100 
WANDERINGS IN 
SECOND 
JOURNEY. 
New Am¬ 
sterdam. 
Deme- 
rara. 
On viewing New Amsterdam, it will immediately 
strike you that something or other has intervened to 
prevent its arriving at that state of wealth and con¬ 
sequence for which its original plan shows it was 
once intended. What has caused this stop in its 
progress to the rank of a fine and populous city, 
remains for those to find out who are interested in 
it; certain it is, that New Amsterdam has been lan¬ 
guid for some years, and now the tide of commerce 
seems ebbing fast from the shores of Berbiee. 
Gay and blooming is the sister colony of Deme- 
rara. Perhaps, kind reader, thou hast not forgot 
that it was from Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, 
that the adventurer set out, some years ago, to reach 
the Portuguese frontier fort, and collect the wourali 
poison. It was not intended, when this second sally 
was planned in England, to have visited Stabroek 
again by the route here described. The plan was, 
to have ascended the Amazons from Para, and got 
into the Rio Negro, and from thence to have re¬ 
turned towards the source of the Essequibo, in order 
to examine the crystal mountains, and look once 
more for Lake Parima, or the White Sea; but on 
arriving at Cayenne, the current was running with 
such amazing rapidity to leeward, that a Portuguese 
sloop, which had been beating up towards Para for 
four weeks, was then only half way. Finding, there¬ 
fore, that a beat to the Amazons would be long, 
tedious, and even uncertain, and aware that the 
season for procuring birds with fine plumage had 
already set in, I left Cayenne in an American ship 
