6o ■ NJT'URJL HISTORr 



ter. At and oppofite them, the bottom is fliallow and mud- 

 dy, and the coaft a low mangrove fwamp, refembUng, in 

 all refpe(5ls, that of Guiana. You muft afcend thofe branches 

 feveral days before you reach the main ftream ; and in doing 

 fo, you find the fame phenomena as in afcending the Deme- 

 rary, but in a ftill greater degree. At firft you have the man- 

 grove, or fome fimilar fwamp, and behind it on both fides for 

 about twenty leagues, the land, if you can call it fo, hardly 

 emerging from the water. Afterwards the ground appears ; 

 and, as you go up, rifes ftill higher and higher on the banks 

 above the common level of the ftream. The trees become, in 

 the fame manner, of different fpecies, and much taller than 

 they were below. The channel in which you are, from being 

 wide, grows narrower by degrees. It is from about one and 

 a half to three-fourths of a mile broad near the entrance ; and, 

 when it joins the main ftream, is not more than about 200 yards. 

 It has then acquired a confiderable depth, and the banks may 

 be about twenty feet high. Along the main ftream of the ri- 

 ver, or Boca de Nafios, the gradual rife, and other circum- 

 ftances attending it, are quite fimilar. All this height of the 

 bank, I can make no doubt, is entirely acquired ground, form- 

 ed by the fediment of the floods, greater near the ftreams than 

 at a diftance from them ; and though I have no knowledge of 

 the nature of the land in the deltas and their vicinity, I would 

 not hefitate to fay, that great part of the interior body of each 

 ifland, and moft probably of the main on either fide, where it 

 is low country, confifts of nothing elfe than wet favannahs. 



Floods. — Before we leave the rivers, it may be proper to 



take notice of xhtw floods. In no inftance of a large river does 



the univerfal law within the tropics fail, that they annually 



overflow their banks for a. certain feafon. What was a prodigy 



* ia 



