SOUTH AMERICA. '207 



they break a twicr on the bushes as they pass by THIRD 



J J I J JOURNEY. 



every three or four hundred paces, and this often - 

 prevents them from losing their way on their 

 return. 



You will not be long in the forests of Guiana, 

 before you perceive how very thinly they are 

 inhabited. You may wander for a week together 

 without seeing a hut. The wild beasts, snakes, 

 the swamps, the trees, the uncurbed luxuriance 

 of every thing around you, conspire to inform you 

 that man has no habitation here man has seldom 

 passed this way. 



Let us now return to natural history. There was 

 a person making shingles, with twenty or thirty 

 negroes, not far from Mibiri-hill. I had offered 

 a reward to any of them who would find a good- 

 sized snake in the forest, and come and let me 

 know where it was. Often had these negroes 

 looked for a large snake, and as often been dis- 

 appointed. 



One Sunday morning I met one of them in the 

 forest, and asked him which way he was going : 

 he said he was going towards Warratilla creek to 

 hunt an armadillo ; and he had his little dog 

 with him. On coming back, about noon, the dog 

 began to bark at the root of a large tree, which 

 had been upset by the whirlwind, and was lying 

 there in a gradual state of decay. The negro said, 

 he thought his dog was barking at an acouri, which 

 had probably taken refuge under the tree, and he 



