g jungle, nor the white-pine
beams which had known many decades of snowy winters--none of these
were obtrusive. The first had passed into oblivion, the second had
been seasoned by sun and rain, papered by lichens, and gnawed and
bored by tiny wood-folk into a neutral inconspicuousness as complete
as an Indian's deserted _benab_. The wide verandah was open on all
sides, and from the bamboos of the front compound one looked straight
through the central hall-way to bamboos at the back. It seemed like a
happy accident of the natural surroundings, a jungle-bound cave, or
the low rambling chambers of a mighty hollow tree.

No thought of who had been here last came to us that first evening. We
unlimbered the creaky-legged cots, stiff and complaining after their
three years' rest, and the air was filled with the clean odor of
micaceous showers of naphthalene from long-packed pillows and sheets.
From the rear came the clatter of plates, the scent of ripe papaws and
bananas, mingled with the smell of the first fire in a new stove. Then
I went out and sat on my own twelve-foot bank, looking down on the
sandy beach and out and over to the most beautiful view in the
Guianas. Down from the right swept slowly the Mazaruni, and from the
left the Cuyuni, mingling with one wide expanse like a great rounded
lake, bounded by solid jungle, with only Kalacoon and the Penal
Settlement as tiny breaks in the wall of green.

The tide was falling, and as I sat watching the light grow dim, the
water receded slowly, and strange little things floated past
downstream. And I thought of the no less real human tide which long
years ago had flowed to my very feet and then ebbed, leaving, as drift
is left upon the sand, the convicts, a few scattered Indians, and
myself. In the peace and quiet of this evening, time seemed a thing of
no especial account. The great jungle trees might always have been
lifeless emerald water-barriers, rather than things of a few
centuries' growth; the ripple-less water bore with equal disregard the
last mora seed which floated past, as it had held aloft the keel of an
unknown Spanish ship three centuries before. These men came up-river
and landed on a little island a few hundred yards from Kartabo. Here
they built a low stone wall, lost a few buttons, coins, and bullets,
and vanished. Then came the Dutch in sturdy ships, cleared the islet
of everything except the Spanish wall, and built them a jolly little
fort intended to c