20 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



and twelve Indians will arrive with it in tlie Essequibo 

 in four days. 



The traveller need not attend his canoe ; there is a 

 shorter and a better way. Half an hour below Sinker- 

 man's he finds a little creek on the western bank of the 

 Demerara. After proceeding about a couple of hundred 

 yards up it, he leaves it, and pursues a west-north-west 

 direction by land for the Essequibo. The path is good, 

 though somewhat rugged with the roots of trees, and 

 here and there obstructed by fallen ones ; it extends 

 more over level ground than otherwise. There are a 

 few steep ascents and descents in it, with a little brook 

 running at the bottom of them ; but they are easily 

 passed over, and the fallen trees serve for a bridge. 



You may reach the Essequibo with ease in a day and 

 a half ; and so matted and interwoven are the tops of 

 the trees above you, that the sun is not felt once all 

 the way, saving where the space which a newly fallen 

 tree occupied lets in his rays upon you. The forest 

 contains an abundance of wild hogs, lobbas, acouries, 

 powisses, maams, maroudis, and waracabas, for your 

 nourishment, and there are plenty of leaves to cover a 

 shed, whenever you are inclined to sleep. 



The soil has three-fourths of sand in it, till you come 

 within half an hour's walk of the Essequibo, 



The Essequibo. 



where you find a red gravel and rocks. 

 In this retired and solitary tract, Nature's garb, to all 

 appearance, has not been injured by fire, nor her pro- 

 ductions broken in upon by the exterminating hand 

 of man. 



Here the finest green-heart groAvs, and wallaba, 

 purple-heart, siloabali, sawari, buletre, tauronira, and 

 mora, are met with in vast abundance, far and near, 



