192 ^ WANDERINGS IN 



Third wliich tells iHG that tliey have existed here for a 



Journey. 



century ; though, for aught I know to the contrary, 



they may have been here before the Redemption, but 

 their total want of civiUsation 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 unhealthy, 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 ser- 

 pents, and Caymen, and noted in the chase of the Tapir 

 and wild boar, but that he remembers 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 



