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 plantation
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
under-wood.
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 has 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
thunder-storm, 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 had 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 vieing with the choicest woods of the old world; the locust
tree, yielding copal; and the hayawa and olon 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 cork-screw 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
main-mast 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 labba, 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 peccary 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 its 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 has 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 has 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 transverse 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 caymans, 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 among 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 depths 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 sun-down 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 parroquets
confirm his arrival there.
The crickets chirp from sunset to sunrise, and often during the day, when
the weather is cloudy. The beterouge is exceeding 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: for
they will give 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
firefly, 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 had 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 eyes 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 lay 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 caused 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 there.
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 lain
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 mementoes 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 nought when Heaven wills that we
should cease to be!--
"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack 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, must 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 around 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 woodcutter 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 he the means of laying the
first stone towards their Christianity. They are a poor, harmless,
inoffensive set of people, and their wanderings and ill-provided way of
living seem 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
kind-heartedness, 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 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 lowlands, 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 overflowed, 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 Apourapoura, which falls into it from
the south. The Apourapoura 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
crabwood-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 blowpipe, and famous for their skill in preparing the deadly
vegetable poison commonly called wourali.
It is from this country that those beautiful paroquets named kessi-kessi
are procured. Here the crystal mountains are found; and here the three
different species of the ara are seen in great abundance. Here, too,
grows the tree from which the gum-elastic is got; it is large, and as
tall as any in the forest. The wood has much the appearance of sycamore.
The gum is contained in the bark: when that is cut through it oozes out
very freely: it is quite white, and looks as rich as cream: it hardens
almost immediately as it issues from the tree; so that it is very easy to
collect a ball, by forming the juice into a globular shape as fast as it
comes out; it becomes nearly black by being exposed to the air, and is
real Indian rubber without undergoing any other process.
The elegant crested bird called cock of the rock, admirably described by
Buffon, is a native of the woody mountains of Macoushia. In the daytime
he retires amongst the darkest rocks, and only comes out to feed a little
before sunrise, and at sunset; he is of a gloomy disposition, and, like
the houtou, never associates with the other birds of the forest.
The Indians in the just-mentioned settlement seemed to depend more on the
wourali-poison for killing their game than upon anything else. They had
only one gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected; but their poisoned
weapons were in fine order. Their blowpipes hung from the roof of the
hut, carefully suspended by a silk-grass cord; and on taking a nearer
view of them, no dust seemed to have collected there, nor had the spider
spun the smallest web on them; which showed that they were in constant
use. The quivers were close by them, with the jaw-bone of the fish pirai
tied by a string to their brim, and a small wicker-basket of wild cotton,
which hung down to the centre; they were nearly full of poisoned arrows.
It was with difficulty these Indians could be persuaded to part with any
of the wourali-poison, though a good price was offered for it; they gave
me to understand that it was powder and shot to them, and very difficult
to be procured.
On the second day after leaving the settlement, in passing along, the
Indians show you a place where once a white man lived. His retiring so
far from those of his own colour and acquaintance seemed to carry
something extraordinary along with it, and raised a desire to know what
could have induced him to do so. It seems he had been unsuccessful, and
that his creditors had treated him with as little mercy as the strong
generally show to the weak. Seeing his endeavours daily frustrated, and
his best intentions of no avail, and fearing that when they had taken all
he had they would probably take his liberty too, he thought the world
would not be hard-hearted enough to condemn him for retiring from the
evils which pressed so heavily on him, and which he had done all that an
honest man could do to ward off. He left his creditors to talk of him as
they thought fit, and bidding adieu for ever to the place in which he had
once seen better times, he penetrated thus far into those remote and
gloomy wilds, and ended his days here.
According to the new map of South America, Lake Parima, or the White Sea,
ought to be within three or four days' walk from this place. On asking
the Indians whether there was such a place or not, and describing that
the water was fresh and good to drink, an old Indian, who appeared to be
about sixty, said that there was such a place, and that he had been
there. This information would have been satisfactory in some degree, had
not the Indians carried the point a little too far. It is very large,
said another Indian, and ships come to it. Now these unfortunate ships
were the very things which were not wanted; had he kept them out, it
might have done, but his introducing them was sadly against the lake.
Thus you must either suppose that the old savage and his companion had a
confused idea of the thing, and that probably the Lake Parima they talked
of was the Amazons, not far from the city of Para, or that it was their
intention to deceive you. You ought to be cautious in giving credit to
their stories, otherwise you will be apt to be led astray.
Many a ridiculous thing concerning the interior of Guiana has been
propagated and received as true, merely because six or seven Indians,
questioned separately, have agreed in their narrative.
Ask those who live high up in the Demerara, and they will, every one of
them, tell you that there is a nation of Indians with long tails; that
they are very malicious, cruel and ill-natured; and that the Portuguese
have been obliged to stop them off in a certain river, to prevent their
depredations. They have also dreadful stories concerning a horrible
beast, called the watermamma, which, when it happens to take a spite
against a canoe, rises out of the river, and in the most unrelenting
manner possible carries both canoe and Indians down to the bottom with
it, and there destroys them. Ludicrous extravagances; pleasing to those
fond of the marvellous, and excellent matter for a distempered brain.
The misinformed and timid court of policy in Demerara was made the dupe
of a savage, who came down the Essequibo, and gave himself out as king of
a mighty tribe. This naked wild man of the woods seemed to hold the said
court in tolerable contempt, and demanded immense supplies, all which he
got; and moreover, some time after, an invitation to come down the
ensuing year for more, which he took care not to forget.
This noisy chieftain boasted so much of his dynasty and domain, that the
Government was induced to send up an expedition into his territories to
see if he had spoken the truth, and nothing but the truth. It appeared,
however, that his palace was nothing but a hut, the monarch a needy
savage, the heir-apparent nothing to inherit but his father's club and
bow and arrows, and his officers of state wild and uncultivated as the
forests through which they strayed.
There was nothing in the hut of this savage, saving the presents he had
received from Government, but what was barely sufficient to support
existence; nothing that indicated a power to collect a hostile force;
nothing that showed the least progress towards civilisation. All was
rude and barbarous in the extreme, expressive of the utmost poverty and a
scanty population.
You may travel six or seven days without seeing a hut, and when you reach
a settlement it seldom contains more than ten.
The further you advance into the interior the more you are convinced that
it is thinly inhabited.
The day after passing the place where the white man lived you see a creek
on the left hand, and shortly after the path to the open country. Here
you drag the canoe up into the forest, and leave it there. Your baggage
must now be carried by the Indians. The creek you passed in the river
intersects the path to the next settlement: a large mora has fallen
across it, and makes an excellent bridge. After walking an hour and a
half you come to the edge of the forest, and a savanna unfolds itself to
the view.
The finest park that England boasts falls far short of this delightful
scene. There are about two thousand acres of grass, with here and there
a clump of trees, and a few bushes and single trees scattered up and down
by the hand of Nature. The ground is neither hilly nor level, but
diversified with moderate rises and falls, so gently running into one
another that the eye cannot distinguish where they begin, nor where they
end, while the distant black rocks have the appearance of a herd at rest.
Nearly in the middle there is an eminence, which falls off gradually on
every side; and on this the Indians have erected their huts.
To the northward of them the forest forms a circle, as though it had been
done by art; to the eastward it hangs in festoons; and to the south and
west it rushes in abruptly, disclosing a new scene behind it at every
step as you advance along.
This beautiful park of nature is quite surrounded by lofty hills, all
arrayed in superbest garb of trees; some in the form of pyramids, others
like sugar-loaves towering one above the other; some rounded off, and
others as though they had lost their apex. Here two hills rise up in
spiral summits, and the wooded line of communication betwixt them sinks
so gradually that it forms a crescent; and there the ridges of others
resemble the waves of an agitated sea. Beyond these appear others, and
others past them; and others still farther on, till they can scarcely be
distinguished from the clouds.
There are no sand-flies, nor bete-rouge, nor mosquitos in this pretty
spot. The fire-flies during the night vie in numbers and brightness with
the stars in the firmament above: the air is pure, and the north-east
breeze blows a refreshing gale throughout the day. Here the
white-crested maroudi, which is never found in the Demerara, is pretty
plentiful; and here grows the tree which produces the moran, sometimes
called balsam capivi.
Your route lies south from this place; and at the extremity of the
savanna you enter the forest, and journey along a winding path at the
foot of a hill. There is no habitation within this day's walk. The
traveller, as usual, must sleep in the forest. The path is not so good
the following day. The hills over which it lies are rocky, steep, and
rugged, and the spaces betwixt them swampy, and mostly knee-deep in
water. After eight hours' walk you find two or three Indian huts,
surrounded by the forest; and in little more than half an hour from these
you come to ten or twelve others, where you pass the night. They are
prettily situated at the entrance into a savanna. The eastern and
western hills are still covered with wood; but on looking to the
south-west quarter you perceive it begins to die away. In those 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 wood.
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 gun-shot 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 condemned to perpetual
solitude and silence. There was not one four-footed animal to be seen,
nor even the marks of one. It would have been as silent as midnight, and
all as still and unmoved as a monument had not the jabiru in the marsh,
and a few vultures soaring over the mountain's top, shown that it was not
quite deserted by animated nature. There were no insects, except one
kind of fly about one-fourth the size of the common house-fly. It bit
cruelly, and was much more tormenting than the mosquito on the sea-coast.
This seems to be the native country of the arrowroot. Wherever you
passed through a patch of wood in a low situation, there you found it
growing luxuriantly.
The Indian place you are now at is not the proper place to have come to
in order to reach the Portuguese frontiers. You have advanced too much
to the westward. But there was no alternative. The ground twixt you and
another small settlement (which was the right place to have gone to) was
overflowed; and thus, instead of proceeding southward, you were obliged
to wind along the foot of the western hills, quite out of your way.
But the grand landscape this place affords makes you ample amends for the
time you have spent in reaching it. It would require great descriptive
powers to give a proper idea of the situation these people have chosen
for their dwelling.
The hill they are on is steep and high, and full of immense rocks. The
huts are not all in one place, but dispersed wherever they have found a
place level enough for a lodgment. Before you ascend the hill you see at
intervals an acre or two of wood, then an open space, with a few huts on
it, then wood again, and then an open space, and so on, till the
intervening of the western hills, higher and steeper still, and crowded
with trees of the loveliest shades, closes the enchanting scene.
At the base of this hill stretches an immense plain, which appears to the
eye, on this elevated spot, as level as a bowling-green. The mountains
on the other side are piled one upon the other in romantic forms, and
gradually retire, till they are indiscernible from the clouds in which
they are involved. To the south-south-west this far-extending plain is
lost in the horizon. The trees on it, which look like islands on the
ocean, add greatly to the beauty of the landscape; while the rivulet's
course is marked out by the aeta-trees which follow its meanders.
Not being able to pursue the direct course from hence to the next Indian
habitation on account of the floods of water which fall at this time of
the year, you take a circuit westerly along the mountain's foot.
At last a large and deep creek stops your progress: it is wide and rapid,
and its banks very steep. There is neither curial nor canoe, nor
purple-heart tree in the neighbourhood to make a wood-skin to carry you
over, so that you are obliged to swim across; and by the time you have
formed a kind of raft, composed of boughs of trees and coarse grass, to
ferry over your luggage, the day will be too far spent to think of
proceeding. You must be very cautious before you venture to swim across
this creek, for the alligators are numerous, and near twenty feet long.
On the present occasion the Indians took uncommon precautions lest they
should be devoured by this cruel and voracious reptile. They cut long
sticks, and examined closely the side of the creek for half a mile above
and below the place where it was to be crossed; and as soon as the
boldest had swum over, he did the same on the other side, and then all
followed.
After passing the night on the opposite bank, which is well wooded, it is
a brisk walk of nine hours before you reach four Indian huts, on a rising
ground a few hundred paces from a little brook, whose banks are covered
over with coucourito and aeta trees.
This is the place you ought to have come to two days ago had the water
permitted you. In crossing the plain at the most advantageous place you
are above ankle-deep in water for three hours; the remainder of the way
is dry, the ground gently rising. As the lower parts of this spacious
plain put on somewhat the appearance of a lake during the periodical
rains, it is not improbable but that this is the place which hath given
rise to the supposed existence of the famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado;
but this is mere conjecture.
A few deer are feeding on the coarse rough grass of this far-extending
plain; they keep at a distance from you, and are continually on the
look-out.
The spur-winged plover, and a species of the curlew, black, with a white
bar across the wings, nearly as large again as the scarlet curlew on the
sea-coast, frequently rise before you. Here, too, the Moscovy duck is
numerous; and large flocks of two other kinds wheel round you as you pass
on, but keep out of gun-shot. The milk-white egrets, and jabirus, are
distinguished at a great distance; and in the aeta and coucourito trees
you may observe flocks of scarlet and blue aras feeding on the seeds.
It is to these trees that the largest sort of toucan resorts. He is
remarkable by a large black spot on the point of his fine yellow bill.
He is very scarce in Demerara, and never seen except near the sea-coast.
The ants' nests have a singular appearance on this plain. They are in
vast abundance on those parts of it free from water, and are formed of an
exceeding hard yellow clay. They rise eight or ten feet from the ground
in a spiral form, impenetrable to the rain, and strong enough to defy the
severest tornado.
The wourali-poison, procured in these last-mentioned huts, seemed very
good, and proved afterwards to be very strong.
There are now no more Indian settlements betwixt you and the Portuguese
frontiers. If you wish to visit their fort, it would be advisable to
send an Indian with a letter from hence, and wait his return. On the
present occasion a very fortunate circumstance occurred. The Portuguese
commander had sent some Indians and soldiers to build a canoe, not far
from this settlement; they had just finished it, and those who did not
stay with it had stopped here on their return.
The soldier who commanded the rest, said he durst not, upon any account,
convoy a stranger to the fort; but he added, as there were two canoes,
one of them might be despatched with a letter, and then we could proceed
slowly on in the other.
About three hours from this settlement there is a river called Pirarara;
and here the soldiers had left their canoes while they were making the
new one. From the Pirarara you get into the river Maou, and then into
the Tacatou; and just where the Tacatou falls into the Rio Branco, there
stands the Portuguese frontier fort, called Fort St. Joachim. From the
time of embarking in the river Pirarara, it takes you four days before
you reach this fort.
There was nothing very remarkable in passing down these rivers. It is an
open country, producing a coarse grass, and interspersed with clumps of
trees. The banks have some wood on them, but it appears stunted and
crooked, like that on the bleak hills in England.
The tapir frequently plunged into the river; he was by no means shy, and
it was easy to get a shot at him on land. The kessi-kessi paroquets were
in great abundance; and the fine scarlet ara innumerable in the
coucourito trees at a distance from the river's bank. In the Tacatou was
seen the troupiale. It was charming to hear the sweet and plaintive
notes of this pretty songster of the wilds. The Portuguese call it the
nightingale of Guiana.
Towards the close of the fourth evening, the canoe, which had been sent
on with a letter, met us with the commander's answer. During its
absence, the nights had been cold and stormy, the rain had fallen in
torrents, the days cloudy, and there was no sun to dry the wet hammocks.
Exposed thus, day and night, to the chilling blast and pelting shower,
strength of constitution at last failed, and a severe fever came on. The
commander's answer was very polite. He remarked, he regretted much to
say that he had received orders to allow no stranger to enter the
frontier, and this being the case, he hoped I would not consider him as
uncivil. "However," continued he, "I have ordered the soldier to land
you at a certain distance from the fort, where we can consult together."
We had now arrived at the place, and the canoe which brought the letter
returned to the fort, to tell the commander I had fallen sick.
The sun had not risen above an hour the morning after when the Portuguese
officer came to the spot where we had landed the preceding evening. He
was tall and spare, and appeared to be from fifty to fifty-five years
old; and, though thirty years of service under an equatorial sun had
burnt and shrivelled up his face, still there was something in it so
inexpressibly affable and kind, that it set you immediately at your ease.
He came close up to the hammock, and taking hold of my wrist to feel the
pulse, "I am sorry, sir," said he, "to see that the fever has taken such
hold of you. You shall go directly with me," continued he, "to the fort;
and though we have no doctor there, I trust," added he, "we shall soon
bring you about again. The orders I have received forbidding the
admission of strangers were never intended to be put in force against a
sick English gentleman."
As the canoe was proceeding slowly down the river towards the fort, the
commander asked, with much more interest than a question in ordinary
conversation is asked, where was I on the night of the first of May? On
telling him that I was at an Indian settlement a little below the great
fall in the Demerara, and that a strange and sudden noise had alarmed all
the Indians, he said the same astonishing noise had roused every man in
Fort St. Joachim, and that they remained under arms till morning. He
observed that he had been quite at a loss to form any idea what could
have caused the noise; but now learning that the same noise had been
heard at the same time far away from the Rio Branco, it struck him there
must have been an earthquake somewhere or other.
Good nourishment and rest, and the unwearied attention and kindness of
the Portuguese commander, stopped the progress of the fever, and enabled
me to walk about in six days.
Fort St. Joachim was built about five-and-forty years ago, under the
apprehension, it is said, that the Spaniards were coming from the Rio
Negro to settle there. It has been much neglected; the floods of water
have carried away the gate, and destroyed the wall on each side of it;
but the present commander is putting it into thorough repair. When
finished, it will mount six nine- and six twelve-pounders.
In a straight line with the fort, and within a few yards of the river,
stand the commander's house, the barracks, the chapel, the father
confessor's house, and two others, all at little intervals from each
other; and these are the only buildings at Fort St. Joachim. The
neighbouring extensive plains afford good pasturage for a fine breed of
cattle, and the Portuguese make enough of butter and cheese for their own
consumption.
On asking the old officer if there were such a place as Lake Parima, or
El Dorado, he replied, he looked upon it as imaginary altogether. "I
have been above forty years," added he, "in Portuguese Guiana, but have
never yet met with anybody who has seen the lake."
So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the White Sea. Its existence
at best seems doubtful; some affirm that there is such a place, and
others deny it.
"Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est."
Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier, and collected a
sufficient quantity of the wourali-poison, nothing remains but to give a
brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses, and its supposed
antidotes.
It has been already remarked that in the extensive wilds of Demerara and
Essequibo, far away from any European settlement, there is a tribe of
Indians who are known by the name of Macoushi.
Though the wourali-poison is used by all the South American savages
betwixt the Amazons and the Oroonoque, still this tribe makes it stronger
than any of the rest. The Indians in the vicinity of the Rio Negro are
aware of this, and come to the Macoushi country to purchase it.
Much has been said concerning this fatal and extraordinary poison. Some
have affirmed that its effects are almost instantaneous, provided the
minutest particle of it mixes with the blood; and others again have
maintained that it is not strong enough to kill an animal of the size and
strength of a man. The first have erred by lending a too willing ear to
the marvellous, and believing assertions without sufficient proof. The
following short story points out the necessity of a cautious
examination:--
One day, on asking an Indian if he thought the poison would kill a man,
he replied that they always go to battle with it; that he was standing by
when an Indian was shot with a poisoned arrow, and that he expired almost
immediately. Not wishing to dispute this apparently satisfactory
information, the subject was dropped. However, about an hour after,
having purposely asked him in what part of the body the said Indian was
wounded, he answered without hesitation that the arrow entered betwixt
his shoulders, and passed quite through his heart. Was it the weapon, or
the strength of the poison, that brought on immediate dissolution in this
case? Of course the weapon.
The second have been misled by disappointment, caused by neglect in
keeping the poisoned arrows, or by not knowing how to use them, or by
trying inferior poison. If the arrows are not kept dry, the poison loses
its strength; and in wet or damp weather it turns mouldy, and becomes
quite soft. In shooting an arrow in this state, upon examining the place
where it has entered, it will be observed that, though the arrow has
penetrated deep into the flesh, still by far the greatest part of the
poison has shrunk back, and thus, instead of entering with the arrow, it
has remained collected at the mouth of the wound. In this case the arrow
might as well not have been poisoned. Probably, it was to this that a
gentleman, some time ago, owed his disappointment, when he tried the
poison on a horse in the town of Stabroek, the capital of Demerara; the
horse never betrayed the least symptom of being affected by it.
Wishful to obtain the best information concerning this poison, and as
repeated inquiries, in lieu of dissipating the surrounding shade, did but
tend more and more to darken the little light that existed, I determined
to penetrate into the country where the poisonous ingredients grow, where
this pernicious composition is prepared, and where it is constantly used.
Success attended the adventure; and the information acquired made amends
for one hundred and twenty days passed in the solitudes of Guiana, and
afforded a balm to the wounds and bruises which every traveller must
expect to receive who wanders through a thorny and obstructed path.
Thou must not, courteous reader, expect a dissertation on the manner in
which the wourali-poison operates on the system; a treatise has been
already written on the subject; and, after all, there is probably still
reason to doubt. It is supposed to affect the nervous system, and thus
destroy the vital functions; it is also said to be perfectly harmless,
provided it does not touch the blood. However, this is certain, when a
sufficient quantity of it enters the blood, death is the inevitable
consequence; but there is no alteration in the colour of the blood, and
both the blood and flesh may be eaten with safety.
All that thou wilt find here is a concise, unadorned account of the
wourali-poison. It may be of service to thee some time or other,
shouldst thou ever travel through the wilds where it is used. Neither
attribute to cruelty, nor to a want of feeling for the sufferings of the
inferior animals, the ensuing experiments. The larger animals were
destroyed in order to have proof positive of the strength of a poison
which hath hitherto been doubted: and the smaller ones were killed with
the hope of substantiating that which has commonly been supposed to be an
antidote.
It makes a pitying heart ache to see a poor creature in distress and
pain; and too often has the compassionate traveller occasion to heave a
sigh as he journeys on. However, here, though the kind-hearted will be
sorry to read of an unoffending animal doomed to death in order to
satisfy a doubt, still it will be a relief to know that the victim was
not tortured. The wourali-poison destroys life's action so gently, that
the victim appears to be in no pain whatever; and probably, were the
truth known, it feels none, saving the momentary smart at the time the
arrow enters.
A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares his poison, he goes into
the forest in quest of the ingredients. A vine grows in these wilds,
which is called wourali. It is from this that the poison takes its name,
and it is the principal ingredient. When he has procured enough of this,
he digs up a root of a very bitter taste, ties them together, and then
looks about for two kinds of bulbous plants, which contain a green and
glutinous juice. He fills a little quake, which he carries on his back,
with the stalks of these; and, lastly, ranges up and down till he finds
two species of ants. One of them is very large and black, and so
venomous that its sting produces a fever; it is most commonly to be met
with on the ground. The other is a little red ant, which stings like a
nettle, and generally has its nest under the leaf of a shrub. After
obtaining these, he has no more need to range the forest.
A quantity of the strongest Indian pepper is used; but this he has
already planted round his hut. The pounded fangs of the labarri snake,
and those of the counacouchi, are likewise added. These he commonly has
in store; for when he kills a snake, he generally extracts the fangs, and
keeps them by him.
Having thus found the necessary ingredients, he scrapes the wourali vine
and bitter root into thin shavings, and puts them into a kind of colander
made of leaves; this he holds over an earthen pot, and pours water on the
shavings: the liquor which comes through has the appearance of coffee.
When a sufficient quantity has been procured, the shavings are thrown
aside. He then bruises the bulbous stalks and squeezes a proportionate
quantity of their juice through his hands into the pot. Lastly, the
snakes' fangs, ants, and pepper are bruised, and thrown into it. It is
then placed on a slow fire, and as it boils more of the juice of the
wourali is added, according as it may be found necessary, and the scum is
taken off with a leaf: it remains on the fire till reduced to a thick
syrup of a deep brown colour. As soon as it has arrived at this state, a
few arrows are poisoned with it to try its strength. If it answers the
expectations, it is poured out into a calabash, or little pot of Indian
manufacture, which is carefully covered with a couple of leaves, and over
them a piece of deer's skin, tied round with a cord. They keep it in the
most dry part of the hut; and from time to time suspend it over the fire,
to counteract the effects of dampness.
The act of preparing this poison is not considered as a common one: the
savage may shape his bow, fasten the barb on the point of his arrow, and
make his other implements of destruction, either lying in his hammock, or
in the midst of his family; but if he has to prepare the wourali-poison,
many precautions are supposed to be necessary.
The women and young girls are not allowed to be present, lest the
yabahou, or evil spirit, should do them harm. The shed under which it
has been boiled has been pronounced polluted and abandoned ever after.
He who makes the poison must eat nothing that morning, and must continue
fasting as long as the operation lasts. The pot in which it is boiled
must be a new one, and must never have held anything before, otherwise
the poison would be deficient in strength: add to this that the operator
must take particular care not to expose himself to the vapour which
arises from it while on the fire.
Though this and other precautions are taken, such as frequently washing
the face and hands, still the Indians think that it affects the health;
and the operator either is, or, what is more probable, supposes himself
to be, sick for some days after.
Thus it appears that the making the wourali-poison is considered as a
gloomy and mysterious operation; and it would seem that they imagine it
affects others as well as him who boils it; for an Indian agreed one
evening to make some for me, but the next morning he declined having
anything to do with it, alleging that his wife was with child!
Here it might be asked, are all the ingredients just mentioned necessary,
in order to produce the wourali-poison? Though our opinions and
conjectures may militate against the absolute necessity of some of them,
still it would be hardly fair to pronounce them added by the hand of
superstition, till proof positive can he obtained.
We might argue on the subject, and, by bringing forward instances of
Indian superstition, draw our conclusion by inference, and still remain
in doubt on this head. You know superstition to be the offspring of
ignorance, and of course that it takes up its abode amongst the rudest
tribes of uncivilised man. It even too often resides with man in his
more enlightened state.
The Augustan age furnishes numerous examples. A bone snatched from the
jaws of a fasting bitch, and a feather from the wing of a
night-owl,--"ossa ab ore rapta jejunae canis, plumamque nocturnae
strigis,"--were necessary for Canidia's incantations. And in aftertimes,
Parson Evans, the Welshman, was treated most ungenteelly by an enraged
spirit, solely because he had forgotten a fumigation in his witch-work.
If, then, enlightened man lets his better sense give way, and believes,
or allows himself to be persuaded, that certain substances and actions,
in reality of no avail, possess a virtue which renders them useful in
producing the wished-for effect; may not the wild, untaught,
unenlightened savage of Guiana, add an ingredient which, on account of
the harm it does him, he fancies may be useful in the perfection of his
poison, though, in fact, it be of no use at all? If a bone snatched from
the jaws of a fasting bitch be thought necessary in incantation; or if
witchcraft have recourse to the raiment of the owl, because it resorts to
the tombs and mausoleums of the dead, and wails and hovers about at the
time that the rest of animated nature sleeps; certainly the savage may
imagine that the ants, whose sting causes a fever, and the teeth of the
labarri and counacouchi snakes, which convey death in a very short space
of time, are essentially necessary in the composition of his poison; and
being once impressed with this idea, he will add them every time he makes
the poison, and transmit the absolute use of them to his posterity. The
question to be answered seems not to be if it is natural for the Indians
to mix these ingredients, but if they are essential to make the poison.
So much for the preparing of this vegetable essence--terrible importer of
death into whatever animal it enters. Let us now see how it is used; let
us examine the weapons which bear it to its destination, and take a view
of the poor victim, from the time he receives his wound till death comes
to his relief.
When a native of Macoushia goes in quest of feathered game or other
birds, he seldom carries his bow and arrows. It is the blow-pipe he then
uses. This extraordinary tube of death is, perhaps, one of the greatest
natural curiosities of Guiana. It is not found in the country of the
Macoushi. Those Indians tell you that it grows to the south-west of
them, in the wilds which extend betwixt them and the Rio Negro. The reed
must grow to an amazing length, as the part the Indians use is from ten
to eleven feet long, and no tapering can be perceived in it, one end
being as thick as the other. It is of a bright yellow colour, perfectly
smooth both inside and out. It grows hollow; nor is there the least
appearance of a knot or joint throughout the whole extent. The natives
call it ourah. This, of itself, is too slender to answer the end of a
blow-pipe; but there is a species of palma, larger and stronger, and
common in Guiana, and this the Indians make use of as a case, in which
they put the ourah. It is brown, susceptible of a fine polish, and
appears as if it had joints five or six inches from each other. It is
called samourah, and the pulp inside is easily extracted, by steeping it
for a few days in water.
Thus the ourah and samourah, one within the other, form the blow-pipe of
Guiana. The end which is applied to the mouth is tied round with a small
silk-grass cord, to prevent its splitting; and the other end, which is
apt to strike against the ground, is secured by the seed of the acuero
fruit, cut horizontally through the middle, with a hole made in the end,
through which is put the extremity of the blow-pipe. It is fastened on
with string on the outside, and the inside is filled up with wild
bees'-wax.
The arrow is from nine to ten inches long. It is made out of the leaf of
a species of palm-tree, called coucourito, hard and brittle, and pointed
as sharp as a needle. About an inch of the pointed end is poisoned. The
other end is burnt to make it still harder, and wild cotton is put round
it for about an inch and a half. It requires considerable practice to
put on this cotton well. It must just be large enough to fit the hollow
of the tube, and taper off to nothing downwards. They tie it on with a
thread of the silk-grass, to prevent its slipping off the arrow.
The Indians have shown ingenuity in making a quiver to hold the arrows.
It will contain from five to six hundred. It is generally from twelve to
fourteen inches long, and in shape resembles a dice-box used at
backgammon. The inside is prettily done in basket-work, with wood not
unlike bamboo, and the outside has a coat of wax. The cover is all of
one piece, formed out of the skin of the tapir. Round the centre there
is fastened a loop, large enough to admit the arm and shoulder, from
which it hangs when used. To the rim is tied a little bunch of
silk-grass, and half of the jawbone of the fish called pirai, with which
the Indian scrapes the point of his arrow.
Before he puts the arrows into the quiver, he links them together by two
strings of cotton, one string at each end, and then folds them round a
stick, which is nearly the length of the quiver. The end of the stick,
which is uppermost, is guarded by two little pieces of wood crosswise,
with a hoop round their extremities, which appears something like a
wheel; and this saves the hand from being wounded when the quiver is
reversed in order to let the bunch of arrows drop out.
There is also attached to the quiver a little kind of basket, to hold the
wild cotton, which is put on the blunt end of the arrow. With a quiver
of poisoned arrows slung over his shoulder, and with his blowpipe in his
hand, in the same position as a soldier carries his musket, see the
Macoushi Indian advancing towards the forest in quest of powises,
maroudis, waracabas, and other feathered game.
These generally sit high up in the tall and tufted trees, but still are
not out of the Indian's reach; for his blowpipe, at its greatest
elevation, will send an arrow three hundred feet. Silent as midnight he
steals under them, and so cautiously does he tread the ground that the
fallen leaves rustle not beneath his feet. His ears are open to the
least sound, while his eye, keen as that of the lynx, is employed in
finding out the game in the thickest shade. Often he imitates their cry,
and decoys them from tree to tree, till they are within range of his
tube. Then taking a poisoned arrow from his quiver, he puts it in the
blowpipe, and collects his breath for the fatal puff.
About two feet from the end through which he blows there are fastened two
teeth of the acouri, and these serve him for a sight. Silent and swift
the arrow flies, and seldom fails to pierce the object at which it is
sent. Sometimes the wounded bird remains in the same tree where it was
shot, and in three minutes falls down at the Indian's feet. Should he
take wing, his flight is of short duration, and the Indian, following the
direction he has gone, is sure to find him dead.
It is natural to imagine that, when a slight wound only is inflicted, the
game will make its escape. Far otherwise; the wourali-poison almost
instantaneously mixes with blood or water, so that if you wet your
finger, and dash it along the poisoned arrow in the quickest manner
possible, you are sure to carry off some of the poison. Though three
minutes generally elapse before the convulsions come on in the wounded
bird, still a stupor evidently takes place sooner, and this stupor
manifests itself by an apparent unwillingness in the bird to move. This
was very visible in a dying fowl.
Having procured a healthy full-grown one, a short piece of a poisoned
blowpipe arrow was broken off and run up into its thigh, as near as
possible betwixt the skin and the flesh, in order that it might not be
incommoded by the wound. For the first minute it walked about, but
walked very slowly, and did not appear the least agitated. During the
second minute it stood still, and began to peck the ground; and ere half
another had elapsed, it frequently opened and shut its mouth. The tail
had now dropped, and the wings almost touched the ground. By the
termination of the third minute, it had sat down, scarce able to support
its head, which nodded, and then recovered itself, and then nodded again,
lower and lower every time, like that of a weary traveller slumbering in
an erect position; the eyes alternately open and shut. The fourth minute
brought on convulsions, and life and the fifth terminated together.
The flesh of the game is not in the least injured by the poison, nor does
it appear to corrupt sooner than that killed by the gun or knife. The
body of this fowl was kept for sixteen hours, in a climate damp and
rainy, and within seven degrees of the equator; at the end of which time
it had contracted no bad smell whatever, and there were no symptoms of
putrefaction, saving that, just round the wound, the flesh appeared
somewhat discoloured.
The Indian, on his return home, carefully suspends his blowpipe from the
top of his spiral roof; seldom placing it in an oblique position, lest it
should receive a cast.
Here let the blowpipe remain suspended, while you take a view of the arms
which are made to slay the larger beasts of the forest.
When the Indian intends to chase the peccari, or surprise the deer, or
rouse the tapir from his marshy retreat, he carries his bow and arrows,
which are very different from the weapons already described.
The bow is generally from six to seven feet long, and strung with a cord,
spun out of the silk-grass. The forests of Guiana furnish many species
of hard wood, tough and elastic, out of which beautiful and excellent
bows are formed.
The arrows are from four to five feet in length, made of a yellow reed
without a knot or joint. It is found in great plenty up and down
throughout Guiana. A piece of hard wood, about nine inches long, is
inserted into the end of the reed, and fastened with cotton well waxed.
A square hole, an inch deep, is then made in the end of this piece of
hard wood, done tight round with cotton to keep it from splitting. Into
this square hole is fitted a spike of coucourite wood, poisoned, and
which may be kept there, or taken out at pleasure. A joint of bamboo,
about as thick as your finger, is fitted on over the poisoned spike, to
prevent accidents and defend it from the rain, and is taken off when the
arrow is about to be used. Lastly, two feathers are fastened on the
other end of the reed to steady it in its flight.
Besides his bow and arrows, the Indian carries a little box made of
bamboo, which holds a dozen or fifteen poisoned spikes six inches long.
They are poisoned in the following manner: a small piece of wood is
dipped in the poison, and with this they give the spike a first coat. It
is then exposed to the sun or fire. After it is dry, it receives another
coat, and is then dried again; after this a third coat, and sometimes a
fourth.
They take great care to put the poison on thicker at the middle than at
the sides, by which means the spike retains the shape of a two-edged
sword. It is rather a tedious operation to make one of these arrows
complete; and as the Indian is not famed for industry, except when
pressed by hunger, he has hit upon a plan of preserving his arrows which
deserves notice.
About a quarter of an inch above the part where the coucourite spike is
fixed into the square hole, he cuts it half through; and thus, when it
has entered the animal, the weight of the arrow causes it to break off
there, by which means the arrow falls to the ground uninjured; so that,
should this be the only arrow he happens to have with him, and should
another shot immediately occur, he has only to take another poisoned
spike out of his little bamboo box, fit it on his arrow, and send it to
its destination.
Thus armed with deadly poison, and hungry as the hyaena, he ranges
through the forest in quest of the wild beast's track. No hound can act
a surer part. Without clothes to fetter him, or shoes to bind his feet,
he observes the footsteps of the game, where an European eye could not
discern the smallest vestige. He pursues it through all its turns and
windings with astonishing perseverance, and success generally crowns his
efforts. The animal, after receiving the poisoned arrow, seldom retreats
two hundred paces before it drops.
In passing overland from the Essequibo to the Demerara we fell in with a
herd of wild hogs. Though encumbered with baggage, and fatigued with a
hard day's walk, an Indian got his bow ready; and let fly a poisoned
arrow at one of them. It entered the cheek-bone and broke off. The wild
hog was found quite dead about one hundred and seventy paces from the
place where he had been shot. He afforded us an excellent and wholesome
supper.
Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the common weapons of
destruction, has it in his power to prepare a poison, by which he can
generally ensure to himself a supply of animal food; and the food so
destroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature has been bountiful to
him. She has not only ordered poisonous herbs and roots to grow in the
unbounded forests through which he strays, but has also furnished an
excellent reed for his arrows, and another, still more singular, for his
blowpipe; and planted trees of an amazing hard, tough, and elastic
texture, out of which he forms his bows. And in order that nothing might
be wanting, she has superadded a tree which yields him a fine wax, and
disseminated up and down, a plant not unlike that of the pineapple, which
affords him capital bowstrings.
Having now followed the Indian in the chase, and described the poison,
let us take a nearer view of its action, and observe a large animal
expiring under the weight of its baneful virulence.
Many have doubted the strength of the wourali poison. Should they ever
by chance read what follows, probably their doubts on that score will be
settled for ever.
In the former experiment on the hog some faint resistance on the part of
nature was observed, as if existence struggled for superiority; but in
the following instance of the sloth life sank in death without the least
apparent contention, without a cry, without a struggle, and without a
groan. This was an ai, or three-toed sloth. It was in the possession of
a gentleman who was collecting curiosities. He wished to have it killed,
in order to preserve the skin, and the wourali-poison was resorted to as
the easiest death.
Of all animals, not even the toad and tortoise excepted, this poor
ill-formed creature is the most tenacious of life. It exists long after
it has received wounds which would have destroyed any other animal; and
it may be said, on seeing a mortally wounded sloth, that life disputes
with death every inch of flesh in its body.
The ai was wounded in the leg, and put down on the floor, about two feet
from the table; it contrived to reach the leg of the table, and fastened
himself on it, as if wishful to ascend. But this was its last advancing
step: life was ebbing fast, though imperceptibly; nor could this singular
production of nature, which has been formed of a texture to resist death
in a thousand shapes, make any stand against the wourali-poison.
First, one fore-leg let go its hold, and dropped down motionless by its
side; the other gradually did the same. The fore-legs having now lost
their strength, the sloth slowly doubled its body, and placed its head
betwixt its hind-legs, which still adhered to the table; but when the
poison had affected these also it sank to the ground, but sank so gently,
that you could not distinguish the movement from an ordinary motion; and
had you been ignorant that it was wounded with a poisoned arrow, you
would never have suspected that it was dying. Its mouth was shut, nor
had any froth or saliva collected there.
There was no _subsultus tendinum_, or any visible alteration in its
breathing. During the tenth minute from the time it was wounded it
stirred, and that was all; and the minute after life's last spark went
out. From the time the poison began to operate, you would have
conjectured that sleep was overpowering it, and you would have exclaimed,
"Pressitque jacentem, dulcis et alta quies, placidaeque simillima morti."
There are now two positive proofs of the effect of this fatal poison,
viz., the death of the hog, and that of the sloth. But still these
animals were nothing remarkable for size; and the strength of the poison
in large animals might yet be doubted, were it not for what follows.
A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred to a thousand pounds' weight, was
tied to a stake by a rope sufficiently long to allow him to move to and
fro. Having no large coucourito spikes at hand, it was judged necessary,
on account of his superior size, to put three wild-hog arrows into him;
one was sent into each thigh just above the hock, in order to avoid
wounding a vital part, and the third was shot transversely into the
extremity of the nostril.
The poison seemed to take effect in four minutes. Conscious as though he
would fall, the ox set himself firmly on his legs, and remained quite
still in the same place till about the fourteenth minute, when he smelled
the ground, and appeared as if inclined to walk. He advanced a pace or
two, staggered, and fell, and remained extended on his side with his head
on the ground. His eye, a few minutes ago so bright and lively, now
became fixed and dim, and though you put your hand close to it, as if to
give him a blow there, he never closed his eyelid.
His legs were convulsed, and his head from time to time started
involuntarily; but he never showed the least desire to raise it from the
ground; he breathed hard, and emitted foam from his mouth. The
startings, or _subsultus tendinum_, now became gradually weaker and
weaker; his hinder parts were fixed in death; and in a minute or two more
his head and fore-legs ceased to stir.
Nothing now remained to show that life was still within him, except that
his heart faintly beat and fluttered at intervals. In five-and-twenty
minutes from the time of his being wounded he was quite dead. His flesh
was very sweet and savoury at dinner.
On taking a retrospective view of the two different kinds of poisoned
arrows, and the animals destroyed by them, it would appear that the
quantity of poison must be proportioned to the animal, and thus those
probably labour under an error who imagine that the smallest particle of
it introduced into the blood has almost instantaneous effects.
Make an estimate of the difference in size betwixt the fowl and the ox,
and then weigh a sufficient quantity of poison for a blowpipe arrow with
which the fowl was killed, and weigh also enough poison for three
wild-hog arrows which destroyed the ox, and it will appear that the fowl
received much more poison in proportion than the ox. Hence the cause why
the fowl died in five minutes and the ox in five-and-twenty.
Indeed, were it the case that the smallest particle of it introduced into
the blood has almost instantaneous effects, the Indian would not find it
necessary to make the large arrow; that of the blowpipe is much easier
made and requires less poison.
And now for the antidotes, or rather the supposed antidotes. The Indians
tell you, that if the wounded animal be held for a considerable time up
to the mouth in water, the poison will not prove fatal; also that the
juice of the sugar-cane poured down the throat will counteract the
effects of it. These antidotes were fairly tried upon full-grown healthy
fowls, but they all died, as though no steps had been taken to preserve
their lives. Rum was recommended and given to another, but with as
little success.
It is supposed by some that wind introduced into the lungs by means of a
small pair of bellows would revive the poisoned patient, provided the
operation be continued for a sufficient length of time. It may be so;
but this is a difficult and a tedious mode of cure, and he who is wounded
in the forest far away from his friends, or in the hut of the savages,
stands but a poor chance of being saved by it.
Had the Indians a sure antidote, it is likely they would carry it about
with them, or resort to it immediately after being wounded, if at hand;
and their confidence in its efficacy would greatly diminish the horror
they betray when you point a poisoned arrow at them.
One day, while we were eating a red monkey, erroneously called the baboon
of Demerara, an Arowack Indian told an affecting story of what happened
to a comrade of his. He was present at his death. As it did not
interest this Indian in any point to tell a falsehood it is very probable
that his account was a true one. If so, it appears that there is no
certain antidote, or at least an antidote that could be resorted to in a
case of urgent need; for the Indian gave up all thoughts of life as soon
as he was wounded.
The Arowack Indian said it was but four years ago that he and his
companion were ranging in the forest in quest of game. His companion
took a poisoned arrow, and sent it at a red monkey in a tree above him.
It was nearly a perpendicular shot. The arrow missed the monkey, and in
the descent struck him in the arm a little above the elbow. He was
convinced it was all over with him. "I shall never," said he to his
companion in a faltering voice, and looking at his bow as he said it, "I
shall never," said he, "bend this bow again." And having said that he
took off his little bamboo poison-box, which hung across his shoulder,
and putting it, together with his bow and arrows, on the ground, he laid
himself down close by them, bid his companion farewell, and never spoke
more.
He who is unfortunate enough to be wounded by a poisoned arrow from
Macoushia had better not depend upon the common antidotes for a cure.
Many who have been in Guiana will recommend immediate immersion in water,
or to take the juice of the sugar-cane, or to fill the mouth full of
salt; and, they recommend these antidotes because they have got them from
the Indians. But were you to ask them if they ever saw these antidotes
used with success, it is ten to one their answer would be in the
negative.
Wherefore let him reject these antidotes as unprofitable, and of no
avail. He has got an active and a deadly foe within him, which, like
Shakespeare's fell Sergeant Death, is strict in his arrest, and will
allow him but little time--very, very little time. In a few minutes he
will be numbered with the dead. Life ought, if possible, to be
preserved, be the expense ever so great. Should the part affected admit
of it, let a ligature be tied tight round the wound, and have immediate
recourse to the knife:--
"Continuo, culpam ferro compesce priusquam,
Dira per infaustum serpant contagia corpus."
And now, kind reader, it is time to bid thee farewell. The two ends
proposed have been obtained. The Portuguese inland frontier fort has
been reached, and the Macoushi wourali-poison acquired. The account of
this excursion through the interior of Guiana has been submitted to thy
perusal, in order to induce thy abler genius to undertake a more
extensive one. If any difficulties have arisen, or fevers come on, they
have been caused by the periodical rains, which fall in torrents as the
sun approaches the tropic of Cancer. In dry weather there would be no
difficulties or sickness.
Amongst the many satisfactory conclusions which thou wouldst be able to
draw during the journey, there is one which, perhaps, would please thee
not a little, and that is with regard to dogs. Many a time, no doubt,
thou hast heard it hotly disputed that dogs existed in Guiana previously
to the arrival of the Spaniards in those parts. Whatever the Spaniards
introduced, and which bore no resemblance to anything the Indians had
been accustomed to see, retains its Spanish name to this day.
Thus the Warrow, the Arowack, the Acoway, the Macoushi, and Carib tribes,
call a hat, "sombrero;" shirt, or any kind of cloth, "camisa;" a shoe,
"zapato;" a letter, "carta;" a fowl, "gallina;" gunpowder, "colvora"
(Spanish, "polvora"); ammunition, "bala;" a cow, "vaca;" and a dog,
"perro."
This argues strongly against the existence of dogs in Guiana before it
was discovered by the Spaniards, and probably may be of use to thee in
thy next canine dispute.
In a political point of view this country presents a large field for
speculation. A few years ago there was but little inducement for any
Englishman to explore the interior of these rich and fine colonies, as
the British Government did not consider them worth holding at the peace
of Amiens. Since that period their mother-country has been blotted out
from the list of nations, and America has unfolded a new sheet of
politics. On one side the crown of Braganza, attacked by an ambitious
chieftain, has fled from the palace of its ancestors, and now seems fixed
on the banks of the Janeiro. Cayenne has yielded to its arms. La Plata
has raised the standard of independence, and thinks itself sufficiently
strong to obtain a government of its own. On the other side, the
Caraccas are in open revolt, and should Santa Fe join them in good
earnest they may form a powerful association.
Thus, on each side of the _ci-devant_ Dutch Guiana, most unexpected and
astonishing changes have taken place. Will they raise or lower it in the
scale of estimation at the Court of St. James's? Will they be of benefit
to these grand and extensive colonies?--colonies enjoying perpetual
summer--colonies of the richest soil--colonies containing within
themselves everything necessary for their support--colonies, in fine, so
varied in their quality and situation, as to be capable of bringing to
perfection every tropical production; and only want the support of
government, and an enlightened governor, to render them as fine as the
finest portions of the equatorial regions. Kind reader, fare thee well.