250 
DR. SCHOMBURGK’S RESEARCHES IN GUIANA. 
brush-wood, and covered with sharp prickles, which had dropped from the Palms. 
Wherever the Sawary, a species of Palm, is growing, it is indicative of barren 
Sandy soil. The chattering of the numerous Monkies resounded incessantly from 
the interior of the wood. 
Oct. 19.—In the morning saw the Maccaray Mountains in the South-East; they 
looked abrupt and picturesque. The river was now free of islands, about 1,400 
yards wide, and slightly meandering. I saw a number of graceful little Palms 
(perhaps a Bactris ), and was surprised to hear that the Macoosie Indians made 
their celebrated blow-pipes out of a similar species. I cut several of them, and 
certainly the pith inside is so soft that it can be removed with the greatest ease. 
A species at the Rupurwony is said to be still better adapted for the purpose. 
In its vicinity grew another Palm, called by the natives the Kirahagh Palm. 
They use it for fencing in the mouths of inlets ( ’kirahagh ), to prevent the escape 
of fish when the water has been poisoned. It is knotted, and the internodes are 
one and a half or two inches long; it is more elongated than the Rattan-Cane. 
Four miles South of the mountains the rapids again commence, and continue for 
eight miles a very labyrinth of islands. The Pacou* abounds here. At our 
various halts we caught 110 Pacous, at an average of twelve pounds each, making 
thirteen hundred weight, exclusive of other fish. Enormous blocks of Granite, or 
rather of Gneiss, many of them black and glossy, from thirty to forty feet high, 
and from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, occasionally rent asunder, obstruct the 
river’s course for several miles. They are often piled together, and covered with 
numerous Orchideous plants, Pine-apples, small shrubs, and a few stunted trees; 
one beautiful Orchideous plant, resembling a young Sugar-cane, and covered with 
bright yellow flowers, particularly attracted me. 
Oct. 23.—In the morning saw the mouth of the river Rupunoony (at which we 
arrived during the day), one of the chief tributaries of the Essequibo from the 
South-West. We halted for the night on the Western side of the river, by the 
side of a small kirahagh or creek, where we noticed a species of Haiari ;f the 
* The Pacou is from 16 to 24 inches in length, suboval in shape, with very small scales, of a 
silver-grey ground-colour, beautifully spotted with bright scarlet. It chiefly feeds upon aquatic 
plants and seeds, and is when well prepared quite a delicacy. The Weyra, an aromatic vegetable 
eaten by the Pacous, is employed by the natives for the purpose of catching the fish—H. B. 
4 The Haiari is a plant of the order Papilionacea , bearing a small quantity of bluish blossoms, 
which produce pods about two inches long; leaf nine inches long, central stem with four spear- 
pointed leaflets on each side, two inches long, and one at the apex: root, when full grown, three 
inches in diameter, containing a gummy milky juice, which is a powerful narcotic, and prepared 
for fishing by the Indians by beating with sticks, until reduced to a mass like coarse hemp; the 
root is then employed to saturate Corial full of water until it is of a milky whiteness. It is 
then conveyed to the fishing spot, and the water sprinkled with the infusion (a solid cubic foot of 
the root will poison an acre of water surface) ; in about twenty minutes every fish within its in¬ 
fluence rises to the surface, and is then easily captured.—H. B. 
