d when she ceased bumping up and down in the
muddy surf, we scrambled out into a world exactly the hue of its
inhabitants of every shade, from jet black to copper-brown. The
pebbles on the shore were pitch. A tide-pool close by was enclosed in
pitch; a four-eyes was swimming about in it, staring up at us; and
when we hunted him, tried to escape, not by diving, but by jumping on
shore on the pitch, and scrambling off between our legs. While the
policeman, after profoundest courtesies, was gone to get a mule-cart
to take us up to the lake, and planks to bridge its water channels,
we took a look round at this oddest of corners of the earth.

In front of us was the unit of civilization,--the police-station,
wooden, on wooden stilts (as all well-built houses are here), to
insure a draught of air beneath them. We were, of course, asked to
come in and sit down, but preferred looking about, under our
umbrellas; for the heat was intense. The soil is half pitch, half
brown earth, among which the pitch sweals in and out as tallow sweals
from a candle. It is always in slow motion under the heat of the
tropic sun; and no wonder if some of the cottages have sunk right and
left in such a treacherous foundation. A stone or brick house could
not stand here; but wood and palm-thatch are both light and tough
enough to be safe, let the ground give way as it will.

The soil, however, is very rich. The pitch certainly does not injure
vegetation, though plants will not grow actually in it. The first
plants which caught our eyes were pine-apples, for which La Brea is
famous. The heat of the soil, as well as the air, brings them to
special perfection. They grow about anywhere, unprotected by hedge or
fence; for the negroes here seem honest enough, at least toward each
other; and at the corner of the house was a bush worth looking at, for
we had heard of it for many a year. It bore prickly, heart-shaped pods
an inch long, filled with seeds coated with a red waxy pulp.

This was a famous plant--_Bixa orellana Roucou_; and that pulp was the
well-known annotto dye of commerce. In England and Holland it is used
merely, I believe, to color cheeses, but in the Spanish Main to color
human beings. The Indian of the Orinoco prefers paint to clothes; and
when he has "roucoued" himself from head to foot, considers himself in
full dress, whether for war or dancing. Doubtless he knows his own
business best from long experience. Indeed, as we stood broiling