302 TlMEHRI. 
Guiana has no need to penetrate further than two hun- 
dred miles inland for the discovery of new and extensive 
gold-fields, but if need were to extend research further, 
the debatable land lying between this colony and the 
Brazilian possessions in the south, offers a favourable 
field for exploration. Concerning the whole of that 
vast region which forms the watershed between the 
northern Atlantic slope and the lower Maranon, the emi- 
nent geologist Sir A. Geikie remarked to a friend of the 
writer in the course of conversation a year or two ago, 
that absolutely next to nothing was known of it with 
certainty, and that it presented one of the most interest- 
ing scenes for scientific investigation in the whole world. 
ACUNHA, one of the savants attached to ORELLANA's 
second expedition on the Amazon, the French traveller 
MONTRAVEL and others, speak of the gold washed down 
by the streams which take their rise in that region, and 
I have been made acquainted with some particulars of an 
expedition composed of a party of Americans to that 
part some years ago. They discovered abundant evidence 
of the country being rich in precious metals, but the 
hostility of the Indians, culminating in the massacre of 
nearly the entire party, prematurely terminated their 
investigations, the few survivors making their escape 
with much difficulty. This portion of the South American 
continent is inhabited by various Indian tribes who are 
said to still practice cannibalism, and one tribe the Piano- 
ghottos on the confines of British Guiana are well-known 
for their inveterate hostility to strangers, many instances 
having been recorded of their having repulsed and mur- 
dered boats' crews penetrating to their country from the 
Brazilian side. 
