Produced by Eric Eldred, Jerry Fairbanks, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
By CHARLES WATERTON
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
I offer this book of "Wanderings" with a hesitating hand. It has little
merit, and must make its way through the world as well as it can. It
will receive many a jostle as it goes along, and perhaps is destined to
add one more to the number of slain in the field of modern criticism.
But if it fall, it may still, in death, be useful to me; for should
some accidental rover take it up and, in turning over its pages, imbibe
the idea of going out to explore Guiana in order to give the world an
enlarged description of that noble country, I shall say, "fortem ad
fortia misi," and demand the armour; that is, I shall lay claim to a
certain portion of the honours he will receive, upon the plea that I
was the first mover of his discoveries; for, as Ulysses sent Achilles
to Troy, so I sent him to Guiana. I intended to have written much more
at length; but days and months and years have passed away, and nothing
has been done. Thinking it very probable that I shall never have
patience enough to sit down and write a full account of all I saw and
examined in those remote wilds, I give up the intention of doing so,
and send forth this account of my "Wanderings" just as it was written
at the time.
If critics are displeased with it in its present form, I beg to observe
that it is not totally devoid of interest, and that it contains
something useful. Several of the unfortunate gentlemen who went out to
explore the Congo were thankful for the instructions they found in it;
and Sir Joseph Banks, on sending back the journal, said in his letter:
"I return your journal with abundant thanks for the very instructive
lesson you have favoured us with this morning, which far excelled, in
real utility, everything I have hitherto seen." And in another letter
he says: "I hear with particular pleasure your intention of resuming
your interesting travels, to which natural history has already been so
much indebted." And again: "I am sorry you did not deposit some part of
your last harvest of birds in the British Museum, that your name might
become familiar to naturalists and your unrivalled skill in preserving
birds be made known to the public." And again: "You certainly have
talents to set forth a book which will improve and extend materially
the bounds of natural science."
Sir Joseph never read the third adventure. Whilst I was engaged in it,
death robbed England of one of her most valuable subjects and deprived
the Royal Society of its brightest ornament.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
FIRST JOURNEY
REMARKS
SECOND JOURNEY
THIRD JOURNEY
FOURTH JOURNEY
ON PRESERVING BIRDS FOR CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY
GLOSSARY
INDEX
WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA
FIRST JOURNEY
----nec herba, nec latens in asperis
Radix fefellit me locis.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel
through the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of _ci-devant_
Dutch Guiana, in South America.
The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongest
wourali poison and to reach the inland frontier-fort of Portuguese
Guiana.
It would be a tedious journey for him who wishes to travel through
these wilds to set out from Stabroek on foot. The sun would exhaust him
in his attempts to wade through the swamps, and the mosquitos at night
would deprive him of every hour of sleep.
The road for horses runs parallel to the river, but it extends a very
little way, and even ends before the cultivation of the plantations
ceases.
The only mode then that remains is to proceed by water; and when you
come to the high-lands, you may make your way through the forest on
foot or continue your route on the river.
After passing the third island in the River Demerara there are few
plantations to be seen, and those not joining on to one another, but
separated by large tracts of wood.
The Loo is the last where the sugar-cane is growing. The greater part
of its negroes have just been ordered to another estate, and ere a few
months shall have elapsed all signs of cultivation will be lost in
underwood.
Higher up stand the sugar-works of Amelia's Waard, solitary and
abandoned; and after passing these there is not a ruin to inform the
traveller that either coffee or sugar have ever been cultivated.
From Amelia's Waard an unbroken range of forest covers each bank of the
river, saving here and there where a hut discovers itself, inhabited by
free people of colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about it; or
where the wood-cutter has erected himself a dwelling and cleared a few
acres for pasturage. Sometimes you see level ground on each side of you
for two or three hours at a stretch; at other times a gently sloping
hill presents itself; and often, on turning a point, the eye is pleased
with the contrast of an almost perpendicular height jutting into the
water. The trees put you in mind of an eternal spring, with summer and
autumn kindly blended into it.
Here you may see a sloping extent of noble trees whose foliage displays
a charming variety of every shade, from the lightest to the darkest
green and purple. The tops of some are crowned with bloom of the
loveliest hue, while the boughs of others bend with a profusion of
seeds and fruits.
Those whose heads have been bared by time or blasted by the
thunderstorm strike the eye, as a mournful sound does the ear in music,
and seem to beckon to the sentimental traveller to stop a moment or two
and see that the forests which surround him, like men and kingdoms,
have their periods of misfortune and decay.
The first rocks of any considerable size that are observed on the side
of the river are at a place called Saba, from the Indian word which
means a stone. They appear sloping down to the water's edge, not
shelvy, but smooth, and their exuberances rounded off and, in some
places, deeply furrowed, as though they had been worn with continual
floods of water.
There are patches of soil up and down, and the huge stones amongst them
produce a pleasing and novel effect. You see a few coffee-trees of a
fine luxuriant growth, and nearly on the top of Saba stands the house
of the post-holder.
He is appointed by Government to give in his report to the protector of
the Indians of what is going on amongst them and to prevent suspicious
people from passing up the river.
When the Indians assemble here, the stranger may have an opportunity of
seeing the aborigines dancing to the sound of their country music and
painted in their native style. They will shoot their arrows for him
with an unerring aim and send the poisoned dart, from the blow-pipe,
true to its destination: and here he may often view all the different
shades, from the red savage to the white man; and from the white man to
the sootiest son of Africa.
Beyond this post there are no more habitations of white men or free
people of colour.
In a country so extensively covered with wood as this is, having every
advantage that a tropical sun and the richest mould, in many places,
can give to vegetation, it is natural to look for trees of very large
dimensions. But it is rare to meet with them above six yards in
circumference. If larger have ever existed they have fallen a sacrifice
either to the axe or to fire.
If, however, they disappoint you in size, they make ample amends in
height. Heedless, and bankrupt in all curiosity, must he be who can
journey on without stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its
topmost branch, when naked with age or dried by accident, is the
favourite resort of the toucan. Many a time has this singular bird felt
the shot faintly strike him from the gun of the fowler beneath, and
owed his life to the distance betwixt them.
The trees which form these far-extending wilds are as useful as they
are ornamental. It would take a volume of itself to describe them.
The green-heart, famous for its hardness and durability; the hackea for
its toughness; the ducalabali surpassing mahogany; the ebony and
letter-wood vying with the choicest woods of the old world; the
locust-tree yielding copal; and the hayawa- and olou-trees furnishing a
sweet-smelling resin, are all to be met with in the forest betwixt the
plantations and the rock Saba.
Beyond this rock the country has been little explored, but it is very
probable that these, and a vast collection of other kinds, and possibly
many new species, are scattered up and down, in all directions, through
the swamps and hills and savannas of _ci-devant_ Dutch Guiana.
On viewing the stately trees around him, the naturalist will observe
many of them bearing leaves and blossoms and fruit not their own.
The wild fig-tree, as large as a common English apple-tree, often rears
itself from one of the thick branches at the top of the mora, and when
its fruit is ripe, to it the birds resort for nourishment. It was to an
undigested seed passing through the body of the bird which had perched
on the mora that the fig-tree first owed its elevated station there.
The sap of the mora raised it into full bearing, but now, in its turn,
it is doomed to contribute a portion of its own sap and juices towards
the growth of different species of vines, the seeds of which also the
birds deposited on its branches. These soon vegetate, and bear fruit in
great quantities; so what with their usurpation of the resources of the
fig-tree, and the fig-tree of the mora, the mora, unable to support a
charge which nature never intended it should, languishes and dies under
its burden; and then the fig-tree, and its usurping progeny of vines,
receiving no more succour from their late foster-parent, droop and
perish in their turn.
A vine called the bush-rope by the wood-cutters, on account of its use
in hauling out the heaviest timber, has a singular appearance in the
forests of Demerara. Sometimes you see it nearly as thick as a man's
body, twisted like a corkscrew round the tallest trees and rearing its
head high above their tops. At other times three or four of them, like
strands in a cable, join tree and tree and branch and branch together.
Others, descending from on high, take root as soon as their extremity
touches the ground, and appear like shrouds and stays supporting the
mainmast of a line-of-battle ship; while others, sending out parallel,
oblique, horizontal and perpendicular shoots in all directions, put you
in mind of what travellers call a matted forest. Oftentimes a tree,
above a hundred feet high, uprooted by the whirlwind, is stopped in its
fall by these amazing cables of nature, and hence it is that you
account for the phenomenon of seeing trees not only vegetating, but
sending forth vigorous shoots, though far from their perpendicular, and
their trunks inclined to every degree from the meridian to the horizon.
Their heads remain firmly supported by the bush-rope; many of their
roots soon refix themselves in the earth, and frequently a strong shoot
will sprout out perpendicularly from near the root of the reclined
trunk, and in time become a fine tree. No grass grows under the trees
and few weeds, except in the swamps.
The high grounds are pretty clear of underwood, and with a cutlass to
sever the small bush-ropes it is not difficult walking among the trees.
The soil, chiefly formed by the fallen leaves and decayed trees, is
very rich and fertile in the valleys. On the hills it is little better
than sand. The rains seem to have carried away and swept into the
valleys every particle which Nature intended to have formed a mould.
Four-footed animals are scarce considering how very thinly these
forests are inhabited by men.
Several species of the animal commonly called tiger, though in reality
it approaches nearer to the leopard, are found here, and two of their
diminutives, named tiger-cats. The tapir, the lobba and deer afford
excellent food, and chiefly frequent the swamps and low ground near the
sides of the river and creeks.
In stating that four-footed animals are scarce, the peccari must be
excepted. Three or four hundred of them herd together and traverse the
wilds in all directions in quest of roots and fallen seeds. The Indians
mostly shoot them with poisoned arrows. When wounded they run about one
hundred and fifty paces; they then drop, and make wholesome food.
The red monkey, erroneously called the baboon, is heard oftener than it
is seen, while the common brown monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki rove
from tree to tree, and amuse the stranger as he journeys on.
A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are destructive to
the Indian's poultry, while the opossum, the guana and salempenta
afford him a delicious morsel.
The small ant-bear, and the large one, remarkable for his long, broad,
bushy tail, are sometimes seen on the tops of the wood-ants' nests; the
armadillos bore in the sand-hills, like rabbits in a warren; and the
porcupine is now and then discovered in the trees over your head.
This, too, is the native country of the sloth. His looks, his gestures
and his cries all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him. These
are the only weapons of defence which Nature hath given him. While
other animals assemble in herds, or in pairs range through these
boundless wilds, the sloth is solitary and almost stationary; he cannot
escape from you. It is said his piteous moans make the tiger relent and
turn out of the way. Do not then level your gun at him or pierce him
with a poisoned arrow--he has never hurt one living creature. A few
leaves, and those of the commonest and coarsest kind, are all he asks
for his support. On comparing him with other animals you would say that
you could perceive deficiency, deformity and superabundance in his
composition. He has no cutting-teeth, and though four stomachs, he
still wants the long intestines of ruminating animals. He has only one
inferior aperture, as in birds. He has no soles to his feet nor has he
the power of moving his toes separately. His hair is flat, and puts you
in mind of grass withered by the wintry blast. His legs are too short;
they appear deformed by the manner in which they are joined to the
body, and when he is on the ground, they seem as if only calculated to
be of use in climbing trees. He has forty-six ribs, while the elephant
has only forty, and his claws are disproportionably long. Were you to
mark down, upon a graduated scale, the different claims to superiority
amongst the four-footed animals, this poor ill-formed creature's claim
would be the last upon the lowest degree.
Demerara yields to no country in the world in her wonderful and
beautiful productions of the feathered race. Here the finest precious
stones are far surpassed by the vivid tints which adorn the birds. The
naturalist may exclaim that Nature has not known where to stop in
forming new species and painting her requisite shades. Almost every one
of those singular and elegant birds described by Buffon as belonging to
Cayenne are to be met with in Demerara, but it is only by an
indefatigable naturalist that they are to be found.
The scarlet curlew breeds in innumerable quantities in the muddy
islands on the coasts of Pomauron; the egrets and crabiers in the same
place. They resort to the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of
sandpipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and flamingo,
are seen amongst them. The pelicans go farther out to sea, but return
at sundown to the courada-trees. The humming-birds are chiefly to be
found near the flowers at which each of the species of the genus is
wont to feed. The pie, the gallinaceous, the columbine and passerine
tribes resort to the fruit-bearing trees.
You never fail to see the common vulture where there is carrion. In
passing up the river there was an opportunity of seeing a pair of the
king of the vultures; they were sitting on the naked branch of a tree,
with about a dozen of the common ones with them. A tiger had killed a
goat the day before; he had been driven away in the act of sucking the
blood, and not finding it safe or prudent to return, the goat remained
in the same place where he had killed it; it had begun to putrefy, and
the vultures had arrived that morning to claim the savoury morsel.
At the close of day the vampires leave the hollow trees, whither they
had fled at the morning's dawn, and scour along the river's banks in
quest of prey. On waking from sleep the astonished traveller finds his
hammock all stained with blood. It is the vampire that hath sucked him.
Not man alone, but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his
depredations; and so gently does this nocturnal surgeon draw the blood
that, instead of being roused, the patient is lulled into a still
profounder sleep. There are two species of vampire in Demerara, and
both suck living animals: one is rather larger than the common bat, the
other measures above two feet from wing to wing extended.
Snakes are frequently met with in the woods betwixt the sea-coast and
the rock Saba, chiefly near the creeks and on the banks of the river.
They are large, beautiful and formidable. The rattlesnake seems partial
to a tract of ground known by the name of Canal Number-three: there the
effects of his poison will be long remembered.
The camoudi snake has been killed from thirty to forty feet long;
though not venomous, his size renders him destructive to the passing
animals. The Spaniards in the Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows
to the length of seventy or eighty feet and that he will destroy the
strongest and largest bull. His name seems to confirm this: there he is
called "matatoro," which literally means "bull-killer." Thus he may be
ranked amongst the deadly snakes, for it comes nearly to the same thing
in the end whether the victim dies by poison from the fangs, which
corrupts his blood and makes it stink horribly, or whether his body be
crushed to mummy, and swallowed by this hideous beast.
The whipsnake of a beautiful changing green, and the coral, with
alternate broad traverse bars of black and red, glide from bush to
bush, and may be handled with safety; they are harmless little
creatures.
The labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown colour, and can
scarcely be distinguished from the ground or stump on which he is
coiled up; he grows to the length of about eight feet and his bite
often proves fatal in a few minutes.
Unrivalled in his display of every lovely colour of the rainbow, and
unmatched in the effects of his deadly poison, the counacouchi glides
undaunted on, sole monarch of these forests; he is commonly known by
the name of the bush-master. Both man and beast fly before him, and
allow him to pursue an undisputed path. He sometimes grows to the
length of fourteen feet.
A few small caymen, from two to twelve feet long, may be observed now
and then in passing up and down the river; they just keep their heads
above the water, and a stranger would not know them from a rotten stump.
Lizards of the finest green, brown and copper colour, from two inches
to two feet and a half long, are ever and anon rustling among the
fallen leaves and crossing the path before you, whilst the chameleon is
busily employed in chasing insects round the trunks of the neighbouring
trees.
The fish are of many different sorts and well-tasted, but not,
generally speaking, very plentiful. It is probable that their numbers
are considerably thinned by the otters, which are much larger than
those of Europe. In going through the overflowed savannas, which have
all a communication with the river, you may often see a dozen or two of
them sporting amongst the sedges before you.
This warm and humid climate seems particularly adapted to the producing
of insects; it gives birth to myriads, beautiful past description in
their variety of tints, astonishing in their form and size, and many of
them noxious in their qualities.
He whose eye can distinguish the various beauties of uncultivated
nature, and whose ear is not shut to the wild sounds in the woods, will
be delighted in passing up the River Demerara. Every now and then the
maam or tinamou sends forth one long and plaintive whistle from the
depth of the forest, and then stops; whilst the yelping of the toucan
and the shrill voice of the bird called pi-pi-yo is heard during the
interval. The campanero never fails to attract the attention of the
passenger; at a distance of nearly three miles you may hear this
snow-white bird tolling every four or five minutes, like the distant
convent-bell. From six to nine in the morning the forests resound with
the mingled cries and strains of the feathered race; after this they
gradually die away. From eleven to three all nature is hushed as in a
midnight silence, and scarce a note is heard, saving that of the
campanero and the pi-pi-yo; it is then that, oppressed by the solar
heat, the birds retire to the thickest shade and wait for the
refreshing cool of evening.
At sundown the vampires, bats and goat-suckers dart from their lonely
retreat and skim along the trees on the river's bank. The different
kinds of frogs almost stun the ear with their hoarse and
hollow-sounding croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and
mourn all night long.
About two hours before daybreak you will hear the red monkey moaning as
though in deep distress; the houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in
the thickest recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates "houtou,
houtou," in a low and plaintive tone an hour before sunrise; the maam
whistles about the same hour; the hannaquoi, pataca and maroudi
announce his near approach to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and
paroquets confirm his arrival there.
The crickets chirp from sunset to sunrise, and often during the day
when the weather is cloudy. The bête-rouge is exceedingly numerous in
these extensive wilds, and not only man, but beasts and birds, are
tormented by it. Mosquitos are very rare after you pass the third
island in the Demerara, and sand-flies but seldom appear.
Courteous reader, here thou hast the outlines of an amazing landscape
given thee; thou wilt see that the principal parts of it are but
faintly traced, some of them scarcely visible at all, and that the
shades are wholly wanting. If thy soul partakes of the ardent flame
which the persevering Mungo Park's did, these outlines will be enough
for thee; they will give thee some idea of what a noble country this
is; and if thou hast but courage to set about giving the world a
finished picture of it, neither materials to work on nor colours to
paint it in its true shades will be wanting to thee. It may appear a
difficult task at a distance, but look close at it, and it is nothing
at all; provided thou hast but a quiet mind, little more is necessary,
and the genius which presides over these wilds will kindly help thee
through the rest. She will allow thee to slay the fawn and to cut down
the mountain-cabbage for thy support, and to select from every part of
her domain whatever may be necessary for the work thou art about; but
having killed a pair of doves in order to enable thee to give mankind a
true and proper description of them, thou must not destroy a third
through wantonness or to show what a good marksman thou art: that would
only blot the picture thou art finishing, not colour it.
Though retired from the haunts of men, and even without a friend with
thee, thou wouldst not find it solitary. The crowing of the hannaquoi
will sound in thine ears like the daybreak town-clock; and the wren and
the thrush will join with thee in thy matin hymn to thy Creator, to
thank Him for thy night's rest.
At noon the genius will lead thee to the troely, one leaf of which will
defend thee from both sun and rain. And if, in the cool of the evening,
thou hast been tempted to stray too far from thy place of abode, and
art deprived of light to write down the information thou hast
collected, the fire-fly, which thou wilt see in almost every bush
around thee, will be thy candle. Hold it over thy pocket-book, in any
position which thou knowest will not hurt it, and it will afford thee
ample light. And when thou hast done with it, put it kindly back again
on the next branch to thee. It will want no other reward for its
services.
When in thy hammock, should the thought of thy little crosses and
disappointments, in thy ups and downs through life, break in upon thee
and throw thee into a pensive mood, the owl will bear thee company. She
will tell thee that hard has been her fate, too; and at intervals
"Whip-poor-will" and "Willy come go" will take up the tale of sorrow.
Ovid has told thee how the owl once boasted the human form and lost it
for a very small offence; and were the poet alive now he would inform
thee that "Whip-poor-will" and "Willy come go" are the shades of those
poor African and Indian slaves who died worn out and broken-hearted.
They wail and cry "Whip-poor-will," "Willy come go," all night long;
and often, when the moon shines, you see them sitting on the green turf
near the houses of those whose ancestors tore them from the bosom of
their helpless families, which all probably perished through grief and
want after their support was gone.
About an hour above the rock of Saba stands the habitation of an Indian
called Simon, on the top of a hill. The side next the river is almost
perpendicular, and you may easily throw a stone over to the opposite
bank. Here there was an opportunity of seeing man in his rudest state.
The Indians who frequented this habitation, though living in the midst
of woods, bore evident marks of attention to their persons. Their hair
was neatly collected and tied up in a knot; their bodies fancifully
painted red, and the paint was scented with hayawa. This gave them a
gay and animated appearance. Some of them had on necklaces composed of
the teeth of wild boars slain in the chase; many wore rings, and others
had an ornament on the left arm midway betwixt the shoulder and the
elbow. At the close of day they regularly bathed in the river below,
and the next morning seemed busy in renewing the faded colours of their
faces.
One day there came into the hut a form which literally might be called
the wild man of the woods. On entering he laid down a ball of wax which
he had collected in the forest. His hammock was all ragged and torn,
and his bow, though of good wood, was without any ornament or polish:
"erubuit domino, cultior esse suo." His face was meagre, his looks
forbidding and his whole appearance neglected. His long black hair hung
from his head in matted confusion; nor had his body, to all appearance,
ever been painted. They gave him some cassava bread and boiled fish,
which he ate voraciously, and soon after left the hut. As he went out
you could observe no traces in his countenance or demeanour which
indicated that he was in the least mindful of having been benefited by
the society he was just leaving.
The Indians said that he had neither wife nor child nor friend. They
had often tried to persuade him to come and live amongst them, but all
was of no avail. He went roving on, plundering the wild bees of their
honey and picking up the fallen nuts and fruits of the forest. When he
fell in with game he procured fire from two sticks and cooked it on the
spot. When a hut happened to be in his way he stepped in and asked for
something to eat, and then months elapsed ere they saw him again. They
did not know what had caused him to be thus unsettled: he had been so
for years; nor did they believe that even old age itself would change
the habits of this poor harmless, solitary wanderer.
From Simon's the traveller may reach the large fall, with ease, in four
days.
The first falls that he meets are merely rapids, scarce a stone
appearing above the water in the rainy season; and those in the bed of
the river barely high enough to arrest the water's course, and by
causing a bubbling show that they are there.
With this small change of appearance in the stream, the stranger
observes nothing new till he comes within eight or ten miles of the
great fall. Each side of the river presents an uninterrupted range of
wood, just as it did below. All the productions found betwixt the
plantations and the rock Saba are to be met with here.
From Simon's to the great fall there are five habitations of the
Indians: two of them close to the river's side; the other three a
little way in the forest. These habitations consist of from four to
eight huts, situated on about an acre of ground which they have cleared
from the surrounding woods. A few pappaw, cotton and mountain-cabbage
trees are scattered round them.
At one of these habitations a small quantity of the wourali poison was
procured. It was in a little gourd. The Indian who had it said that he
had killed a number of wild hogs with it, and two tapirs. Appearances
seemed to confirm what he said, for on one side it had been nearly
taken out to the bottom, at different times, which probably would not
have been the case had the first or second trial failed.
Its strength was proved on a middle-sized dog. He was wounded in the
thigh, in order that there might be no possibility of touching a vital
part. In three or four minutes he began to be affected, smelt at every
little thing on the ground around him, and looked wistfully at the
wounded part. Soon after this he staggered, laid himself down, and
never rose more. He barked once, though not as if in pain. His voice
was low and weak; and in a second attempt it quite failed him. He now
put his head betwixt his fore-legs, and raising it slowly again he fell
over on his side. His eye immediately became fixed, and though his
extremities every now and then shot convulsively, he never showed the
least desire to raise up his head. His heart fluttered much from the
time he laid down, and at intervals beat very strong; then stopped for
a moment or two, and then beat again; and continued faintly beating
several minutes after every other part of his body seemed dead.
In a quarter of an hour after he had received the poison he was quite
motionless.
A few miles before you reach the great fall, and which indeed is the
only one which can be called a fall, large balls of froth come floating
past you. The river appears beautifully marked with streaks of foam,
and on your nearer approach the stream is whitened all over.
At first you behold the fall rushing down a bed of rocks with a
tremendous noise, divided into two foamy streams which, at their
junction again, form a small island covered with wood. Above this
island, for a short space, there appears but one stream, all white with
froth, and fretting and boiling amongst the huge rocks which obstruct
its course.
Higher up it is seen dividing itself into a short channel or two, and
trees grow on the rocks which cause its separation. The torrent, in
many places, has eaten deep into the rocks, and split them into large
fragments by driving others against them. The trees on the rocks are in
bloom and vigour, though their roots are half bared and many of them
bruised and broken by the rushing waters.
This is the general appearance of the fall from the level of the water
below to where the river is smooth and quiet above. It must be
remembered that this is during the periodical rains. Probably, in the
dry season, it puts on a very different appearance. There is no
perpendicular fall of water of any consequence throughout it, but the
dreadful roaring and rushing of the torrent, down a long rocky and
moderately sloping channel, has a fine effect; and the stranger returns
well pleased with what he has seen. No animal, nor craft of any kind,
could stem this downward flood. In a few moments the first would be
killed, the second dashed in pieces.
The Indians have a path alongside of it, through the forest, where
prodigious crabwood trees grow. Up this path they drag their canoes and
launch them into the river above; and on their return bring them down
the same way.
About two hours below this fall is the habitation of an Acoway chief
called Sinkerman. At night you hear the roaring of the fall from it. It
is pleasantly situated on the top of a sand-hill. At this place you
have the finest view the River Demerara affords: three tiers of hills
rise in slow gradation, one above the other, before you, and present a
grand and magnificent scene, especially to him who has been accustomed
to a level country.
Here, a little after midnight, on the first of May, was heard a most
strange and unaccountable noise: it seemed as though several regiments
were engaged and musketry firing with great rapidity. The Indians,
terrified beyond description, left their hammocks and crowded all
together like sheep at the approach of the wolf. There were no soldiers
within three or four hundred miles. Conjecture was of no avail, and all
conversation next morning on the subject was as useless and
unsatisfactory as the dead silence which succeeded to the noise.
He who wishes to reach the Macoushi country had better send his canoe
over-land from Sinkerman's to the Essequibo.
There is a pretty good path, and meeting a creek about three-quarters
of the way, it eases the labour, and twelve Indians will arrive with it
in the Essequibo in four days.
The traveller need not attend his canoe; there is a shorter and a
better way. Half an hour below Sinkerman's he finds a little creek on
the western bank of the Demerara. After proceeding about a couple of
hundred yards up it, he leaves it, and pursues a west-north-west
direction by land for the Essequibo. The path is good, though somewhat
rugged with the roots of trees, and here and there obstructed by fallen
ones; it extends more over level ground than otherwise. There are a few
steep ascents and descents in it, with a little brook running at the
bottom of them, but they are easily passed over, and the fallen trees
serve for a bridge.
You may reach the Essequibo with ease in a day and a half; and so
matted and interwoven are the tops of the trees above you that the sun
is not felt once all the way, saving where the space which a
newly-fallen tree occupied lets in his rays upon you. The forest
contains an abundance of wild hogs, lobbas, acouries, powisses, maams,
maroudis and waracabas for your nourishment, and there are plenty of
leaves to cover a shed whenever you are inclined to sleep.
The soil has three-fourths of sand in it till you come within half an
hour's walk of the Essequibo, where you find a red gravel and rocks. In
this retired and solitary tract Nature's garb, to all appearance, has
not been injured by fire nor her productions broken in upon by the
exterminating hand of man.
Here the finest green-heart grows, and wallaba, purple-heart,
siloabali, sawari, buletre, tauronira and mora are met with in vast
abundance, far and near, towering up in majestic grandeur, straight as
pillars, sixty or seventy feet high, without a knot or branch.
Traveller, forget for a little while the idea thou hast of wandering
farther on, and stop and look at this grand picture of vegetable
nature: it is a reflection of the crowd thou hast lately been in, and
though a silent monitor, it is not a less eloquent one on that account.
See that noble purple-heart before thee! Nature has been kind to it.
Not a hole, not the least oozing from its trunk, to show that its best
days are past. Vigorous in youthful blooming beauty, it stands the
ornament of these sequestered wilds and tacitly rebukes those base ones
of thine own species who have been hardy enough to deny the existence
of Him who ordered it to flourish here.
Behold that one next to it! Hark how the hammerings of the red-headed
woodpecker resound through its distempered boughs! See what a quantity
of holes he has made in it, and how its bark is stained with the drops
which trickle down from them. The lightning, too, has blasted one side
of it. Nature looks pale and wan in its leaves, and her resources are
nearly dried up in its extremities: its sap is tainted; a mortal
sickness, slow as a consumption and as sure in its consequences, has
long since entered its frame, vitiating and destroying the wholesome
juices there.
Step a few paces aside and cast thine eye on that remnant of a mora
behind it. Best part of its branches, once so high and ornamental, now
lie on the ground in sad confusion, one upon the other, all shattered
and fungus-grown and a prey to millions of insects which are busily
employed in destroying them. One branch of it still looks healthy! Will
it recover? No, it cannot; Nature has already run her course, and that
healthy-looking branch is only as a fallacious good symptom in him who
is just about to die of a mortification when he feels no more pain, and
fancies his distemper has left him; it is as the momentary gleam of a
wintry sun's ray close to the western horizon. See! while we are
speaking a gust of wind has brought the tree to the ground and made
room for its successor.
Come farther on and examine that apparently luxuriant tauronira on thy
right hand. It boasts a verdure not its own; they are false ornaments
it wears. The bush-rope and bird-vines have clothed it from the root to
its topmost branch. The succession of fruit which it hath borne, like
good cheer in the houses of the great, has invited the birds to resort
to it, and they have disseminated beautiful, though destructive, plants
on its branches which, like the distempers vice brings into the human
frame, rob it of all its health and vigour. They have shortened its
days, and probably in another year they will finally kill it, long
before Nature intended that it should die.
Ere thou leavest this interesting scene, look on the ground around
thee, and see what everything here below must come to.
Behold that newly-fallen wallaba! The whirlwind has uprooted it in its
prime, and it has brought down to the ground a dozen small ones in its
fall. Its bark has already begun to drop off! And that heart of mora
close by it is fast yielding, in spite of its firm, tough texture.
The tree which thou passedst but a little ago, and which perhaps has
laid over yonder brook for years, can now hardly support itself, and in
a few months more it will have fallen into the water.
Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to the left. It seems
entire amid the surrounding fragments. Mere outward appearance,
delusive phantom of what it once was! Tread on it and, like the
fuss-ball, it will break into dust.
Sad and silent mementos to the giddy traveller as he wanders on!
Prostrate remnants of vegetable nature, how incontestably ye prove what
we must all at last come to, and how plain your mouldering ruins show
that the firmest texture avails us naught when Heaven wills that we
should cease to be!
The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind.
Cast thine eye around thee and see the thousands of Nature's
productions. Take a view of them from the opening seed on the surface
sending a downward shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees rising
up and blooming in wild luxuriance: some side by side, others separate;
some curved and knotty, others straight as lances; all, in beautiful
gradation, fulfilling the mandates they had received from Heaven and,
though condemned to die, still never failing to keep up their species
till time shall be no more.
Reader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a few months to the good
of the public, and examine with thy scientific eye the productions
which the vast and well-stored colony of Demerara presents to thee?
What an immense range of forest is there from the rock Saba to the
great fall! and what an uninterrupted extent before thee from it to the
banks of the Essequibo! No doubt there is many a balsam and many a
medicinal root yet to be discovered, and many a resin, gum and oil yet
unnoticed. Thy work would be a pleasing one, and thou mightest make
several useful observations in it.
Would it be thought impertinent in thee to hazard a conjecture that,
with the resources the Government of Demerara has, stones might be
conveyed from the rock Saba to Stabroek to stem the equinoctial tides
which are for ever sweeping away the expensive wooden piles round the
mounds of the fort? Or would the timber-merchant point at thee in
passing by and call thee a descendant of La Mancha's knight, because
thou maintainest that the stones which form the rapids might be removed
with little expense, and thus open the navigation to the wood-cutter
from Stabroek to the great fall? Or wouldst thou be deemed enthusiastic
or biassed because thou givest it as thy opinion that the climate in
these high-lands is exceedingly wholesome, and the lands themselves
capable of nourishing and maintaining any number of settlers? In thy
dissertation on the Indians thou mightest hint that possibly they could
be induced to help the new settlers a little; and that, finding their
labours well requited, it would be the means of their keeping up a
constant communication with us which probably might be the means of
laying the first stone towards their Christianity. They are a poor
harmless, inoffensive set of people, and their wandering and
ill-provided way of living seems more to ask for pity from us than to
fill our heads with thoughts that they would be hostile to us.
What a noble field, kind reader, for thy experimental philosophy and
speculations, for thy learning, for thy perseverance, for thy
kindheartedness, for everything that is great and good within thee!
The accidental traveller who has journeyed on from Stabroek to the rock
Saba, and from thence to the banks of the Essequibo, in pursuit of
other things, as he told thee at the beginning, with but an indifferent
interpreter to talk to, no friend to converse with, and totally unfit
for that which he wishes thee to do, can merely mark the outlines of
the path he has trodden, or tell thee the sounds he has heard, or
faintly describe what he has seen in the environs of his
resting-places; but if this be enough to induce thee to undertake the
journey, and give the world a description of it, he will be amply
satisfied.
It will be two days and a half from the time of entering the path on
the western bank of the Demerara till all be ready and the canoe fairly
afloat on the Essequibo. The new rigging it, and putting every little
thing to rights and in its proper place, cannot well be done in less
than a day.
After being night and day in the forest, impervious to the sun's and
moon's rays, the sudden transition to light has a fine heart-cheering
effect. Welcome as a lost friend, the solar beam makes the frame
rejoice, and with it a thousand enlivening thoughts rush at once on the
soul and disperse, as a vapour, every sad and sorrowful idea which the
deep gloom had helped to collect there. In coming out of the woods you
see the western bank of the Essequibo before you, low and flat. Here
the river is two-thirds as broad as the Demerara at Stabroek.
To the northward there is a hill higher than any in the Demerara; and
in the south-south-west quarter a mountain. It is far away, and appears
like a bluish cloud in the horizon. There is not the least opening on
either side. Hills, valleys and low-lands are all linked together by a
chain of forest. Ascend the highest mountain, climb the loftiest tree,
as far as the eye can extend, whichever way it directs itself, all is
luxuriant and unbroken forest.
In about nine or ten hours from this you get to an Indian habitation of
three huts, on the point of an island. It is said that a Dutch post
once stood here. But there is not the smallest vestige of it remaining
and, except that the trees appear younger than those on the other
islands, which shows that the place has been cleared some time or
other, there is no mark left by which you can conjecture that ever this
was a post.
The many islands which you meet with in the way enliven and change the
scene, by the avenues which they make, which look like the mouths of
other rivers, and break that long-extended sameness which is seen in
the Demerara.
Proceeding onwards you get to the falls and rapids. In the rainy season
they are very tedious to pass, and often stop your course. In the dry
season, by stepping from rock to rock, the Indians soon manage to get a
canoe over them. But when the river is swollen, as it was in May 1812,
it is then a difficult task, and often a dangerous one, too. At that
time many of the islands were over-flowed, the rocks covered and the
lower branches of the trees in the water. Sometimes the Indians were
obliged to take everything out of the canoe, cut a passage through the
branches which hung over into the river, and then drag up the canoe by
main force.
At one place the falls form an oblique line quite across the river
impassable to the ascending canoe, and you are forced to have it
dragged four or five hundred yards by land.
It will take you five days, from the Indian habitation on the point of
the island, to where these falls and rapids terminate.
There are no huts in the way. You must bring your own cassava bread
along with you, hunt in the forest for your meat and make the night's
shelter for yourself.
Here is a noble range of hills, all covered with the finest trees
rising majestically one above the other, on the western bank, and
presenting as rich a scene as ever the eye would wish to look on.
Nothing in vegetable nature can be conceived more charming, grand and
luxuriant.
How the heart rejoices in viewing this beautiful landscape when the sky
is serene, the air cool and the sun just sunk behind the mountain's top!
The hayawa-tree perfumes the woods around: pairs of scarlet aras are
continually crossing the river. The maam sends forth its plaintive
note, the wren chants its evening song. The caprimulgus wheels in busy
flight around the canoe, while "Whip-poor-will" sits on the broken
stump near the water's edge, complaining as the shades of night set in.
A little before you pass the last of these rapids two immense rocks
appear, nearly on the summit of one of the many hills which form this
far-extending range where it begins to fall off gradually to the south.
They look like two ancient stately towers of some Gothic potentate
rearing their heads above the surrounding trees. What with their
situation and their shape together, they strike the beholder with an
idea of antiquated grandeur which he will never forget. He may travel
far and near and see nothing like them. On looking at them through a
glass the summit of the southern one appeared crowned with bushes. The
one to the north was quite bare. The Indians have it from their
ancestors that they are the abode of an evil genius, and they pass in
the river below with a reverential awe.
In about seven hours from these stupendous sons of the hill you leave
the Essequibo and enter the River Apoura-poura, which falls into it
from the south. The Apoura-poura is nearly one-third the size of the
Demerara at Stabroek. For two days you see nothing but level ground
richly clothed in timber. You leave the Siparouni to the right hand,
and on the third day come to a little hill. The Indians have cleared
about an acre of ground on it and erected a temporary shed. If it be
not intended for provision-ground alone, perhaps the next white man who
travels through these remote wilds will find an Indian settlement here.
Two days after leaving this you get to a rising ground on the western
bank where stands a single hut, and about half a mile in the forest
there are a few more: some of them square and some round, with spiral
roofs.
Here the fish called pacou is very plentiful: it is perhaps the fattest
and most delicious fish in Guiana. It does not take the hook, but the
Indians decoy it to the surface of the water by means of the seeds of
the crab-wood tree and then shoot it with an arrow.
You are now within the borders of Macoushia, inhabited by a different
tribe of people called Macoushi Indians, uncommonly dexterous in the
use of the blow-pipe and famous for their skill in preparing the deadly
vegetable-poison commonly called wourali.