EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



mntSj horfe-flies, wild-beesj and bats, befides the thorns, 

 briers, the alligators, and peree in the rivers ; to which 

 if we add the howling of the tigers, the hiffing of fer- 

 pents, and the growling of Fourgeoud, the dry fandy fa- 

 vannas, unfordable marflies, burning hot days, cold and 

 damp nights, heavy rains, and iliort allowance, the 

 reader may be aftoniflied how any perfon was able to 

 furvive the trial. Notwithflanding this black catalogue, 

 I folemnly declare I have omitted many other calamities 

 that we fufFered, as I wifli to avoid prolixity, though per- 

 haps I have been already too often guilty of it. I might 

 have mentioned indeed lethargies, dropfies, Bcc. &c. be- 

 Udes the many fmall fnakes, lizards, fcorpions, locufts, 

 bufla-fpiders, bufli- worms, and centipedes, nay, even 

 flying lice, with which the traveller is perpetually tor- 

 mented, and by which he is conftantly in danger of 

 being ftung ; but the defcription. of which curfed com- 

 pany I muft defer to another opportunity. 



The reader may form fome conception of the famiihed 

 ftate in which we came hither, when I inform him, that 

 the moment of our arrival, obferving a negro woman 

 fupping on plantain broth from a callibalh, I gave her 

 half-a-crown, and fnatching the bafon from her hands, 

 I devoured the contents with a greater relifli than I have 

 ever tailed any delicacy before or lince during my whole 

 exiftence. I now obferved to Colonel Fourgeoud, how 

 pitiable it was, not to regale his remaining foldiers with 

 yegetables and frelh beef or mutton^ belides providing 



Vol. I. Go them 



