Shirts Growing on Trees.
"We saw on the slope of the Cerra Dnida," says Humboldt, "shirt trees fifty feet high. The Indians cut off cylindrical pieces two feet in diameter, from which they peel the red and fibrous bark without making any longitudinal incision. This bark affords them a sort of garment which resembles a sack of very coarse texture, and without a seam. The upper opening serves for the head, and two lateral holes are cut to admit the arms. The natives wear these shirts of Marina in the rainy season; they have the form of the ponchos and manos of cotton which are so common in New Grenada, at Quito and in Peru. As in this climate the riches and beneficence of nature are regarded as the primary cause of the indolence of the inhabitants, the missionaries do not fail to say, in showing the shirts of Marina, 'In the forests of Oroonoka garments are found ready made upon the trees.'"