SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, tVc 53 



bad bargain. He is at no expence whatever, as, on the arrival 

 of an ox in town, it is immediately conveyed to the slaughter 

 house. 



The market is copiously supplied witli butchers' meat, but at 

 a most extravagant rate : mutton 3s. veal 2s. 6d. beef 2s. Id. 

 pork lOd. per pound. With Hsh, the town is not so well pro- 

 vided as the country, no fish-monger has ever yet engaged in 

 the business upon a scale sufficiently extensive to supply the 

 population. The utmost endeavor yet made is that of some 

 negroes, who hire themselves of their masters, at so much a 

 day or month, and go a little beyond the mouth of the river 

 in canoes, returning by one or two o'clock and selling what 

 they may have caught. A very glutinous fish, called a Pau- 

 kama, which is esteemed a dainty, is taken in a curious man 

 ner. It finds a principal part of its sustenance in hollow trees, 

 logs of wood, and in the skeletons of old ships, which from 

 laying in mud by the water side, soon decay. These they 

 visit for food during flood tide, but at ebb are left in the ca- 

 vities of the wood, out of which the negroes draw them by a 

 hook fastened to the end of a stick. 



Houses for fire-engines are contiguous to the market-place, 

 and a company of fire men are formed out of the coloured free 

 people, for doing which duty they are exempted from serving 

 in the Burgher militia. There are two engines, but from the 



