Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/185

Rh up the next story; while the third story was intended for a bathroom and observatory. The whole is very solidly built of pine lumber. At each corner are heavy braces of timber reaching from the ground to the main floor, while four stout guy-ropes running from the house and fastened to adjacent trees assure the occupant additional safety against the strong winds which sometimes rage. To reach the house it is necessary to enter an elevator placed at the back of the tree. This is a simple contrivance, and consists of a small platform to which is attached a rope passing over a pulley in the kitchen. To pull one's self up requires but little exertion, as the weight of a person is balanced by a heavy counter-weight, which descends as the elevator rises by a handover-hand pull of the passenger, and in a few moments one is landed at the door opening into the structure. In descending, of course, the operation is reversed. The interior is furnished in very plain style and may be said to contain necessaries only; there is not the slightest attempt at ornament or decoration. The kitchen utensils are few and most of them of home manufacture; indeed. Nature in this country has supplied food in such form that cooking is a matter of secondary importance, and is not regarded as one of the serious affairs of the household. As rain falls almost continuously for nine months of the year, the house is not without its supply of water. This comes from the roof and is run into tanks conveniently placed within the house. Captain Wilderson, who is an old Louisiana planter, built his castle in a tree about three years ago, and it is said to have cost thirty-five hundred dollars. The oddity is the result of a theory which the captain has that germs of malarial fever are not as active at an elevation as they are near the ground. Wilderson is said to be hale and hearty, and in consequence thereof his theory has quite a respectable local standing.

—Travel about the rest of the reservation is not as easy as the trip to the banana district by the river steamer. The lagoons along the coast are not all connected by water, and to reach one from the other it is necessary to cut your way across the intervening land through the jungle. The swath thus cut with the machete may be said to answer a double purpose, as, besides enabling one to make progress, it leaves a trail by which one can return to the point of starting, thus diminishing the very serious consequences of becoming lost. As already stated, however, traveling is nearly all done by water. The inland water communication through the lagoons along the whole two hundred miles of coast is interrupted in only two places, and the rivers running into the interior are numerous. The native boats, which are large dugouts, called "pitpans," are hollowed out of trunks of the ceiba or silk-cotton tree. These trees when in bloom are a