Architecture is said to express deeply the inner characteristics of a people, a statement I am glad to corroborate. But never had it struck me so forcibly as now. Gazing up at a dim picture of informal construction, interlaced and blended with the trunks, boughs and foliage of the overarching palms I saw at a glance the key-note of the life of this simple people--_absence of labor_. The houses,--nests, were the better word--were formed by a most naive adaptation of natural surroundings to natural needs. The curving fronds of the towering coco-palms and panjandrus had been interlaced; and nature did the rest, the gigantic leaves interweaving, blending, over-lapping, meeting in a passionate and successful desire to form a roof, proof alike against sun and rain. Some ten feet below this and an equal distance from the ground the tendrils of the _eva-eva_ vine had been led from tree to tree, the subordinate fibres and palpitating feelers quickly knitting themselves into a floor with all the hygienic properties and tensile strength of linen-mesh. Access to these apartments was something of a puzzle until, to instruct us, a tall Filbert, who was evidently to be our neighbor, approached a nearby dwelling and, seizing a pendent halyard of _eva-eva_, gently but firmly pulled down the floor to a convenient level, vaulted into the hammock-like depression and was immediately snapped into privacy. From below we could see the imprint of his form rolling toward the center of his living-room and then the depressions of his feet as he proceeded to lurch about his dwelling. It was now mid-afternoon; we were hot, tired, and, though we did not know it, mildly intoxicated by the inhalations of alova which we had absorbed during our journey. I looked forward eagerly to getting up-stairs, so to speak, and taking a sound nap. One thing only deterred me; I was thirsty. [Illustration: Walter E. Traprock, F.R.S.S.E.U.] [Illustration Note: WALTER E. TRAPROCK, F.R.S.S.E.U.