Another year has slipped past and again we are southward bound, toward that Mecca—the tropics—which never ceases to call us. The time is the fifteenth of February, 1909; the place, the Royal Dutch Mail Steamship “Coppename.”
Nine days out from New York at three o’clock in the morning we are roused suddenly from sleep by a gentle roaring in our ears. When we have gained partial consciousness we realize it is the basso-profundo whisper of good Captain Haasnoot summoning us to the bridge. We ask no questions for we have learned that the voice of the genial Dutchman means something worth while, whether it is raised in a thunderous roar of “Hofmeister!” or as now in gentler accents. Wrapped in flapping blankets, we climb the steep ladder to the bridge, there to enjoy for half an hour a most wonderful display of phosphorescence—even excelling that often visible in the Bay of Fundy. The Captain in all his world-wide sea-faring has never seen anything to equal it.
We are only a short distance off the shore of British Guiana and the ocean is thick with sediment from the rivers. The sky is overcast and no light comes from the moon and stars, and yet the whole sea is plainly visible. The horizon glows with a dull, yellow flare against the jet black sky, and the myriad foam-caps shimmer as with brighter flames. The quenching of these in the opaque water gives a vivid impression of an enormous conflagration half hidden behind billows of smoke.
At day-break Georgetown is in sight—a low, flat line of wharfs, with a background of galvanized tin roofs and tall bending palm trees. Never was a fairyland set in so prosaic a frame!
With what mingled feelings our little ship’s family lean on the rail and scan the shore! To some the thought comes of the miracles of yellow gold and precious stones hidden deep beneath the primitive forests; to other sea-weary travellers the stability of the shore appeals most; while we two watch for the first hint of bird life. Our desire is gratified before that of any of the others, for over the water there comes the first morning call of the great yellow Tyrant101—Kis-ka-dee! bringing a hundred memories of the tropics.
As we steam slowly up to the wharf a small flock of Gray-breasted Martins122 twitters above our heads, a Black Vulture51 swings over the tin roofs, the jubilant song of a Guiana House Wren124 reaches our ear, and our Second Search has begun.
To those who seek for wildernesses there is not much of interest in Georgetown, save the museum and the botanical garden. Yet there is no doubt that the city is one of the most attractive in the tropics, and when the inhabitants are aroused to a sense of the opportunities which they are throwing away, it will become a famous tourist resort; awakening the country to new life and bringing shekels to the coffers of its merchants. Hotels and mosquitoes are the two keys to the situation—the one to be acquired, the other banished. When this is done, the many popular winter resorts will be hard put to it to retain their lucrative migrants from the North. The inhabitants of Georgetown have one regrettable failing—an unreasoning fear and dread of their own country. They cling to their narrow strip of coastal territory, where they work and play, live and die, many of them without ever having been five miles away from the sea. The majority of the inhabitants of French Guiana are convicts, chained for life to their prisons; here the good people of British Guiana bind themselves with imaginary bonds and picture their wonderful land as teeming with serpents and heaven-knows-what other terrors.
Fig. 57. Street in Georgetown.
Another unfortunate failing is the firm conviction of some of the influential citizens that there is no truth in the mosquito theory as a cause of malaria and yellow fever.
A distinguished English scientist, recently sent to investigate yellow fever in Barbados and British Guiana, was holding up as an example to the citizens of Georgetown the Barbadian custom of keeping fishes in their water cisterns; explaining that the fishes devoured the mosquito larvæ and thus kept down the number of mosquitoes. A Barbadian who chanced to be in the audience interrupted the scientist by saying, “Oh, but that is not the reason they put fishes in the cisterns. It is to make sure the water has not been poisoned by some enemy”!
Until the mosquito is exterminated in Georgetown the tourist will prefer to go elsewhere, even though that be to a less beautiful spot.
Fig. 58. Kiskadee Tyrant Flycatcher.
We were advised to spend all our time in Georgetown, where we might drink pink swizzles (than which no worse medicine exists!) or read in the cool library, or study the natural history of the country impaled on pins or stuffed with cotton (both of which are improving occupations but can be done quite as well in New York). Every moment spent in streets of human making seemed sacrilege when the real wilderness—the wilderness of Waterton, of Schomburgk and of im Thurn—beckoned to us just beyond.
Armed with proper letters of introduction and travelling in the name of science, one is treated with all courtesy by Guiana officials. The customs give no trouble, save that one pays a deposit of twelve per cent on cameras, guns and cartridges.
We were glad to find that the most difficult privilege to obtain is a permit to collect birds, and the very stringent laws in this respect are an honor to the Governor and his colonial officials.[C] Thanks to the absence of the plume and general millinery hunter, the game hog and the wholesale collector, birds are abundant and tame. We were in the colony just two months and shot only about one hundred specimens, all of which were secured because of some special interest. We brought home some two hundred and eighty live birds which are now housed in the New York Zoölogical Park.
Once off the single wharf-lined, business street of Georgetown, one is instantly struck by the beauty of the place. Green trees, flowering vines and shrubs are everywhere, half hiding the ugly, tropical architecture. The streets are all wide, some with gravel walks down the centre, shaded with the graceful saman trees; others with central trenches filled with the beautiful Victoria regia—here a native.
Two species of big Tyrant Flycatchers 101, 103 are the English Sparrows of the city and White-breasted Robins,128 Palm 144 and Silver-beak146 Tanagers perch on the limbs of trees at one’s very window.
Although we are anxious to start on our first expedition into the “bush,” as the primeval forests of the interior are called, yet a week passes very pleasantly in the city itself.
The street life is a passing pageant, full of interest and of the charm of novelty for the Northerner. Carriages roll past in which sit very correctly dressed and typical English women; still others are filled with creoles, some to all appearances perfectly white, others in which the infusion of negro blood is very apparent. Many of the creole women have a certain languid beauty and a good deal of grace and self-possession. The passing of the liveried carriage of the Governor causes a ripple of excitement. It is five o’clock, the fashionable hour for driving, and all these equipages are bound for the sea-wall, where the occupants sit and listen to an excellent band, enjoy the sea breeze and chat with their neighbors about the all-important happenings of the social set of Georgetown; while the pale-faced children dig in the sand or run shrieking with glee from an incoming wave, just as do their rosy contemporaries of the North.
Another picture is the coolie in his loose, white garments and turban and his sinewy, bare, brown legs. He gazes at you as calmly and as unmoved as though you were not. Even the lowest coolie bears about him this unconscious dignity of an ancient race and a civilization that was old when we were but beginning.
Fig. 59. Coolie Woman and Negress.
The coolie women make a vivid spot of color in our pageant—like some glowing tropical flower. Many of them are beautiful in feature and all are graceful in bearing. There never were women who so perfectly understood the art of walking. They swing along erect and lithe with a springing step and perfect coördination of every muscle. Their heavy bracelets and anklets tinkle musically as they move; their gay red and yellow and blue scarfs flutter in the breeze. The poise of their bodies reflects the perfect calm and repose of their smooth, brown faces.
What an antithesis they are to the ponderous old black women who are striding along, with bedraggled skirts gathered up in a roll around their massive waists. They are untidy and slatternly in dress, heavy and awkward in movement in comparison with the straight, slim, coolie women. They are full of loud laughter and talk and song. At every street corner they gather in friendly, jovial groups, while the coolie women are strangely silent and reserved. No wonder that these two races so hate and scorn one another, for in temperament they are as far apart as the poles!
The British Guiana blacks were to us an unending source of interest and amusement. They were always courteous and kindly and most original. Even when swearing at each other their manner was always polite and each anathema ended with a civil “Suh!” Their dialect was at first very difficult to understand, but when our ears became familiar with it we found it singularly attractive. All the a’s are broad, even in such words as bad and man; while the intonation is indescribable, the verbs in a sentence being always emphasized and given a slight rising inflection, as for example, “I have been to Berbice.” An interrogation is often not at all indicated by the form of a question, but merely by the rising inflection, as—“These are nice?” The general effect of their speech is a very musical and distinctive intonation.
Always the irrepressible spirit of the black rises serenely above all the vicissitudes of life. A black woman from Arakaka was sentenced to a month in jail. Upon her return she was welcomed by a crowd of friends, all eager to hear something of that mysterious jail, to which none of them were sure they might not some day go. To their questions “How was it? how was it?” the heroine of the occasion replied with great dignity, “Me chile, dey see I was a lady an’ dey didn’ give me de same work as de other prisoners.” Later, on a trip down the river, the same woman, meeting the magistrate who had sentenced her, proudly remarked, “Now I travel by meself”; her only previous experience in travelling having been under the escort of the police!
Many of the blacks have far advanced cases of elephantiasis. In a five minutes’ walk one will see a half dozen examples of this deadly disease; but it takes more than elephantiasis or jail to sadden the volatile spirits of the negro!
Fig. 60. The Georgetown Sea-wall.
Cosmopolitan as is the street pageant of Georgetown, it is, however, not so much so as that of Port of Spain. The coolies are even more numerous there than here, and in addition to the same sort of English and negro life, there is also an American, Spanish and French element. One hears on all sides the pretty French patois, and the musical Spanish of the South American is a constant delight. This large Spanish and French population make Port of Spain a decidedly Catholic city, and priests and nuns in unfamiliar garbs are always a part of the picture.
It is very hard for us Northerners to realize that the course of a tropical day is much the same the year around. Here is a Georgetown day as we found it in February. At 5.30 A.M. it is still dark and the only sound is an occasional raucous crow from chanticleer. Soon a subdued murmur of sound is heard and this remains unchanged in volume for some time. Then the sunrise gun booms in the distance; a Kiskadee shrieks just outside our window; a score of others answer him; church chimes ring out; noisy coolie carts rattle past; negroes sing, dogs bark; an excellent brass band strikes up a two-step and amid all this pandemonium of sound the sun literally leaps above the horizon and instantly fills the world with brilliant color. The scene changes like magic; there is no dawn or dusk, night gives place to day without intermission. The temperature morning and evening is about 76°.
Woven amid all the harsh cries of Kiskadees and Tanagers is heard the sweet warbling of the little House Wrens, reminding us of our singers of the North, and bubbling over with the same crisp, vocal vitality which we hear in early Spring in our own country.
Like the morning, the tropical day itself is one of extremes. The morning dawns fresh and bracing; until nine o’clock one walks briskly, breathes deeply and can hardly realize that he is at sea-level within seven degrees of the equator. It is April and May in the calendar of one’s feelings. Then for an hour or two June reigns, and finally from eleven to five o’clock in the afternoon it is hot, sultry August. In the shade, however, it is always comfortable. From three o’clock on we experience the coolness of October and until darkness shuts suddenly down about half-past six—like the snuffing out of a candle—the temperature is perfect. The nights are delightfully cool. Mosquitoes are bad only in the houses and at night one’s net is a protection. The humidity is high but it is far more bearable than that of a summer in New York City, contrary to our usual idea of the tropics.
The manner of rain in the tropics is peculiar: the atmosphere may be ablaze with brilliant sunshine, when a slight haze appears in the air and suddenly one realizes that a fine gentle rain is falling. This may cease as imperceptibly as it began, or increase to a terrific downpour—to give place perhaps a few minutes later to the clear tropic glare again.
Before taking leave of Georgetown we must mention the three chief points of attraction. The sea-wall comes first and, as we have said, a most pleasant custom of the natives is to drive there in late afternoon and sit in their carriages. The concrete break-water is of vital importance to the town itself as a portion of the streets are below sea-level. The broad summit forms a mile or more of promenade, with a sandy beach on one side, lapped with waves which strive ever to break, but cannot because of the thick sediment which they hold in suspense. On the other side a double row of tall, graceful palms adds a touch of tropical beauty.
The residences near the sea-wall are the coolest and most pleasant in the town and are practically free from mosquitoes. We spent more than one delightful evening in the garden at Kitty Villa as the guests of our charming American friends, Mr. and Mrs. Howell. From the open, veranda-like rooms one may watch the Yellow Orioles,159 the Brown-breasted Pygmy Grosbeaks,129 the Anis and Kiskadees going to roost. Just before dusk scores of the small Black Vultures51 appear, flying singly, or in twos and threes low over the trees and palms westward to some general roost. About this time the bats and the lightning bugs arrive, large numbers of very tiny bats hawking about after insects, and several large fruit-eaters with wings spreading almost two feet across. These haunt the fruit-laden sapadillo trees, and as the method of feeding of these curious creatures does not seem to be generally known we watch it with interest. One of the big fellows flits here and there, nipping first one fruit and then another. At last when a sweet or fully ripe one is found, the bat swoops up to it, alights head downward, and half enveloping it with his wings, bites away frantically for two or three seconds and then dashes off. This is repeated until darkness settles down, but never does the wary bat linger over his feast.
In the north the sight of a single bat darting along on its eccentric way is not uncommon, but here we were soon to become accustomed to the sight of scores, some pursuing insects, or feeding on fruits, or waiting and watching for a chance to drink the blood of men and animals. More than twenty-five species have been found here within a few miles of the coast. Small Owls and nocturnal insectivorous birds are somewhat rare, and thus the bats have few foes and little competition in their aërial life.
Late in the evening as we drive slowly homeward from the sea-wall we discover another interesting microcosm of the tropics. The road is well lighted with arc-lamps—sources of irresistible attraction to numberless insects, many of which drop stunned to the earth beneath. Some genius among the Georgetown toads has discovered this fact and passed the word along, until now one finds a circle of expectant amphibians squatted beneath each arc-light, with eyes and hopes lifted to the shining globe overhead. Now and then an unfortunate insect falls within the magic circle, when a toad leaps lazily forward and devours the morsel with one lightning-like flick of the tongue. Many of these toads (Bufo agua) are enormous fellows, a good hatful, standing full eight inches from their pudgy toes to their staring eyes, all comical, dignified, fat and sluggish, barely hopping aside in time to avoid the horse and carriage.
Fig. 61.
To a visiting naturalist the museum is the place of greatest interest, and although the animals and birds are faded and poorly mounted, yet they are representative of the fauna of the country and are hence of great value in accustoming one’s eyes to the strange forms of life. The present Curator, Mr. James Rodway, did everything in his power to aid us, and we are indebted to him for many kindnesses. Although he is primarily a botanist, entomology occupies his attention at present, and the supply of species of the various orders of insects living in this region seems well-nigh inexhaustible. Mr. Rodway is a good example of the healthfulness of British Guiana, for he has lived there thirty-nine years and has been ill only one day. He accounts for this by his teetotalism, but perhaps the next person we meet will inform us that a half dozen swizzles a day are absolutely necessary to keep the breath of life within the body!
Fig. 62.
The Botanical Gardens, under the able direction of Prof. J. B. Harrison, are a great credit to the colony. With beautiful vistas of palms and ornamental shrubs they combine smooth expanses of green lawns—a rare feature in a tropical landscape. Ponds and ditches are filled with Victoria regia and lotus, save one where a number of manatees keep the aquatic vegetation cropped close. A wonderful palm was in blossom at the time of our visit—a Taliput with a mass of bloom twelve feet in height which had begun to flower the month before. Governor Hodgson and Prof. Harrison gave us the freedom of the garden and placed at our disposal five circular aviaries which proved of inestimable value in housing the living birds which we were able to secure.
Fig. 63. Victoria Regia in the Botanical Gardens.
Here Mr. Lee S. Crandall, our assistant, made his trapping headquarters after our return from our first inland expedition and here we spent many afternoons among the fields and bypaths.
We soon found that bird-trapping in the tropics is a task beset by many difficulties. The extreme heat between the hours of ten and four o’clock make even the “tackiest” lime nearly as thin as water, and hardly capable of holding even the diminutive “doctor-bird” as the natives call the Hummingbirds. The call-birds, which are confined in very small cages, or cribs, cannot endure the high temperature under these conditions, and soon succumb if left out in the sun. Operations, therefore, must be confined to the few hours immediately following sunrise, and preceding sunset.
Another feature, very trying to the bird-catcher, is the habit which most of the birds have of going singly or in pairs. A few of the Ictcrine birds, such as the Yellow-headed Blackbird,154 Cowbird,153 Little Boat-tailed Grackle,160 and most of the Cassiques, feed usually in flocks, sometimes of great size. In the deep bush of the interior it is the habit of birds of many species to search together for food, following a set route, and keeping closely to their time schedule. But ordinary call-birds and “set-ups” are not for these.
Fig. 64. Lotus in Blossom.
This gregarious habit among widely varying birds is, however, at times, a great aid to the trapper. A cage containing a Yellow-bellied Calliste142 was one day placed in a tree about twenty feet high, and limed twigs arranged on neighboring branches. In two hours in the morning, two specimens of the same species, three Blue Tanagers,143 two Black-faced Callistes,141 two Toua-touas or Brown-breasted Pygmy Grosbeaks,129 and one Yellow Oriole159 were taken. The various species of Tanagers and Orioles are much more gregarious in feeding habits than the Finches, hence the variety caught. The Toua-touas were purely accidental visitors. The Finches can rarely be taken by a call-bird not of the same species.
The black or coolie boy who makes his living at catching birds at “tuppence” each, sets out at daylight with his two or three call-birds in their cribs, arranged on a stick. Arrived at some secluded spot, where he has heard the song of an intended victim, he sets his call-birds on upright sticks of two or three feet in length and places on the top of each cage a strong wire, heavily smeared with the gum of the sapadillo. This wire is very carefully twisted so that it cannot by any possibility become loosened. This is, of course, contrary to the ethics of all good bird-catchers, for if the bird falls to the ground with its stick, it is much more certain to be secured, and less liable to injure itself. However, this is British Guiana.
Having made his “set-up,” the youth steals softly back and conceals himself a short distance away. As soon as left to themselves, the birds, if they be experienced, commence their song. Soon, an answering call is heard. Instantly the decoys cease their song, and send forth their sharp call-notes. Soon the curious stranger appears, perhaps a fine adult male, full of eagerness for a battle. If this be the case the songs are again resumed, and the climax of the concert is almost certain to be the capture of the challenger. If the visitor be a coy female, the seductive call-notes are continued, and, though the time required may be greater, she is nearly as certain to be captured. Callow youngsters out for their first exploring trip, are of course the easiest victims. But when the trapper has taken a bird or two from this locality he must move on or give up for the day, for he will take no more.
Fig. 65. Taliput Palm in Blossom.
The trapping methods of these people are, of course, very primitive. They know nothing of clap-nets; they laugh at the idea of catching birds with an Owl, as practised successfully in the North. A black boy will bend his gummed wire securely on a likely twig, and lie all day on his back in the shade, hoping that a bird may light on it. Birds to whose capture they are not equal are very apt to be “licked”—stunned by a bullet from a sling-shot—and foisted on the unwary purchaser. These unfortunates, of course, rarely live more than a day or two.
No regard is shown for nesting birds or nestlings. Cassiques and Orioles are captured by adjusting a string about the mouth of the long pendulous nest, and closing it tightly when the bird has entered to hover its eggs. In two instances, a black boy was seen to capture the female from her nest, by creeping up and dropping his hat over her.
Some use is made of primitive trap-cages, which are baited with plantain or sliced mangoes. Tanagers or “sackies” and various Orioles are taken in this manner.
These simple people have, of course, no knowledge whatever of proper food for insectivorous or frugivorous birds. Various fruits, preferably plantain, are used, and it is truly surprising how long some individuals will survive on this too acid food. Mr. Howie King, Government Agent of the Northwest District, actually kept a specimen of the Yellow Oriole159 for over seven years on a strictly fruit diet!
Birds and other creatures were very abundant and tame in the Botanical Gardens. Guiana Green Herons38 or “Shypooks” as the coolies call them, Spur-winged Jacanas23 and Gallinules13 walked here and there, the latter leading their dark-hued young over the Regia pads. Small crocodiles basked half out of the water, none over three feet in length, as abundant as turtles in a northern mill-pond. Several huge water buffalo, imported from the East Indies, looked strangely out of place in this hemisphere. Butterflies were scarce although a great variety of flowers were in profusion everywhere.
Fig. 66. Canal of the Crocodiles.
April seems to be the height of the breeding season for many birds. In one tree we found two wasps’ nests, and nests with eggs or young of the following six species of birds; the Red-winged Ground Dove,9 the Great101 and Lesser103 Kiskadees, White-shouldered Ground Fly-catcher or “Cotton-bird,”97 Gray Tody-flycatcher or “Pipitoori”99 and Cinereus Becard.114
Chestnut Cuckoos of two species,77, 78 all four Kiskadees,101, 103, 104, 106 Caracaras,53 Black-faced Tanagers or “Bucktown Sackies,”141 Woodhewers, Elanias100 and other Flycatchers are a few among many birds which we were sure of seeing on every walk, while Anis, both great79 and small80 were everywhere.
The Botanical Gardens are ideal for experimental botanical work and sugar cane in scores of varieties is being kept under observation. It is hard to believe that the delicate grass which we see springing up in the ditched fields will grow into the lofty and waving stalks of sugar cane. It is exceedingly variable and should afford excellent material for experimental study. The original yellow-stalked cane develops red and purple streaks in many combinations, due apparently to difference in soils. Cane sent to Louisiana will, within twelve years, produce much larger nodes owing to the plant having to fruit in six months instead of eleven or twelve. The stalk, however, does not gain correspondingly in diameter; so there is no increase in sugar capacity. Tropical plants can in many cases adapt themselves to shorter, northern summers, but temperate perennials soon die in the tropics from exhaustion, lacking their annual period of rest.
The climatic conditions along the coast of British Guiana are peculiar, in that they simulate conditions usually existing at an altitude of two or three thousand feet. One result of this is seen in the flourishing tree-ferns planted in the Botanical Gardens.
Insects were not particularly abundant in Georgetown, that is, for a tropical country. One day Mr. Rodway, with his accustomed kindness, brought us two very interesting chrysalids of the swallow-tailed butterfly, Papilio polydamus, illustrating the remarkable color variation in this species. Both were found in his yard, a few feet from each other, one suspended among green leaves and the other on a wooden stairway which was painted a brick-red. One of the chrysalids was leaf-green in color while the other was brown with brick-red trimmings!
Fig. 67. Young Elania Flycatchers.
There was one remarkable exception to the scarcity of insects in Georgetown. Late in February, a moth-like Homopterus insect, Poeciloptera phalaenoides, was present in enormous numbers on the Saman trees which line many of the streets. The largest individuals had wings almost an inch in length of a light cream color, covered for about half their expanse with two masses of black dots. These were the males. The females were wingless and their bodies were covered with a long dense cottony secretion. The eggs and larvæ which lined thousands of the twigs were also protected by this white material. One could hardly walk without crushing these insects, so numerous were they. The only birds we observed feeding on them were Anis and domestic fowls.
The middle of April found these insects as abundant as ever, still hatching in myriads, but by the 22d of the month the broods on the main streets seemed to be diminishing, although the hordes infesting the trees at the entrance of the Botanical Gardens were on the increase. Noticing that there seemed to be interesting nodes of variation in the number and patterns of the dots on the wings of the males, we set a Coolie boy to gathering them for future study and he soon had a thousand or more in a jar of alcohol.