his own city to the sea.

In fact three-fourths of the education of the young male Mezop

consists in familiarizing himself with these jungle avenues, and

the status of an adult is largely determined by the number of trails

which he can follow upon his own island. The females never learn

them, since from birth to death they never leave the clearing

in which the village of their nativity is situated except they be

taken to mate by a male from another village, or captured in war

by the enemies of their tribe.

After proceeding through the jungle for what must have been upward

of five miles we emerged suddenly into a large clearing in the

exact center of which stood as strange an appearing village as one

might well imagine.

Large trees had been chopped down fifteen or twenty feet above the

ground, and upon the tops of them spherical habitations of woven

twigs, mud covered, had been built. Each ball-like house was

surmounted by some manner of carven image, which Ja told me indicated

the identity of the owner.

Horizontal slits, six inches high and two or three feet wide, served

to admit light and ventilation. The entrances to the house were

through small apertures in the bases of the trees and thence upward

by rude ladders through the hollow trunks to the rooms above. The

houses varied in size from two to several rooms. The largest that

I entered was divided into two floors and eight apartments.

All about the village, between it and the jungle, lay beautifully

cultivated fields in which the Mezops raised such cereals, fruits,

and vegetables as they required. Women and children were working

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