WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 109 



ask for pity from us, than to fill our heads with thoughts 

 that they would be hostile to us. 



What a noble field, kind reader, for thy experimental 

 philosophy and speculations, for thy learning, for thy 

 perseverance, for thy kind-heartedness, for everything that 

 is great and good within thee ! 



The accidental traveller who has journeyed on from 

 Stabroek to the rock Saba, and from thence to the banks of 

 the Essequibo, in pursuit of other things, as he told thee at 

 the beginning, with but an indifferent interpreter to talk to, 

 no friend to converse with, and totally unfit for that which 

 he wishes thee to do, can merely mark the outlines of the 

 path he has trodden, or tell thee the sounds he has heard, 

 or faintly describe what he has seen in the environs of his 

 resting-places; but if this be enough to induce thee to 

 undertake the journey, and give the world a description of 

 it, he wUl be amply satisfied. 



It will be two days and a half from the time of entering 

 the path on the western bank of the Demerara till all be 

 ready, and the canoe fairly afloat on the Essequibo. The 

 new rigging it, and putting every little thing to rights 

 and in its proper place, cannot well be done in less than 

 a day. 



After being night and daj' in the forest impervious to the 

 sun's and moon's rays the sudden transition to light has a 

 fine heart-cheering effect. Welcome as a lost friend, the 

 solar beam makes the frame rejoice, and with it a thousand 

 enlivening thoughts rush at once on the soul, and disperse, 

 as a vapour, every sad and sorrowful idea which the deep 

 gloom had helped to collect there. In coming out of the 

 woods, you see the western bank of the Essequibo before 

 you, low and flat. Here the river is two-thirds as broad as 

 the Demerara at Stabroek. 



To the northward there is a hill higher than any in the 



