In British Guiana far back in the wilds is a waterfall nearly five times as high as Niagara, yet so far away from everything that hardly any white men have ever seen it or even heard of it. It’s name is Kaieteur. Just for fun ask your father if he knows what Kaieteur is.

The line around the middle of the World, if there were a line—which there isn’t—is like the belt around a very fat man. It is called the Equator. The Spanish for Equator is Ecuador. Ecuador is also the name of a little country in South America that straddles the Equator. We should expect it to be very hot there, for the nearer the Equator one goes the hotter it usually gets; but most of Ecuador is high up in the Andes Mountains, so high up that it is quite cool all the year round. The capital of Ecuador is Quito, pronounced Key-toe. From Quito you can see two of the highest volcanoes in the World. They have names that sound strange to us; both begin with “C.” Chimborazo is the name of the higher, but it no longer smokes or sends forth fire. The other is Cotopaxi, not quite so high but still very much alive, for fires inside have not gone out.

It seems strange that from this far country in the mountains, from Ecuador, something comes which you eat or drink, perhaps every day—chocolate and cocoa. They are both made from beans which grow in a large pod-a pod as big as a melon. These pods grow, not on branches, but right on the trunk of the tree. This tree is called the ca-ca-o tree. Notice how cocoa and cacao are spelled: See-o see-o-a comes from the see-a see-a-o-tree. Cocoa does not come from the cocoanut-tree. The cocoanut-tree is an entirely different tree that bears cocoanuts but not cocoa.

The Indians of Ecuador are very wild and savage. They are called head-hunters. One family or tribe will fight another tribe whenever they want something they haven’t got—wives, perhaps—or simply because they want to fight. When they kill a man they cut off his head and save it for a souvenir, as the American Indians used to cut off a man’s scalp and save it as a souvenir or trophy. The Indian who has the greatest number of heads is considered the greatest fighter.