EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



lambs kidneys, and are exceedingly delicate. They grow 

 very far inland upon high trees, which having never 

 feen, I cannot defcribe. 



The other food of the Indian confifts of fea and land 

 turtle, and crabs, called feereeca^ which laft are feen 

 in great quantities in the mud all along the coaft of 

 Guiana at low water. Of thefe they are extremely fond, 

 as alfo of the river lobllers called farafara, which are 

 here in great abundance. But nothing ]:)leafes them fo 

 much as the iguana or wayamacca lizards, that I have 

 already defcribed : every thing they eat is fo highly 

 feafjned with Cayenne pepper, that the mere tailing 

 -of their food excoriates the mouth of an European. 

 They ufe little or no fait, but barbaciie their game and 

 filh in the fmoke, which equally preferves it from putre- 

 faflion ; and if an Indian has neglecSled to provide food 

 by hunting or fifliing, his hunger is affwaged by eating 

 the feeds of the green-heart or the eta tree, or of fimilar 

 produdlions of the forefb. 



Their drink coniifts of various fluids, fuch as the 

 juice of the coumoo fruit. The counioo tree is one 

 of the fmalleft of the palm kind. Its feed grows in 

 bunches of purple blue berries, rcferabling grapes, the - 

 pulp of which thinly adheres to a round hard ftone, 

 about the fize of a piftol bullet. Thefe berries are dif- 

 folved and macerated in boiling water; which beverage, 

 when mixed with fugar arid cinnamon, is frequently ufed 

 by the fair inhabitants : it taftes very much like cho- 

 3 colate. 



