NARRATIVE OF AN 



The bourracourra, or brazil, grows to between thirty 

 and forty feet high, but not very thick, with a reddifh 

 bark. The heart only of this tree is valuable, after the 

 white pithy part is cut away, though then it is much di- 

 minifhed. This wood is as truly beautiful as it is ufe- 

 fal, the colour being a fine crimfon, variegated with 

 irregular and fantaftical black fpots, from which, by the 

 French, it is called bois de lettres. It is heavy, hard, and 

 durable, though rather brittle, and is capable of taking 

 the brightefl: polifh; this laft is fcarce in Guiana, but 

 the others are more plentiful, growing on the higheft 

 grounds ; where alfo is found ebony. The heavy trees, 

 being fliaped into timbers for fugar-mills, are chiefly fent 

 to the Englifli Weft India iflands, and often fold for the 

 price of fifty guineas each piece. 



The word of command being again given an the 5th,. 

 we unflung our hammocks, then marched fouth-fouth- 

 eaft, and fouth by eaft, through deep and dangerous 

 marfhesup to our breafts in water, and in very heavy rains j 

 in which helplefs fituation we were fuddenly alarmed,, 

 not by a party of rebels, but by a company of large mon- 

 kies, which we difcovered in the tops of the trees, knock- 

 ing a kind of nuts againft the branches to break them for 

 their contents, with the greateft regularity, as it were 

 keeping time alternately at every ftroke, while fome of 

 them threw down their burthens ; and a nut falling from 

 a confiderable height, broke the head of one of our ma- 

 rines. The found of breaking thefe nuts, we had mif- 

 taken for the rebel negroes cutting wood with an axe. 



In 



