OCCASIONAL NOTES. 159 
English people know better now-a-days. But, what do 
we find in BUCHANAN’S “ Master of the Mine,” pub- 
lished in 1885? The heroine came from Demerara with 
a black nurse who could only speak Portugueze and this 
is what she told her lover :— 
“ Oh / love a long walk! Even in Demerara I used to 
wander for hours and hours in the woods ; and once I was 
nearly lost. Night came down suddenly and I had to 
creep into the bole of a great tree; and I wasn’t fright- 
ened, though | could hear the tiger-cats crying all round 
me; for the fire-flies made it almost as light as day.” 
Her father, the Demerara planter, with a hundred 
coolies, found her by beating the woods, and she, hear- 
ing them, ‘‘ popped out” and “cried, quite coolly, here 
Iam papa!” The delicious absurdity of such a situation 
can only be appreciated by the real planter’s daughter. 
It will be said that both these examples are taken from 
works of fi€tion, but there are many choice tit-bits to be 
gleaned from the works of travellers who profess to be 
telling their experiences. Lady BRASSEY writes as if 
sand-box paper weights grew on the trees with the lead 
already poured into them, and says that the cacao has 
little 4/ack seeds surrounded by a pulp which is very 
pleasant to the taste. These mistakes may be set down 
to superficial observation, but what can be said to the 
following extraét from a school-book of to-day in 
general use throughout the colony? “The Royal 
Reader No. IV,” under the heading “Scenes in the 
Tropics,” says :— 
“Dangers of every kind lurk in the forest. The quick 
subtle Indian dare(s) not venture there without his 
pe > saws, nor the white man without the thunder 
