278 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Accordingly we determined to push down : I was at the 

 helm, the rest at their paddles. But before we got half 

 way through, the rushing waters deprived the canoe of all. 

 power of steerage, and she became the sport of the torrent ; 

 in a second she was half full of water, and I cannot com- 

 prehend to this day why she did not go down ; luckily the 

 people exerted themselves to the utmost, she got headway, 

 and they pulled through the whirlpool ; I being quite in 

 the stern of the canoe, part of a wave struck me^and 

 nearly knocked me overboard. 



We now paddled to some rocks at a distance, got out, 

 unloaded the canoe, and dried the cargo in the sun, which 

 was very hot and powerful. Had it been the wet season, 

 almost everything would have been spoiled. 



After this, the voyage down the Essequibo was quick 

 and pleasant till we reached the sea-coast ; there we had 

 a trying day of it; the wind was dead against us, and the 

 sun remarkably hot ; we got twice aground upon a mud- 

 flat, and were twice obliged to get out, up to the middle 

 in mud, to shove the canoe through it. Half way betwixt 

 the Essequibo and Demerara the tide of flood caught us ; 

 and after the utmost exertions, it was half-past six in the 

 evening before we got to Georgetown. 



We had been out from six in the morning in an open 

 canoe on the sea-coast, without umbrella or awning, ex- 

 posed all day to the fiery rays of a tropical sun. My face 

 smarted so that I could get no sleep during the night, and 

 the next morning my lips were all in blisters. The Indian 

 Yan went down to the Essequibo a copper colour, but the 

 reflection of the sun from the sea, and from the sand- 

 banks in the river, had turned him nearly black. He 

 laughed at himself, and said that the Indians in the 

 Demerara would not know him again. I stayed one day 

 in Georgetown, and then set off the next morning for 



