114 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



that it was powder and shot to them, and very difficult 

 to be procured. 



On the second day after leaving the settlement, in 

 passing along, the Indians show you a place where once 

 a white man lived. His retiring so far from those of 

 his own colour and acquaintance seemed to carry some- 

 thing extraordinary along with it, and raised a desire to 

 know what could have induced him to do so. It seems 

 he had been unsuccessful, and that his creditors had 

 treated him with as little mercy as the strong generally 

 show to the weak. Seeing his endeavours daily frustrated, 

 and his best intentions of no avail, and fearing that when 

 they had taken all he had they would probably take his 

 liberty too, he thought the world would not be hard- 

 hearted enough to condemn him for retiring from the evils 

 which pressed so heavily on him, and which he had done 

 all that an honest man could do to ward off. He left his 

 creditors to talk of him as they thought fit, and, bidding 

 adieu for ever to the place in which he had once seen 

 better times, he penetrated thus far into those remote 

 and gloomy wilds, and ended his days here. 



According to the new map of South America, Lake 

 Parima, or the White Sea, ought to be within three or 

 four days' walk from this place. On asking the Indians 

 whether there was such a place or not, and describing that 

 the water was fresh and good to drink, an old Indian, 

 who appeared to be about sixty, said that there was such 

 a place, and that he had been there. This information 

 would have been satisfactory in some degree, had not 

 the Indians carried the point a little too far. It is very 

 large, said another Indian, and ships come to it. Now 

 these unfortunate ships were the very things which were 

 not wanted : had he kept them out, it might have done, 

 but his introducing them was sadly against the lake. 



