THIRD JOURNEY. 



163 



but their total want of civilization has assimilated 

 them to the forests in which they wander. Thus, an 

 aged tree falls and moulders into dust, and you cannot 

 tell what was its appearance, its beauties, or its diseases 

 amongst the neighbouring trees ; another has shot up 

 in its place, and after nature has had her course, it will 

 make way for a successor in its turn. So it is with the 

 Indian of Guiana : he is now laid low in the dust ; he 

 has left no record behind him, either on parchment, or 

 on a stone, or in earthenware, to say what he has done. 

 Perhaps the place where his buried ruins lie was un- 

 healthy, and the survivors have left it long ago, and 

 gone far away into the wilds. All that you can say is, 

 the trees where I stand appear lower and smaller than 

 the rest, and from this I conjecture that some Indians 

 may have had a settlement here formerly. Were I by 

 chance to meet the son of the father who moulders 

 here, he could tell me that his father was famous for 

 slaying tigers and serpents and caymen, and noted in 

 the chase of the tapir and wild boar, but that he re- 

 members little or nothing of his grandfather. 



They are very jealous of their liberty, and much 

 attached to their own mode of living. Though those- 

 in the neighbourhood of the European settlements have 

 constant communication with the whites, they have no 

 inclination to become civilized. Some Indians who 

 have accompanied white men to Europe, on returning 

 to their own land, have thrown off their clothes, and 

 gone back into the forests. 



In George-town, the capital of Demerara, there is a 

 large shed, open on all sides, built for them by order of 

 government. Hither the Indians come with monkeys, 

 parrots, bows and arrows, n-nd pegalls. They sell these 



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