312 TiMEHRI. 



the usual extent, and on my upbraiding them for this 

 negle6l I was uniformly answered : — " We are Christians 

 and God will feed both us and our children." I am 

 happy to say that latterly the Mission at Bartika has 

 improved in its system under the clergyman recently 

 appointed, but its former ill success should be a lesson 

 to those sending out Missionaries, who however pure in 

 intention have not mind enough to perceive the para- 

 mount necessity of establishing in settlements of any 

 description, a good commissariat. 



JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION UP THE CUYUNI RIVER IN 

 MARCH, 1837, BY WILLIAM HILHOUSE. 



Having long laboured under the most distressing 

 biliary symptoms, which had reduced me to a state of 

 great debility, I resolved this month to try what the air 

 of the mountains would do towards the restoration of my 

 health. This journal may therefore be termed the diary 

 of an invalid, as I made no observations, and took no 

 instruments but a watch and Schmalaalde. I divested 

 myself of every scientific pretension but the colle6lion 

 of such granitic orchids as might fall in my way. 



I reached the Calicoon Creek in Massaroony River on 

 the first of March, and had to return to town for craft and 

 supplies, as I found, notwithstanding the establishment 

 of a Protestant Mission at Bartika, the whole population 

 literally without bread, and it was necessary to proceed 

 loaded with rice, a dilemma to which I had never before 

 been reduced. My illness had now assumed the decided 

 chara6ler of dysentry, with which, however, I started on 

 Tuesday, taking up only two hands and a woman, and at 

 Timmerman's, about two hours up the Cuyuny, engaged 

 five others. On starting next day I found thatTimmer- 



