[Illustration: FIG. 52. A PALM-SHEATH ROCKING TOY.] The negroes from the Pitch Lake always came down on Saturday nights and serenaded us with wild Creole airs, and at the sound of the quaterns and violins huge hairy tarantulas would come forth from their hiding-places in our rooms and creep briskly here and there over walls and floor. We were greatly interested in this effect of the vibrations of sound, but we never bothered the great creatures in their strange “tarentelles,” and they paid no attention to us. The venomous effect of the bites of all these eight or hundred-legged beings is greatly exaggerated, and there is absolutely no serious danger to a healthy person with good red blood in his veins; in some of the half-starved, rum-drinking natives the scratch of a pin would induce blood-poisoning. Labor was easily secured in Guanoco. The morning after our arrival we expressed a wish to employ a boy to act as attendant, carrying camera, gun, butterfly net, etc., when we went on our long tramps. One of the young men at headquarters went to the door and called “_muchacho_,” and at once a small boy appeared. I should have judged his age to be between eleven and twelve; but he himself did not know. He said his grandmother was “keeping his age.” A charming idea is that Venezuelan custom of having some responsible member of the family keep all the ages. Think of being able to say truthfully that you really do not know how old you are! But then a Venezuelan woman never confesses to more than twenty-seven, no matter what may have been the flight of time. Our small servant’s name proved to be Maximiliano Romero, and with supreme self possession, boldly spitting to the right and left, he professed himself willing to enter our service. Like a true Venezuelan he used expectoration to punctuate all his remarks. What a quaint little figure he was, topped by a huge straw hat with a high peaked crown; the hat the work of the little brown hands of Max himself, for he was a hat-maker by profession. His face was alert but very grave. He rarely smiled, but when he did it was in no half-hearted way, but with an abandon of childish glee. I found myself devoting a good deal of valuable time to trying to bring into being that charming smile of Maximiliano’s. One never knew just what would touch the right chord. Once he went off into gales of merriment at the escape of a lizard which we were trying to photograph. He always saw the funny side of our mishaps. [Illustration: FIG. 53. SHEATH IN FIG. 52, COVERING THE FLOWER OF A PALM.]