The Republican journal., 1902-04-24

of the soil. They grow everywhere,
hap-hazard and apparently without
cultivation, unprotected by fences or
hedges, and so plentiful that nobody
misses the comparatively few that
tourists and thieving negroes appropri-
ate. Here. too, tourishes the weed.
Bixa orellana, locally known as
"Roucou,' whose pulp is the annette
Holland to color cheese, as it used to
be the fashion in this part of the world
to color human flesh with it. The
Orinoco Indians and many of the
aboriginal island tribes wore no clothes.
but "roucoued' themselves from top TO
toe.
The miie-long highway between land
ing and lake is bordered on one side
with palm-thatched huts, each with its
pine apple garden and grove of orange
trees; and on the other side the bush. "
as it IS called-an impenetrable jungle
OF dwarf caSheW-nut trees covered with
creepers. agIoW with scarlet, golden
and purple tloWers-stretches to the
dark forest. AS you advance up the
slope, the odor of pitch becomes more
powerful and the vegetation poorer
till the whole earth. far as you can see,
looks like an asphalt pavement. half
OyergroWn with weeds whose roots feed
III the surface-poOls into which pedes-
trians continually stumble, ankle-deep,
the water being hidden under a film of
brown pitch-dust. The lake does not
lie III depression, as one would sup
pose, but at the top of the rise, where
the ground slopes away from it on two
sides. 1t has an area of about a
hundred acres. and an undiscovered
depth, which may go clear through to
China on the other side of the globe.
AT any rate it has been continually
mined for years, by several companies,
at the average rate of 500. 600 tons of
asphalt per annum: and it is Just as
high today as when the first digger be-
gan, At the first glance, it looks like
any other woodland lake, containing
water instead of pitch. The borders
are covered with tufts of grass. or
rushes, with heavier fringes of palms,
and other trees in places: and in the
middle are several wooded islands.
But the illusion is Immediately dispell-
ed by the color and consistency of this
Stygian pool, whose black surface,
glittering like polished ebony in the
sun, is nearly everywhere strong
enough to bear your Weight-hard and
cold on the edges, growing softer and
hotter toward the centre. The whole
surface is broken by innumerable clefts
and assures, where the pitch-which
evidently oozes up from various centres
has failed to unite in one compact
mass. These assures vary from few
inches to several yards in extent and
depth, and are filed with clear, fresh
water, in which are small, ugly-looking
fish. You set out to walk across this
mysterious lake. at first with more
trepdation than swamped the Apostle;
but gradually acquire confidence, as
nothing uncanny happens. Some of
the tissues you can easily jump across:
Others are bridged by planks: and over
the deeper and more dangerous ones
you are carried bodily by the guides
BY and bV YOU reach .'the islands " and
find them small, semi-fertile oases n a
desert of pitch, as curious and un-
accountable as any other part of the
place. They are covered, with thick,
low shrub and deep hedge, and inhabit-
ed by myriads or penguins and other
birds.
Beyond the islands you come to the
so-called VOLCANOES, which are merely
hillocks of pitch, two or three feet
high, with small opening in the centre
from which Ooze pitch in fluid state,
together with an evil odor of petroleum
and sulphurated hydrogen combined,
which impels you to hurry on. All the
water-channels, too, are covered with
sulphuric foam, out of which bubbles
OF vile-smelling gas arise. The water
is always warm and at times, during
the middle of the day attains temper
ature high as 14O degrees F.; yet the fish
thrive and grow in it. The clear, warm
pools are used for laundry purposes,
and throughout the dry season peonle