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I watched the Chief mix his biscuits while I lay resting against the piled-up saddles. I wondered how he intended to cook them, but managed to keep still and find out for myself. He took a folded piece of tin from his pack and with a few magic passes turned it into a roof-shaped structure resting on its side on two short steel legs. Another twist of the wrist lifted a little tin shelf into place.
It is of a white marble, sadly mutilated at one corner by French treasure-seekers, and has on each side a romanesque arcade with an apostle, in quite archaic style, seated under each arch; at the ends are large groups of seated figures, and on the sloping lid Dona Beatriz herself, in very shallow relief, evidently carved out of the old roof-shaped cover, which not being very thick did not admit of any deep cutting.
Perhaps the impetus may be given them by the pressure of the currents from the poles. The diurnal motion of the globe will account for the drift-wood and sea-weed being cast off on the east or left bank of the stream. There is another cause for this. From the stream being roof-shaped, any drift which its left portion took up would have to go up hill to get to the northward.
Still all the northern adjacent shores and lowlands are subject to flooding by torrents of rain. Taking it as a whole, the island is approximately roof-shaped, so that the rainfall is rapidly drained off. In the interior are extensive plains and there are level tracts from five to ten miles wide on the coast. The soil of Porto Rico is exceedingly fertile.
Similar advancements have been effected throughout the whole compass of human labor and research; in the arts of Transportation and Locomotion, from the employment of the sheep and the goat as beasts of burden, to the steam-engine and the rail-road car; in the art of Navigation, from the canoe clinging timidly to the shore, to steam-ships which boldly traverse the ocean; in Hydraulics, from carrying water by hand in a vessel or in horizontal aqueducts, to those vast conduits which supply the demands of a city, and to steam fire-engines which throw a column of water to the top of the loftiest buildings; in the arts of Spinning and Rope-making, from the hand distaff to the spinning-frame, and to the machine which makes cordage or cables of any length, in a space ten feet square; in Horology or Time-keeping, from the sun-dial and the water-clock to the watch, and to the chronometer, by which the mariner is assisted in measuring his longitude, and in saving property and life; in the extraction, forging, and tempering of Iron and other ores having malleability to be wrought into all forms and used for all purposes, and supplying, instead of the stone hatchet or the fish-shell of the savage, an almost infinite variety of instruments, which have sharpness for cutting or solidity for striking; in the art of Vitrification or Glass-making, giving not only a multitude of commodious and ornamental utensils for the household, but substituting the window for the unsightly orifice or open casement, and winnowing light and warmth from the outward and the cold atmosphere; in the arts of Induration by Heat, from bricks dried in the sun to those which withstand the corrosion of our climate for centuries or resist the intensity of the furnace; in the arts of Illumination, from the torch cut from the fir or pine tree to the brilliant gas-light which gives almost a solar splendor to the nocturnal darkness of our cities; in the arts of Heating and Ventilation, which at once supply warmth for comfort and pure air for health; in the art of Building, from the hollowed trunk of a tree or the roof-shaped cabin, to those commodious and lightsome dwellings which betoken the taste and competence of our villages and cities; in the art of Copying or Printing, from the toilsome process of hand-copying, where the transcription of a single book was the labor of months or years, and sometimes almost of a life, to the power printing-press, which throws off sixty printed sheets in a minute; in the art of Paper-making, from the preparation of the inner bark of a tree, cleft off and dried at immense labor, to machinery from which there jets out an unbroken stream of paper with the velocity and continuousness of a current of water; in the art of Painting, from the use of the crayon, and artificial colors imperfectly blended, requiring whole days to present an incomplete picture, to the production, as by enchantment, of perfect likenesses in nature's own penciling, executed in a few seconds; in the art of Telegraphing, from communicating information by signs which may be seen from one station to another, to conveying intelligence to any given distance with the velocity of lightning; and, in addition to all these, in the arts of Moulding and Casting, of Designing and Engraving, of Preserving materials and of Changing their color, of Dividing and Uniting them, etc., etc., an ample catalogue, whose very names and processes would fill volumes.
It is roof-shaped that is, higher in the centre than on either side. This is proved by placing a boat on either side of the centre, when it drifts off towards the edge nearest to which it is cast loose. Another peculiarity exists in connection with it. Water radiates heat far more slowly than does the earth. If, therefore, the Gulf Stream swept along the ground, it would speedily lose its heat.
We turned aside early in our march to avoid being wetted by rains, and took shelter in some old Babisa sheds; these, when the party is a slaving one, are built so as to form a circle, with but one opening: a ridge pole, or rather a succession of ridge poles, form one long shed all round, with no partitions in the roof-shaped hut. On the 9th of January we ascended a hardened sandstone range.
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