only practicable where the trunk declines
considerably from the perpendicular. This, however, is almost always the
case; some of the perfectly straight shafts of the trees leaning at an
angle of thirty degrees.

The less active among the men, and many of the children of the valley,
have another method of climbing. They take a broad and stout piece of
bark, and secure either end of it to their ankles: so that when the feet
thus confined are extended apart, a space of little more than twelve
inches is left between them. This contrivance greatly facilitates the act
of climbing. The band pressed against the tree, and closely embracing it,
yields a pretty firm support; while with the arms clasped about the trunk,
and at regular intervals sustaining the body, the feet are drawn up nearly
a yard at a time, and a corresponding elevation of the hands immediately
succeeds. In this way I have seen little children, scarcely five years of
age, fearlessly climbing the slender pole of a young cocoa-nut tree, and
while hanging perhaps fifty feet from the ground, receiving the plaudits
of their parents beneath, who clapped their hands, and encouraged them to
mount still higher.

What, thought I, on first witnessing one of these exhibitions, would the
nervous mothers of America and England say to a similar display of
hardihood in any of their children? The Lacedemonian nation might have
approved of it, but most modern dames would have gone into hysterics at
the sight.

At the top of the cocoa-nut tree the numerous branches, radiating on all
sides from a common centre, form a sort of green and waving basket,
between the leaflets of which you just discern the nuts thickly clustering
together, and on the loftier trees looking no bigger from the ground than
bunches of grapes. I remember one adventurous little fellow--Too-Too was
the rascal's name--who had built himself a sort of aerial baby-house in the
picturesque tuft of a tree adjoining Marheyo's habitation. He used to
spend hours there,--rustling among the branches, and shouting with delight
every time the strong gusts of wind, rushing down from the mountain side,
swayed to and fro the tall and flexible column on which he was perched.
Whenever I heard Too-Too's musical voice sounding strangely to the ear
from so great a height, and beheld him peeping down upon me from out his
leafy covert, he always recalled to my mind Dibdin's lines--

There's a sweet little cherub that sits up al