i'iiEE-jÜAN's Grass on the Demeraka. 
387 
continuously being carried up and down, the sport of ebb and flow. 
This peculiar sedge like grass, which had only become indigenous on the 
river a few years before from the Orinoco,* was bi'ought here with the 
cattle with which the districts bordering that river supplied George- 
town, the beasts being fed on it during their transport by water. After 
the sale of the cattle, one nsually thrcAv, the fodder that remained into 
the river. The flood had carried this ujt the stream wdiere many a stalk, 
possibly still iK)ss(^ssing its roots, and finding a firm spot to strike, 
multiplied uiicoTumouly quickly and soon covered large areas of the 
Avater. These fixed resting spots .are, however, only of short duration — 
the more these ^'flats'' increase in extent, the easier are they rippe«l 
away again by the current and subjected to the play of the waves. As 
floating islands they then continue to live either a longei- life or hit once 
more upon firm soil, to which they again attach themselves tem- 
porarily. Only a few of them reach the open sea with the ebl), becaUvse 
they are soon driven back into the mouth with the incoming flood. 
These wandering islands that lend a strange aspect to the stream, dis- 
appear heyond Ihe limits of tidal influence. The grass has indeed 
already appeared at tlie mouth of the Essequibo, but np till now not to 
the extent that it has in fhe Demerara : it appears to be a Paniciun, but 
I ^hare unfortunately never found it in bloom, so as to detennine the 
species. 
969. After passing Number One and Number Two Canals, we 
reached Stanley's Town, a negro village in the course of constnictiou 
that is spread along in between Musa and Coconut palms. A few 
miles higher is the mouth of the small stream Hubabu, Avhlch flows into 
the Demerara on the West. On the banks of the Hubabu was the estab- 
lishment of a tind)er-gettei' with whom I wanted to put up for a few days 
to trj if I conld not find the blossom of one of the most interesting of 
the coastal trees, the Greenheart of the Colonists. Several Negroes had 
settled at the waterside near the mouth. After making our way through 
a thick forest, we came upon an open swampy savannah which had much 
resemblance to that on the IMorocco. Streaked with high sedgedike grass 
the brush-Avood of the small oases Avas aliA'e with several Donacohius 
voriferans Swain. It is quite a peculiar bird. Directly it sees a human 
being, it raises its loud rattle of a cry, resembling that of a reed- 
bunting, Avhereupon all its mates tarrying in the neighbourhood come 
near and Avhile continuing to fly upon and off the bushes, join in the 
identical note: as soon as the individual is out of siglit, they silently 
disperse in all dii*ections. The bird builds its nest among the sedge 
and brusliwood. I have never come across it in the interior. With 
every stroke of the paddle T became more convinced of the destruction 
that can lie caused by a forest-fire on these richly-timbered flats. The 
mighty giant-trees Avith their black half-charred trunks and baml 
branches now rose above the recently shot-up dense undergroAvth and 
made a mournful impression on me, accustomed as I was to seeing the 
* Known as Freeman's (irass on tlie Demerara River. (Ed.): also described as Musuri 
or Missouri Grass (V.R.) 
Y 2. 
