me so forcibly as now. Gazing up at a dim picture of informal
construction, interlaced and blended with the trunks, boughs and foliage
of the overarching palms I saw at a glance the key-note of the life
of this simple people--_absence of labor_.

The houses,--nests, were the better word--were formed by a most naive
adaptation of natural surroundings to natural needs. The curving fronds
of the towering coco-palms and panjandrus had been interlaced; and
nature did the rest, the gigantic leaves interweaving, blending,
over-lapping, meeting in a passionate and successful desire to form
a roof, proof alike against sun and rain. Some ten feet below this and
an equal distance from the ground the tendrils of the _eva-eva_ vine had
been led from tree to tree, the subordinate fibres and palpitating
feelers quickly knitting themselves into a floor with all the hygienic
properties and tensile strength of linen-mesh.

Access to these apartments was something of a puzzle until, to instruct
us, a tall Filbert, who was evidently to be our neighbor, approached
a nearby dwelling and, seizing a pendent halyard of _eva-eva_, gently
but firmly pulled down the floor to a convenient level, vaulted into the
hammock-like depression and was immediately snapped into privacy. From
below we could see the imprint of his form rolling toward the center of
his living-room and then the depressions of his feet as he proceeded to
lurch about his dwelling.

It was now mid-afternoon; we were hot, tired, and, though we did not
know it, mildly intoxicated by the inhalations of alova which we had
absorbed during our journey. I looked forward eagerly to getting
up-stairs, so to speak, and taking a sound nap. One thing only deterred
me; I was thirsty.