The last blog entry introduced this new magazine(source) to the publications that Hyatt Verrill wrote for. He
was still a teen when he first travelled to Dominica, and we know he visited the island at least three times. His first visit was
before 1900 and from the visit in
1948, we know that he wanted to ‘retire’ to Dominica. He presented two
paintings to the library. We gifted the Library in Dominica with four books from our
collection./drf
By
A. Hyatt Verrill
Everyland magazine, September, 1916. Digitized by Doug
Frizzle Dec. 2011.
This is the last of the
Béche stories—for Béche
has grown up. The earlier stories in this series appeared in January and March,
1915.
SEVERAL years had passed
since Béche the Carib boy had flown
his leaf kites, sailed his palm boats, and caught his first fish. He had grown
and had learned much. No longer was he afraid to go fishing with his father, but every day sailed far out to sea in the canoe. In fact, for a boy he was noted as a
fisherman, and his father promised
that soon they would go into the forest and cut down a gommier tree to
make a canoe for Béche's own. Béche loved the
woods and often he borrowed his father's
old muzzle-loading gun and wandered through the
forest in search of parrots, ramiers (wild pigeons), and agoutis (a
small brown animal like a large guinea-pig). Béche never tried to kill
anything. Once he had succeeded in killing a great purple ciceroo (a
giant parrot), the wildest and shyest
of game, and wonderfully proud he had felt when he brought it home.
And then
one day a stranger came to the
Caribs' village. He was a white man, and, although Béche had seen many white
men, they were not like the newcomer. All those he had seen before were
British officials or planters, men whose duties or interests brought them to the
out-of-the-way village, and who
thought it a great nuisance, and fumed and fretted and swore at the simple ways and food of the
Indians, and thought them scarcely
better than animals, and who hurried away just as soon as their business was over. But this man was not an
Englishman and he was neither a
magistrate, who wearily fined the
people in the little court, nor a
planter seeking for land, nor an excise officer looking for smugglers. Béche's
father said he was an American, but
this meant nothing to the Carib boy,
for he had never heard of such a country as America. The stranger did not act
like the other
white men, either. He seemed to like
the Indians and ate the food they
offered and lived in the hut given
him, and made no complaint. In the
evenings he would talk with the
Carib men and would listen to their
fairy tales and legends and ask many questions of the
old men and women, some of whom still spoke the
language of their ancestors. Béche
often saw the man take a queer
package of white sheets from his pocket and make marks upon these with a pointed stick, and this interested the Carib boy greatly. He wondered if it were some
sort of witchcraft or magic, and then
one day the white man saw the Carib boy watching and tried to explain what he
was doing. He told Béche he was writing, and then
he pointed to one of the marked
sheets and repeated a story Béche's uncle had told several days before; but Béche
couldn't understand that the man was
making notes or reading what he had written, for he had never heard of such
things before. Then the man laughed
and with his pointed stick made a few lines and Béche was almost frightened, he
was so surprised, for there on the paper was the
little village, with the canoes
drawn upon the beach, the waving palms, and the
high mountain beyond. Béche looked at the
picture a moment and then ran out
and stared about to see if the palms
and mountains and canoes were still there,
for he thought it must be "obi" and that the
stranger had really made all the
things about go on the paper. Then he
surprised Béche still more by drawing a picture of Béche himself and of his old
father and mother,
and the Indian boy stood spellbound while the white
man covered sheets of paper with
birds, and trees and fishes. To Béche these
were very wonderful, and, when the man gave the
pictures to him and he might have them,
the little Carib felt very rich and proud. Then the white man handed the
boy the
paper and pencil and told him to make a picture, and Béche,
very shy and nervous, tried to draw a picture of the
white man, and when it was done his new friend roared with laughter to see how
funny he looked in the Indian boy's
eyes, and Béche tried to explain that he didn't really look like that and that the triangular body and long crooked legs and skinny
arms and round eyes and three-cornered head and huge ears were not at all like the white man's, but just "made themselves" that way on the
paper.
But these
were not half as interesting as some of the
things the stranger had and did. He
had guns,—wonderful shining guns, not at all like those of the Caribs, and, instead of pouring powder and shot
into them, all the stranger had to do was to open the gun and slip in a little bright box; and in a
chest the white man had ever so many
queer and interesting things. There were little knives and scissors and tools
and a funny glass that would make fire when held in the
sun, and more fish-hooks than Béche had ever seen in all his life. There were
cans of powder and bags of shot and papers of pins and dozens of needles and
spools of thread and many other
objects Béche had never seen or heard of, and the
Carib boy thought the stranger must
be very rich indeed to have all these
things. When he saw Béche looking longingly at the
fish-hooks and the powder and shot,
he gave the boy a full dozen of the hooks and a whole bag of shot and enough powder
to last for months, and Béche was so glad and grateful and thought the stranger such a wonderful man that he vowed
blood-friendship from that moment and followed his new friend about like a dog.
And the stranger did such mysterious
and wonderful things. He could kill the
parrots from the tallest trees, and
could shoot the ramiers as they flew overhead, and this was so marvelous to the Carib boy that he almost worshiped the stranger and looked upon him in awe as a
superior sort of being.
But after he had shot the birds he didn't pick off the
feathers and then
cook their bodies. Instead he used
his bright little scissors and knives and took the
skins off, feathers and all, and
filled them with cotton and placed them in little paper wrappers in a chest, for this
white man was a naturalist, and had gone to the
Carib village to collect the rare
birds and other creatures in the woods. But of course Béche had never heard of a
naturalist, and he couldn't understand why any one should want birds except for
food. Then he saw the stranger
catching bugs and beetles and butterflies, and he wondered still more. He knew
that some bugs were good to eat; many a time he had eaten the roasted grubs from the
palm trees which are called groo-groo-worms, but he had never known any one to
eat beetles or butterflies. But the
white man put all these away in
papers or bottles, and, although Béche was puzzled, he realized that the stranger wished all these
live creatures for some reason of his own, and so, as he wished to please his
new friend, he too began to gather
all the insects his sharp eyes saw,
and these he brought carefully to
his friend.
The white man seemed greatly
pleased and he patted Béche on the
shoulder and thanked him, and then
he reached in his pocket and handed the
Carib boy a big, round, shining two-shilling piece. Béche could scarcely
believe his eyes. He never had had anything but a copper penny before, and here
were two shillings! Presently the
white man asked the boy what he
would do with his money. Béche thought a long time. There were so many
wonderful things he wanted, and so much could be bought with all this wealth,
he was sure, that he could scarcely make up his mind. Then at last he decided
and told his friend he would buy a shiny gun like the
white man's. How the stranger did
laugh at this, but soon he stopped and told the
Carib boy that a gun would cost many times his two shillings. Then Béche
decided he'd buy a wonderful "fire-glass," but this he found could
not be had for two shillings. Then he decided he'd like some of the white sheets and a sharp stick to make pictures.
At this the white man laughed again,
and told Béche he need not spend his money for such things, and, opening his
chest, he drew out two of the
packages of paper and two pencils and gave them
to him. Then, not knowing anything else in the
world to do, Béche ran to his mother
and gave her the two-shilling piece.
This was only the first of many shillings that Béche was to have,
for he brought bugs and insects and birds to his friend, and one day, when he
brought a lovely bird which none of the
Indians had seen save once or twice, the
stranger gave Béche the wonderful
fire-glass. Now a still more wonderful thing happened, for the white man drew pictures on the paper and made strange marks under them. There was a picture of a fish and under it the funny marks like this — "P-E-C-H-E";
and under the picture of a dog, these marks—"C-H-I-E-N". Then the white man made the
same marks without the pictures and
asked Béche what they meant, and
without hesitating the Carib boy
looked at "P-E-C-H-E" and said "Peche," and at
"C-H-I-E-N" and said "Chien," for Béche was learning to
spell and read, without knowing it.
Soon the
boy was able to make the same marks
himself, and he covered sheets of paper with funny pictures marked
"Chien" and "Peche" and other
words he had learned to print. But the
stranger soon began to have troubles he had not foreseen. Béche spoke and
understood nothing but his native Creole patois, and, while this language does
very well when one is speaking, it's quite a different matter when one wants to
write it, and Béche's teacher discovered that names of various objects were
about all he could teach the boy in
this funny tongue. But the teaching
did not cease on that account; and what do you suppose the
stranger did to overcome the
difficulty? Why, he began teaching Béche English! Of course it was slow work,
but it wasn't so hard or slow as you might think. In fact it was quite easy at
first and Béche soon learned the
English names for many things. Under the
word "Peche" the white man
wrote “F-I-S-H," and under "Chien," "D-O-G," and so on
with all the other
pictures; and Béche was wonderfully proud to think he really knew English and
strutted about saying "Dog," "Fish," "Bird,"
"House," and other words
continually.
Béche knew there were such things as books, for often his father and the
other men and women would bring old
newspapers and magazines and catalogs home when they
went to the distant town. But they didn't bring them
to read, or to look at, and you would never guess what they
did use them for. It was to paste upon the walls of their
huts for wall paper! Some of the
houses were quite covered with the
pages, and one day Béche discovered that the
marks on these were exactly like the marks he had learned to make. He was greatly
excited, and went over the papers
inch by inch, and when at last he found the
words “Dog" and "Horse" and "House" and
"Fish" and other words he
knew, he danced and pranced about in perfect joy at his discovery.
The white man told him he was
very bright, and gave him a shilling for his discovery; and for days Béche sat
before the paper on the walls, copying the
words; and then, taking them to his friend, he would ask what they meant.
One day he noticed the white man making marks on paper which were very
different from those he knew, and he asked his friend what the new marks meant. The other
told him they were figures, and that
by them he could tell how many birds
he had shot, how much money he had paid the
Caribs, how many days he had been in the
village, and many other things. Béche
couldn't possibly understand this, for how could little black marks tell things
that even his father must count up
on fingers and toes over and over again? Then the
stranger had a happy thought and sent Béche for a number of small sticks. Then
he seated himself on the floor by Béche's
side, and taking one stick he laid it on the
floor and held up one finger, and made a mark on the
paper like this—1. Then he took two sticks and placed these
on the floor in this position — —
and held up two fingers, and made this mark—2. Then he bent one stick and
placed two others beside it like
this, = <, and, holding up three fingers, made the
figure 3 on paper. In the same way
he made 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 out of sticks, using the
number of pieces the figure
represented in each. It was very interesting to Béche, really a sort of game;
and, with the figures on the paper as a guide, the
boy spent the
whole day making the queer shapes
with the sticks until he learned
that each figure stood for a number. In a few days he had learned to add, for the stranger showed him that by taking the two sticks used in making the
figure 2, and the one stick used for
figure 1, and placing them together, he could make the
figure 3. When Béche grasped the
idea and realized that by drawing the
figure 3 on paper it was just the
same as adding the three sticks together, he fairly shouted with delight.
The stranger had now been at Béche's
village for several weeks, and even the
little naked children who ran away from him at first would clamber about his
knees and would sit on his lap and try to tell him stories in their funny baby patois. The men liked him because
he could hunt and tramp and sail as well as themselves,
or even better. The women liked him because he was so kind to the children and also because he showed them how to do many things more easily and better
than before. And the children liked
him because he frolicked and played with them
and taught them games and made them toys.
At last came the time when the
stranger told the Indians he must
leave them. This made the Caribs very sad and Béche was saddest of them all. Before he left, he gave the Caribs many presents, and the
old chief almost forgot his sorrow at losing his guest in the joy at the
gun and other useful things the white man gave him.
Perhaps you think that Béche
continued to study and went to school and learned to read books and became a great
man among the Caribs. Of course,
that's the way all good stories
should end, and I wish I could say that he did, but I'm sorry to admit that
nothing of the sort happened. There
was no school near, where Béche could go; he had no one to teach him, and he
soon found that it was very tire-some, copying the
letters and figures from the
wall-paper without knowing what they
meant; but he never forgot what the
stranger had taught him and he always hoped tht some day his white-man friend
would return.
All this happened many years
ago, and when at last the stranger
did go back to Béche's island home he found wonderful changes had taken place.
There was a school at the village;
white men had plantations and estates all about; many of the
Caribs lived in board houses; and Béche had grown into a big, strong man, with
a house and garden of his own, and with a wife and a whole flock of little Béches
and their brown sisters. But big Béche
knew his old friend just as soon as he saw him, and wonderfully happy he was to
meet him again after so many years. After the
excitement of the first greeting was
over, Béche hunted about in his basket trunk and away down in the bottom found a little package. It was very
carefully tied up in dry plantain leaves and rawhide, and what do you suppose
was inside? The very first picture Béche had ever made, —the
funny, ugly, misshapen picture of the
white man himself!
Some Very Strange Plants
By A. Hyatt Verrill
Everyland Nature Club
IF you were walking through the woods and were very, very thirsty, what would
you do for a drink? Why, you'd find a spring or a brook, you say. Of course, if
there was a spring or brook near,
you might, but suppose there was not
a drop of clear, cool water to be found! In the
north you might go thirsty for a very long time, but if you were in the tropics, or at least in some parts of the tropics, you could get a nice, refreshing drink
of water from some of the plants
growing all about you.
This may seem very strange,
but there are many strange things in
nature and some of the strangest are
plants.
In nearly all tropical
forests the trees are covered with
hanging vines known as lianas. These are very useful things, although they are a great nuisance when traveling through the forests, for they
are of all sizes, from tiny threads to huge ropes, and they
are tangled and knotted and twisted together
like a perfect network.
They are very strong, and the people where they
are found use them for ropes and
lines and call them "bush
ropes." One kind is used to make rattan, and if you examine the ends of a piece of rattan you will see a number
of tiny holes. These are really the
ends of little tubes which extend the
whole length of the vine and through
which the sap flows. If a living
liana is cut in two, a stream of sap will flow out of these
holes and then it will soon thicken
and form a scab across the end of the vine, just as your blood will form a scab when
your finger is cut. Some of the
lianas have sap which is bitter, but others
have sap which is as clear and fresh as the
finest spring water. It is from this that the
traveler in the tropical woods can
obtain a drink when thirsty, for all he has to do is to cut off a piece of one
of these vines and drink the sap. But in many places there
are still other plants at which the traveler may find cool, clear water. One of these vegetable fountains is so useful that it is
called the Traveler's Palm; and by
cutting off one of the long leaves
close to the trunk a good drink may
always be found stored ready for the
thirsty traveler. Still another
plant where a drink may always be obtained is known as the
"wild pine," as it looks a great deal like a real pineapple plant.
But instead of growing on the ground
the wild pine grows high up on the branches of forest trees and on the vines which cling to them.
At the base of each leaf of the wild pine there
is a cup-shaped hollow which always contains fresh, cool water. Quite often
mosquitoes breed in this water and so, in many parts of the
tropics, man has been obliged to destroy all the
wild pines in the vicinity to do
away with the troublesome and
dangerous insects. The wild pine is an "air plant" or parasite, for
it grows in the air without
requiring earth like most plants, and in the
tropics there are a great many kinds
of these funny air plants. There are
orchids with beautiful and strange shaped flowers, wild pines, and many other parasites, and they
are all wonderful and interesting, but of them
all there are none more strange than
the Lizard Tree and the Air Cabbage. The Lizard Tree, when growing,
looks like a huge green lizard crawling up the
trees, but I think "Centipede Tree" would be a more appropriate name.
The stem is thick and jointed, like bamboo, with slender white roots and smooth
green leaves growing from each joint. Every little while one of these joints breaks off and falls down, and wherever
the joints land they take root and commence to grow until three or
four feet long, when their joints
break off and start still other
plants. But oftentimes the pieces
fall to the earth, where the joints cannot break away and take root, and when
this happens the funny plant
continues to grow until it reaches a tree, when it climbs up until its joints
can break away and tumble down.
This is a very strange way
for a plant to increase, but the Air
Cabbage has a habit just as funny, although very different. This plant looks
like a giant cabbage and deep down in the
center of its leaves is a little cup filled with seeds. The roots are very
slender, and when the big plant is
fully grown it becomes top heavy and the
first hard wind or heavy shower tips it over and thus allows the seeds to tumble out and fall to the ground, or to the
lower branches of the trees.
All the
funny plants of the tropics are not
air plants and lianas, however. Sometimes when walking through the woods in the
tropics, you may stub your toes against some hard object, and, looking down,
you see a rusty cannon-ball lying half hidden among the
leaves. Of course, it's very surprising to find cannon-balls in such a place,
but it really isn't a cannon-ball at all, but the
fruit of a tree, and when you look about and see the
tree you will be more surprised than if it were a real cannon-ball. The tree is known as the
Cannon Ball Tree and the funny
fruits are borne on short stems sprouting directly from the
bark of the trunk. The flowers are
very odd and pretty but they are
ill-smelling like the fruit. The
tree has very few leaves and these
all fall off at the season when the fruits ripen, and so you can imagine what a
funny sight this tree presents with its bare branches and the great rusty-brown balls hanging to the trunk.
Still another strange tree is the
Sand-Box Tree. The seeds of this tree are large, round, and nearly flat, and
are held within a pretty scalloped shell about three or four inches in
diameter. These seed pods are real vegetable firecrackers, for when they are ripe they
explode with a loud noise and scatter or shoot the
seeds far and wide. During the
season when the sand-box seeds ripen
a constant popping may be heard from the
trees and the seeds fly about like
rain or hail. The natives of the
countries where the sand-box trees
are found have a very pretty and quaint idea about the
popping seeds, for they believe that
whenever a seed-pod explodes it announces a lizard's wedding has taken place.
It is strange enough to think
of cannon-balls and firecrackers growing on trees and of drinking water from
vines and palms, but how would you like to he able to get the cloth and lace for your garments from trees?
That is what many of the South
American natives do, for where they
live there is a tree called the Lace-Bark Tree. This tree has a wonderful inner
bark which may easily be unrolled and appears like broad sheets of creamy-white
lace.
This is known as Seda
Virgin or Virgin Lace, by the
Spanish Americans, and is used by them
for draperies, curtains, shawls, mantillas, and garments. It is so tough and
strong that it even is made into ropes, cables, and harness, and it is so
common and so easily gathered that
it is seldom washed, but when soiled is cast aside for a new supply.
These are but a few of the strange and useful trees and plants in the tropical forests and the
native woodsman can find anything he requires for food, drink, shelter, fuel,
weapons, and clothing. Even thread and needles are there,
for if the Indian tears his scanty
clothing he does not have to go to his home to have it repaired. Cutting a leaf
from an Agave plant he pounds the
fleshy pulp between two stones until only the
sharp spine at the leaf-tip and the tough fibres are left, when lo and behold, he
possesses a serviceable needle and a bundle of tough threads ready for use!
And this is not the only use to which the
Agave may be put. To the native
Indian it is as useful as the
reindeer to the Laplander. From the juice he obtains drink; from the roots a coarse, but healthy flour, and from the leaf-fibers he weaves mats and clothing which he
sews together with a needle and
thread also made from the same
plant.
1 comment:
Excellent finds.
Merry Christmas.
Alan
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