128 Timehri. 



aoo and we can often tind such relics in what is now a jungle. If certain 

 foreign plants can be found we are sure that there was once a clearing on 

 the spot. I have seen an old brick chimney smothered in bush and yet 

 could be sure that there was once a sugar factory on the spot. A real 

 historian ignores nothing for very simple things help to solve important 

 questions, and to give him a picture of the past with a suitable back- 

 ground. 



As few people are acquainted with the materials for a history of 

 Guiana I have thought it desirable to give a few examples from the older 

 English writers. Two books are of the iirst importance, Ralegh's 

 '• Diseoverie " and Waterton's " Waudering-i " ; they have been considered 

 as belonging to the World's literature and have been published in many 

 editions in English'aud other languages. Both writers may be thought im- 

 portant from many standpoints but at present I can do no more than pick 

 out something that appears characteristic. Ralegh lived in an age when 

 little was thought of the pictures |ue and yet the following extract shows 

 his appreciation of scenery : — 



" On both sides of this river we passed the most beautiful country that 

 ever mine eyes beheld ; and whereas all that we had seen before was 

 nothing but woods, prickles, bushes and thorns, here we beheld plains 

 of twenty miles in length, the grass short and green, and in divers parts 

 groves of trees by themselves, as if they had been by all the art and 

 labour in the world so made of purpose ; and still as we rowed the deer 

 came down feeding by the water side, as if they had been used to a 

 keeper's call." 



Ralegh got a good name among our Indians which appears to have 

 been retained as a tradition for over a century :— " We espied a small 

 canoe with three Indians, which, by the swiftness of my barge, rowing 

 with eight oars, I overtook ere they could cross the river ; the rest of 

 the people on the banks, shadowed under the thick wood, gazed on with 

 a doubtful conceit what might befall those three which we had taken. 

 But when they perceived that that we offered them no violence, neither 

 entered their canoe with any of ours, nor took out of the canoe any of 

 theirs, they then began to show themselves on the bank's side, and 

 offered to traffic with us for such things as they had, and as we drew near 

 they all stayed, and we came with our barge to the mouth of a little 

 creek, which came from their town into the great river.' 



Charles Waterton was a most genial writer for he treated his readers 

 as confidential friends. As a true naturalist he tries to make us see and 

 hear what he distinguished in the forest and on the river. 



" Courteous reader, here thou hast the outlines of an amazing land- 

 scape given thee ; thou wilt see that the principal parts of it are but 

 faintly traced, some of them scarcely visible at all, and that the shades are 

 wholly wanting* If thy soul partakes of the ardent flame which the 

 persevering Mungo Park's did, these outlines will be enough for thee : 

 they will give thee some idea of what a noble country this is ; and if thou 



