In the broad open hall were comfortable rocking chairs, in striking contrast to the sloop on which we had taken turns sitting on the one stool which the little craft possessed. In the _patio_ was a table laid for dinner—with a big black Trinidad negro bringing in steaming dishes. There is no hospitality anywhere quite equal to that of the wilderness. Your host does not arrange your visit from the Saturday to the Monday, fitting you in between a multitude of other engagements. A wilderness welcome is as genial and inevitable as the tropical sunshine. Your visit is an event—a mile-stone in the long road of lonely months of exile—months which sometimes lengthen into years. Our very interesting friend Mr. Eugene André of Trinidad told us that on one of his many orchid-hunting expeditions he had chanced to land at a certain God-forsaken little port on the west coast of Colombia. Mr. André had wondered why the fare to this port from Panama should be $30—while the return passage was $100. The problem was solved after he had seen the port—desolate, barren, inaccessible and fever and insect ridden—one might be induced to pay $30 to get there provided one knew not what manner of place it was. But to get away—one would pay any sum and gladly. So it is that the little coastwise steamboat company calmly demands $100 to return the unfortunate traveller to Panama—and _gets_ it. At this forlorn spot there were stationed two young men, I forget now in what capacity, who for many months had not seen an intelligent human being. Into the empty monotony of their lives, Mr. André appeared. It mattered not to those lonely young men who he was, nor where he came from. His welcome was—“Stay with us. Stay a year—or ten years. We know all about each other. We’ve talked about everything until there is nothing left to say—we even know how much sugar we each like in our tea and who our great grandmothers were, and who we think wrote Shakespeare’s plays;—and we are so bored and so glad to see a new face.” Thus it is that everywhere in the South American wilderness the English-speaking stranger is made welcome by his kind, and we found Guanoco no exception to this rule. The pretty Spanish greeting is—“The house is yours” and during our stay at the Pitch Lake, the headquarters became really ours. We were given the best room; the servants were put at our disposal: and best of all we were perfectly free to come and go as we pleased; and with everything done to facilitate our work. All this we owed also to the instructions of Mr. Ellis Grell, who was then financing the Pitch Lake Company and to the kindness of Mr. Lynch and Mr. Stoute, two young West Indians employed by the company. [Illustration: FIG. 48. DIGGING OUT THE BLACK, WAXLIKE PITCH.]