THIRD JOURNEY. 171 



"When lie is on the meridian, they generally sit down, 

 and rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently 

 declined to the west ; they require no other compass. 

 When in chase, they break a twig on the bushes as 

 they pass by, 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, the snakes, the swamps, the trees, the 

 uncurbed luxuriance of everything 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 disappointed. 



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 arma- 

 dillo : 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 went up with an intention to kill it ; he there saw 

 a snake, and hastened back to inform me of it. 



The sun had just passed the meridian in a cloudless 



