FIRST JOURNEY. 



33 



that showed the least progress towards civilization. All 

 was rude and barbarous in the extreme, expressive of 

 the utmost poverty and a scanty population. 



You may travel six or seven days without seeing a 

 hut, and when you .reach a settlement, it seldom con- 

 tains more than ten. 



The further you advance into the interior, the more 

 you are convinced that it is thinly inhabited. 



The day after passing the place where the white man 

 lived, you see a creek on the left hand, and shortly 

 after the path to the open country. Here you drag the 

 canoe up into the forest, and leave it there. Your 

 baggage must now be carried by the Indians. The 

 creek you passed in the river intersects the path to the 

 next settlement ; a large mora has fallen across it, and 

 makes an excellent bridge. After walking an hour and 

 a half, you come to the edge of the forest, and a savanna 

 unfolds itself to the view. 



The finest park that England boasts, falls far short 

 of this delightful scene. There are about two thousand 

 acres of grass, with here and there a clump of trees, and 

 a few bushes and single trees, scattered up and down 

 by the hand of nature. The ground is neither hilly 

 nor level, but diversified with moderate rises and falls, 

 so gently running into one another, that the eye cannot 

 distinguish where they begin nor where they end ; 

 while the distant black rocks have the appearance of a 

 herd at rest. Nearly in the middle there is an 

 eminence, which falls off gradually on every side ; and 

 on this the Indians have erected their huts. 



To the northward of them the forest forms a circle, 

 as though it had been done by art ; to the eastward it 

 hangs in festoons ; and to the south and west it rushes 



D 



