204 
Oid Dutch Mining Claims. 
tlie same with pyramids of dried timber, light them, and keep the tires 
burning until the process is completed: they know when this stage is 
reached by the sound of the note which such a pot gives when tapped with 
a small piece of wood. The painting of this ware, which is only carried 
out after the baking, is done either with a piece of wood or without 
further help than tUe huger. They are the only tribe whose painting 
shows bent and circularly curved lines besides the straight ones. The 
soot from pots already used, which they scrape off and mix with the 
gummy like slimy juice found between the bast and sapwood of the Inga , 
supplies them with the black paint: the Bua Orellana or Bignonia chica 
supplies them with the red. I have seen vessels which held certainly 
from 30 to 40 gallons and on account of their fragile nature, were tightly 
wound with fibre. 
000. Mr. Bernau having informed me that several old claims, the 
scanty remains of earlier mining, were to be found somewhat to the 
westward of Kai-tan, I went to have a look at them, and discovered, 
besides the workings, a number of pits fallen in and overgrown with 
underwood. The old legend about the mountains of Guiana rich with 
gold and silver had induced the Dutch in 1721 to allow everybody to dig 
for the precious metals anywhere within the country. As this muddling 
way of mining produced no favourable result, and not wishing to sacrifice 
their illusory hopes that Guiana was hiding within herself the same 
wealth of desired metal as the western portion of South America, they 
got a mining expert by the name of Hillebrand, together with several 
miners to come out from Europe so as to unearth the precious substance 
with the assistance of an experienced man. But the workmanlike 
methods of mining still proved no more successful than did the previous 
empirical ones. The labourers succumbed to the influence of the climate 
before they could even reach their destination: the work had to be left 
undone and has never been resumed. The stone that lay around in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the claims consisted partly of weathered 
granite, and partly of gneiss with plenty of mica and horn-blende as is 
ordinarily met with on its transition stage to trap-stone. T wondered 
at seeing several huge quartz boulders which nevertheless could not have 
had their mother rock here, but were probably derived from a lode in the 
Cuyuni. 
661. I found a useful and diligent troop of helpers in the boys of the 
Mission station who enriched my collections with many an insect caught 
during their trips in the forest, to which they hurried with their minia- 
ture bows and arrows at the commencement of every leisure hour. When 
the longed-for time arrived the greatest activity was displayed in the 
pretty little settlement. Shouting and jumping along, one lot of strong, 
healthy lads hastened to the forest, another on the contrary trooped 
down to the bank of the Essequibo and launched their tiny home-made 
schooners or bark canoes for which they had taken the vessels coming 
up stream as models, while yet another took their way to the field with 
hoe and spade to clean the yams, etc., from weeds or to loosen the soil 
until the blare of a trumpet called them back to the school-room. As 
the Mission boasted no clock their trumpet at the same time announced 
