FOURTH JOURNEY. 255 



opened to the adventurous and experimental natu- 

 ralist : I have trodden it up and down till I am almost 

 weary. To get at it myself I have groped through an 

 alley, which may be styled, in the words of Ovid, 



" Ardnus, obliquus, caligine densus opaca." 



I pray thee, gentle reader, let me out awhile. Time 

 passes on apace ; and I want to take thee to have a 

 peep at the spots where mines are supposed to exist in 

 Guiana. As the story of this singular head has, pro- 

 bably, not "been made out to thy satisfaction, perhaps 

 (I may say it nearly in Corporal Trim's words) on some 

 long and dismal winter's evening, but not now, I may 

 tell thee more about it ; together with that of another 

 head, which is equally striking. 



It is commonly reported, and I think there is no 

 reason to doubt the fact, that when Demerara and 

 Essequibo were under the Dutch flag, there were mines 

 of gold and silver opened near to the river Essequibo. 

 The miners were not successful in their undertaking, 

 and it is generally conjectured that their failure pro- 

 ceeded from inexperience. 



Xow, when you ascend the Essequibo, some hundred 

 miles above the place where these mines are said to be 

 found, you get into a high, rocky, and mountainous 

 country. Here many of the mountains have a very 

 barren aspect, producing only a few stinted shrubs, and 

 here and there a tuft of coarse grass. I could not learn 

 that they have ever been explored, and at this day 

 their mineralogy is totally unknown to us. The Indians 

 are so thinly scattered in this part of the country, 

 that there would be no impropriety in calling it 

 uninhabited : 



" Apparent rari errantes in gurgite vasto." 



