EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



95 



4ilUgators^ fnakeSy tigers, &c. ; bat I have not yet fpoken C H A P. 

 of the bujlj^worms,- large antSy locujis, centipedes, fcor- 

 pionSf bats, and jlyi^ig-Uce, the crajfy-crajj), yaws, le- 

 thargy y leprofy, and dropfy, with a thoufand other griev-- 

 ances that continually annoyed our unhappy troops ; — a 

 particular defcription of which I mud delay till a more 

 fuitable opportunity occurs for introducing them into 

 this narrative. 



Such were the pefts that we had to ftruggle with in 

 this baneful climate, whilil our poor men were dying ia 

 multitudes, without proper affiftance, un pitied, and fre- 

 quently without a friend to clofe their eye-lids, neither 

 coffin nor fliell to receive their bones, but throv/n pro- 

 mifcuoully into one pit, like heaps of loathfome carrion. 



On the 19th, we again left our encampment, and after 

 keeping a little S. marched E. till ten o'clock, when we 

 were overtaken and joined by a party of one hundred 

 rangers, with their conductor, Mr. Vinjack, to my great 

 f^tisfadlion. At this period we muftered three hundred 

 men; and however little Colonel Fourgeoud afFedted, at 

 other times, to value thefe black foldiers, he was now not 

 at all difpleafed with their company, upon our near ap- 

 proach to an enemy with whom the rangers were weU 

 acquainted, and knew how to engage much better than 

 the marines : while it will ever be my opinion, that one 

 of thefe free negroes is preferable to half a dozen white 

 men in the forell: of Guiana ; it indeed feems their na* 

 tural element; whilft it is the bane of the Europeans. 



