BOTANTCAL INFORMATION. 105 
surrounding tribes, whose settlements extend over more than 
100 German miles in one direction, and 70 German miles in 
another. A very mountainous district, far beyond the source 
of the Fapanoni, and watered by many streams, is inhabited 
by the Acoori, or as they term themselves, Frío Indians. 
These again, are at constant war with the natives of the 
Corantin, and banks of the Amazon river Indians. The po- 
litieal position of these Bush Negroes, and several other 
hordes, who occupy the upper part of the Surinam river, in- 
duced our colonial government to maintain a resident among 
them. This post is doubtless, in one respect, of prodigious 
importance. Still the remoteness of the situation, the diffi- 
culty of communication with civilized countries, and most of 
all, unavoidable necessity of dwelling among a horde of fero- 
cious and untimely-freed negroes, and associating with them, 
or condemning oneself to utter isolation, these considerations 
have caused the office to be held by individuals of the very 
lowest class, ranking but little above the unhappy beings 
among whom they ought to have represented a respectable 
government. For these reasons, all those individuals who 
have during the last eighty years become the resident among 
the Bush N egroes, have either fallen premature victims to the 
horror of their banishment, (sometimes by their own hands,) 
or have returned with broken spirits and ruined constitutions. 
Indeed it must demand no common pitch either of fortitude 
or of degradation to endure such a lot. To associate on equal 
terms of intimacy with these savages, were indeed to be level 
with the brutes. But to live secluded from all civilized so- 
ciety—to make one’s abode among sombre and interminable 
forests, the secure haunts of wild beasts, and still more fero- 
cious men, and to find in the society of trees and flowers and 
harmless animals a compensation for all privations—this 
were, I think, the portion of no common mind. Resignation, 
endurance, courage, independence, and an extraordinary 
predilection for natural history, must go far to form such a 
character, 
And now, Sir William, I leave it to you to judge whether 
VOL. HL i 
E SEP E INEEN NRI D SUIS QE Te EC EE 
