SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 191 



up the alliance with so faithful and so useful a body a men, 

 at least to the welfare of these colonies, as the Indians are. 

 They are always ready to take the field, and are the foremost 

 to check any disturbance of the negroes, they are also an im- 

 pediment to their desertion, and from their peregrinations in 

 the interior, and on the borders of the European settlements, 

 are the means of preserving many misguided wretches, who in 

 attempting to leave their masters, would find the worst of 

 deaths in an almost impenetrable forest — that occasioned by 

 hunger. 



The expence of maintaining a good understanding with our 

 Indian allies, is very trifling ; a few hundred pounds in the 

 course of a year, invested in fowling pieces, gun powder, 

 knives, hatchets, felling axes, glass beads, India salempores, 

 and rum, is sufficient. And the presenting of these things to 

 the chieftains, occasions a demand for them among the people. 

 The principal articles we buy of the native Indians are, 

 balsam capivi, bees wax, letter wood, bows and arrows, 

 canoes, hammocks, monkies, parrots and parroquets, cassa- 

 repo, Indian houses in epitome, and any similar curiosities 

 they bring from the interior. In return for which they re- 

 ceive fish hooks, looking glasses, blue and striped cottons, 

 India bafts, corals, and the abovementioned wares. 



