WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 205 



or on a stone, or in earthenware, to say what he 

 has done. Perhaps the place where his huried 

 ruins lie was unhealthy, and the survivors have 

 left it long ago, and gone far away into the wilds. 

 All that you can say is, the trees where I stand 

 appear lower and smaller than the rest, and from 

 this I conjecture, that some Indians may have had 

 a settlement here formerly. Were I by chance to 

 meet the son of the father who moulders here, he 

 could tell me that his father was famous for slay- 

 ing tigers and serpents and caymen, and noted 

 in the chase of the tapir and wild boar, but that he 

 remembers little or nothing of his grandfather. 



They are very jealous of their liberty, and much 

 attached to their own mode of living. Though 

 those in the neighbourhood of the European set- 

 tlements have constant communication with the 

 whites, they have no inclination to become civi- 

 lized. Some Indians who have accompanied 

 white men to Europe, on returning to their own 

 land, have thrown off their clothes, and gone 

 back into the forests. 



In George-town, the capital of Demerara, there 

 is a large shed, open on all sides, built for them 

 by order of government. Hither the Indians 

 come with monkies, parrots, bows and arrows, 

 and pegalls. They sell these to the white men 

 for money, and too often purchase rum with it, 

 to which they are wonderfully addicted. 



Government allows them annual presents in 

 order to have their services, when the colony 

 deems it necessary to scour the forests in quest 

 of runaway negroes. Formerly these expeditions 

 were headed by Charles Edmonstone, Esq., now 



