236 TIMEHRI. 
two and subsequent to the events of my tale, have * , 
established themselves at any great distance from the 
sea. The country therefore remains, except along part 
of the coast-line and at one or two isolated spots near 
this, much as it was at the time of its discovery, * 
Of the few travellers who have penetrated into the 
mountainous country which lies in the interior, on the — 
borders of Brazil, by far the most important were the 
two brothers SCHOMBURGK, who, about half a century a 
ago, spent some years in exploring those parts. But, 
though these two brothers published voluminous accounts 
of their journeyings, these, probably because they were 
either chiefly published in German or in the transa€tions E 
of learned societies, are not intimately known. It thus _ 
happens that there are few people, even of those who live 
on the coast of Guiana itself, who have any adequate idea 
of the nature, or indeed of the very existence, of the 
mountainous country which lies beyond the forest-covered 
coast-traét, where RALEIGH hoped to find his golden city. 
Partly because, being one of the few whose fortune it 
has been to penetrate into those parts, I know these to 
be full of a certain kind of romance, and partly because 
the recent and rapid rise in Guiana of a gold industry, 
which is quickly spreading into the interior, lends 
praétical importance to any description of this unknown 
land, I purpose here to sketch the incidents of one of my 
journeys into the far interior, both as an exhibition of 
the natural state of the country and as an indication of _ 
the obstacles with which the approaching gold-digger — 
will there have to contend. oc 
The objeét of this particular journey, which began in — 
