38 
WANDERINGS IN 
FIRST 
JOURNEY 
The 
Jabiru. 
covered with wood; but oh looking to the south¬ 
west quarter, you perceive it begins to die away. 
In these forests you may find plenty of the trees 
which yield the sweet-smelling resin called Acaiari, 
and which, when pounded and burnt on charcoal, 
gives a delightful fragrance. 
From hence you proceed, in a south-west direction, 
through a long swampy savanna. Some of the hills, 
which border on it, have nothing but a thin coarse 
grass and huge stones on them; others quite wooded; 
others with their summits crowned, and their base 
quite bare; and others again with their summits 
bare, and their base in thickest w r ood. 
Half of this day’s march is in water, nearly up to the 
knees. There are four creeks to pass : one of them 
has a fallen tree across it. You must make your 
own bridge across the other three. Probably, were 
the truth known, these apparently four creeks are 
only the meanders of one. 
The Jabiru, the largest bird in Guiana, feeds in 
the marshy savanna through which you have just 
passed. He is wary and shy, and will not allow 
you to get within gunshot of him. 
You sleep this night in the forest, and reach 
an Indian settlement about three o’clock the next 
evening, after walking one-third of the way through 
wet and miry ground. 
But bad as the walking is through it, it is easier than 
where you cross over the bare hills, where you have 
to tread on sharp stones, most of them lying edgewise. 
The ground gone over these two last days, seems 
