om the earth with steady rapidity, and almost before
you are aware of it, has gained the cradled and embowered nest of nuts,
and with boisterous glee flings the fruit to the ground.

This mode of walking the tree is only practicable where the trunk
declines considerably from the perpendicular. This, however, is almost
always the case; some of the perfectly straight shafts of the trees
leaning at an angle of thirty degrees.

The less active among the men, and many of the children of the valley
have another method of climbing. They take a broad and stout piece of
bark, and secure each end of it to their ankles, so that when the feet
thus confined are extended apart, a space of little more than twelve
inches is left between them. This contrivance greatly facilitates
the act of climbing. The band pressed against the tree, and closely
embracing it, yields a pretty firm support; while with the arms clasped
about the trunk, and at regular intervals sustaining the body, the feet
are drawn up nearly a yard at a time, and a corresponding elevation of
the hands immediately succeeds. In this way I have seen little children,
scarcely five years of age, fearlessly climbing the slender pole of
a young cocoanut tree, and while hanging perhaps fifty feet from the
ground, receiving the plaudits of their parents beneath, who clapped
their hands, and encouraged them to mount still higher.

What, thought I, on first witnessing one of these exhibitions, would
the nervous mothers of America and England say to a similar display of
hardihood in any of their children? The Lacedemonian nation might have
approved of it, but most modern dames would have gone into hysterics at
the sight.

At the top of the cocoanut tree the numerous branches, radiating on
all sides from a common centre, form a sort of green and waving
basket, between the leaflets of which you just discern the nuts thickly
clustering together, and on the loftier trees looking no bigger from
the ground than bunches of grapes. I remember one adventurous little
fellow--Too-Too was the rascal's name--who had built himself a sort of
aerial baby-house in the picturesque tuft of a tree adjoining Marheyo's
habitation. He used to spend hours there,--rustling among the branches,
and shouting with delight every time the strong gusts of wind rushing
down from the mountain side, swayed to and fro the tall and flexible
column on which he was perched. Whenever I heard Too-Too's musical voice
so