88 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



„ A twelve leagues from land, stands a stately 



Constable rock. ° 



and towering rock, called 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 aloug 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, spoon- 

 bills, and flamingos. 



Cayenne is capable of being a noble and 

 Cayenne 7 ° f 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 revolutionary 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 Yictor 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. 



Governor of ^3- e wno nas received humiliations from 

 Cayenne. ^ f this haughty, iron-hearted 



governor may see him now in Cayenne, stripped of all 

 his revolutionary honours, broken down and ruined, 



