168 TlMEHRI. 
weather the crop is ready to ripen. They do not practise 
transplanting, and appeared not to be aware that much 
larger crops would result from it. The centre of the 
district is about 70 or 80 miles from New Amsterdam ; 
so that the inhabitants have very little outside intercourse. 
They live almost entirely to themselves. There is no 
Magistrate or Doctor or other official on the river. Dis- 
putes are settled by the head man on a grant, or in any 
particular place, who hears both sides of the case and 
decides which is the offender. Often both are aggressors. 
If not satisfied with this mild kind of justice, they carry 
the case to obtain satisfaction before the Magistrate in 
New Amsterdam. This, however, occurs rarely. At 
Baraccara there is a Presbyterian mission station, with 
a resident school-master, which is visited three or four 
times a year by a minister. The children assemble on 
Monday at school and remain in the neighbourhood with 
friends till Friday, when they return to their homes. 
The schoolmaster having been a dispenser formerly, 
prescribes for the ailments of children ; the older people 
depend chiefly on their " bush'' remedies. To whatever 
cause it is due the community, so far as one could judge 
from hasty and casual observation, has not suffered at 
all by its isolation, and compares favourably with the 
negro population of other parts of the colony. 
The bullet — or bully-tree — Mimusops Balata* from 
the bark of which balata is obtained, is a large forest 
tree, said to range from Jamaica and Trinidad to Vene- 
* The vernacular name appears to be applied to two species, or sub- 
species, which are united by Griseback in his Flora of the British West 
Indies. 
