SOUTH AMERICA. 23 



to him who has been accustomed to a level riRST 



JOURNEY. 



country. 



Here, a little after midnight, on the first of 

 May, was heard a most strange and unaccountable 

 noise ; it seemed as though several regiments were 

 engaged, and musketry firing with great rapidity. 

 The Indians, terrified beyond description, left their 

 hammocks, and crowded all together, like sheep 

 at the approach of the wolf. There were no 

 soldiers within three or four hundred miles. 

 Conjecture was of no avail, and all conversation 

 next morning on the subject was as useless and 

 unsatisfactory as the dead silence which succeeded 

 to the noise. 



He who wishes to reach the Macoushi country, 

 had better send his canoe over land from Sinker- 

 man's to the Essequibo. 



There is a pretty good path, and meeting a 

 creek about three quarters of the way, it eases 

 the labour, and twelve Indians will arrive with it 

 in the Essequibo in four days. 



The traveller need not attend his canoe ; there 

 is a shorter and a better way. Half an hour below 

 Sinkerman's he finds a little creek on the western 

 bank of the Demerara. After proceeding about 

 a couple of hundred yards up it, he leaves it, 

 and pursues a west-north-west direction by land 

 for the Essequibo. The path is good, though 

 somewhat rugged with the roots of trees, and 

 here and there obstructed by fallen ones ; it 



