Captain Ale,randerii Journey in America. 381 



Raleigh is on the Mazaroony, Lake Parima, and the fabled re- 

 gion of gold. The scene of Waterton'*s adventures was also on 

 that and on the neighbouring rivers. There are few springs of 

 good water near the sea. I only noticed a few insignificant ones 

 in the woods, which oozed out of the vegetable mould from 

 swamps above them, and their temperature always corresponded 

 (nearly) with that of the atmosphere. In May, the thermome- 

 ter commonly stood in the forests of Guiana at 74°. I heard 

 no sounds in the woods during the day, but the occa-^ional fall- 

 ing in of the river"'s bank ; and at night darkness was made hor- 

 rible, by the howling baboon, the jaguar, the ominous note of 

 the goatsucker, and the sighing of the alligators. 



At Gengeteron, on the Demerara River, a gentleman was 

 boring for water, and I subjoin a note of the result. 



To the depth of 44 feet blue clay. 



10 fragments ol wood partly decayed. 

 19 compact whitish-grey clay. 



31 yellow sand mixed with clay. 



6 violet coloured clay when first brought to the 



surface, afterwards it changed to greenish. 

 10 white sand and clay mixed. 

 2 quartzose sand. "Water. 



112 feet. 



After a month'^s sojourn in Guiana, I visited in succession se- 

 ven of the West India Islands : Barbadoes, then smiling in tro- 

 pical beauty, now waste and desolate, since the great hurricane 

 of the 10th of August ; Tobago, where Defoe laid the scene of 

 the life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe ; Tri- 

 nidad, that most valuable, though little appreciated possession of 

 Great Britain, containing virgin soil of unrivalled fertility ; Gre- 

 nada, that gem of ocean, fair to the senses as Eden ; St Vift- 

 cent''s, with scenery of the most sublime and awful grandeur, 

 and with the crater of a volcano recently extinct, horrible to look 

 upon, and fitted for an entrance to Pandemonium ; Jamaica, 

 with its Blue Mountains, hills verdant with the coffee-plant, and 

 valleys fruitful with sugar ; and, lastly, Cuba, that bright jewel 

 in the diadem of Spain. I was literally pursued by hurricanes 

 and yellow-fever ; but, thanks be to Providence, escaped un- 

 scathed. 



I sailed in a Spanish brig from the Moro (Havannah) to New 



