148 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



This barter-trade in my opinion, could be greatly increased. 

 By holding fairs at certain known seasons, and offering some 

 hospitality to the savages, they could be induced to collect 

 from remote places of the interior. They would bring many 

 curious productions, and gradually acquire a variety of wants. 

 The Spaniards have instituted such fairs at Buenos Ayres with 

 the happiest effect. It is true, they fix on the grand festivals 

 of their religion for the assemblage, and hold showy proces- 

 sions, in which the Indians delight to take a part, drest up 

 with crowns of feathers. But games of agility and bodily ex- 

 ercises, shooting with the bow, distributing swimming-prizes, 

 liorse-races even, might be made to serve for the pretence of 

 meeting. Fairs are the natural methods of distributing wares 

 in countries insuflficiently peopled to maintain stationary shops. 

 They have flourished in all such countries, and decay with 

 the progress of settlement. What were the Olympic games 

 of Greece originally but fairs, at which there were boxing, 

 wrestling, and running matches ? Yet at these fairs the in- 

 tercourse took place, which founded a national cohesion, and 

 scattered the refinements of civilized life. 



It is an undoubted fact, that the Caribbees have, in some in- 

 stances, devoured their enemies slain in battle. Of all the na- 

 tives of Guyana, this practice is peculiar to the Carribbees. 

 Our aversion to a meal of human flesh is not a feeling origi- 



