146 TlMEHRI. 
of many occurring in Guiana worthy of examination. It is 
applied to the people of very mixed race, partly European, 
partly African, partly American Indian, who have squatted 
and made their homes some distance up the rivers, at a 
point higher than that cultivated or occupied by Euro- 
peans or negroes. The occupation of these people 
is of the very easiest. They catch fish, they hunt, per- 
haps, if they are very industrious, they cultivate a few 
plantains or yams ; for the rest, their occupation in life 
is to lie in their hammocks. It would seem, however, 
that on savannahs of the Berbice River some few of them 
tend a few head of cattle ; but such industry is very excep- 
tional. But what is the meaning of the name boviander? 
Mr. J. S. BLAKE writes that "it is not, as the name 
would imply, derived from bos, bovis, an ox, which one 
would naturally conclude from the swelling savannahs 
and pastures of the upper river on which these people 
reside but where oxen are not. I believe the name arose 
in the old times ; when any one on his way up the river 
called at a house in the comparatively lower portion, and 
asked for some friend, the answer was " He no here, he 
' 'bove yander' " (above yonder), meaning further up 
the river ; hence the name given to the people 
living in the upper districts, ' Bovianders' " Another 
friend, himself a Dutchman, assured me that it is 
from the Dutch word Bovenlander, — a highlander or 
man from the upper regions. There being so many 
words evidently of Dutch origin incorporated in the 
creole patois, it would be dangerous to assert that the 
latter derivation is improbable ; but the former is cer- 
tainly the more picturesque. 
