170 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



the Constable. As nothing grows on it to tempt greedy and 

 aspiring man to claim it as his own, the sea-fowl rest and 

 raise their offspring there. The bird called the Frigate is 

 ever soaring round its rugged summit. Hither the Phaeton 

 bends his rapid flight, and flocks of rosy Flamingos here 

 defy the fowler's cunning. All aloag the coast, opposite 

 the Constable, and indeed on every uncultivated part of it 

 to windward and leeward, are seen innumerable quantities 

 of Snow-white Egrets, Scarlet Curlews, Spoonbills, and 

 Flamingos. 



Cayenne is capable of being a noble and .productive 

 colony. At present it is thought to be the poorest on the 

 coast of Guiana. Its estates are too much separated one 

 from the other by immense tracts of forest ; and the revo- 

 lutionary war, like a cold eastern wind, has chilled their 

 zeal and blasted their best expectations. 



The Clove-tree, the Cinnamon, Pepper and Nutmeg, and 

 many other choice spices and fruits of the eastern and 

 Asiatic regions, produce abundantly in Cayenne. 



The town itself is prettily laid out, and was once well 

 fortified. They tell you it might easily have been defended 

 against the invading force of the two united nations ; but 

 Victor Hugues, its governor, ordered the tri-coloured flag to 

 be struck ; and ever since that day the standard of Braganza 

 has waved on the ramparts of Cayenne. 



He who has received humiliations from the hand of this 

 haughty, iron-hearted governor, may see him now in Cay- 

 enne, stripped of all his revolutionary honours, broken 

 down and ruined, and under arrest in his own house. He 

 has four accomplished daughters, respected by the whole 

 town. Towards the close of day, when the sun's rays are 

 no longer oppressive, these much-pitied ladies are seen 

 walking up and down the balcony with their aged parent, 

 trying, by their kind and filial attention, to remove the 

 settled gloom from his too guilty brow. 



