of work with an axe to fell it, Wilderson can feel quite safe on his lofty perch. The building is about twenty-five feet square and about the same in height. The tree runs completely through the center of the house to the roof. The first story is occupied by the kitchen; a sitting room and bedroom, with a small piazza facing the river, take