154? STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



but are continually removing from place to place, generally 

 preferring the sides of rivers and creeks for their habitations. 

 Little time is required for the erection of their houses. They 

 are made by driving four forked poles into the ground per- 

 pendicularly, so as to form a square ; these are united by 

 four others layed horizontally, and the roof is aftervi^ards made 

 by poles layed laterally, and covered by those enormous leaves 

 which are called troolies, and which are more than twenty 

 feet long, and two broad. From the bread of cassava or ma- 

 nioc, they make a fermented liquor, which in taste is some- 

 what like ale. In the use of this liquor, both men and women 

 are very intemperate. By fermenting maize, a strong drink is 

 also made, which is not much unlike porter. 



The person who saw most of these nations, and who ex- 

 plored the interior of Guyana to the greatest extent, was an 

 European colonist, named Nicholas Hortsman, originally of 

 Hildersheim, in Germany. In the year 1740, he undertook, 

 in a canoe manned by Indians, to ascend the Essequebo as far 

 as possible. After traversing many broads of water, dragging 

 his canoe beside the rapids, and carrying it occasionally, on 

 the shoulders of the crew, across the isthmusses, he came to a 

 great lake, and thence into a river running southwards, which 

 floated him to the Rionegro. This stream falls into the Ma- 

 ranyo, or river of Amazons; so that he must have crossed 

 those highest parts of Guyana, whence the waters descend in 



