Chapter XV: Page 378 (12)

In the inland parts, many Indians of both sexes go quite naked, without any covering whatever. The Indian women also, by way of ornament, often cut small holes in their ears and their lips, in the first of which they wear corks or small pieces of light wood, and through their lips they stick thorns, and sometimes all the pins they can lay hold of, with the heads inside against the gums, and the points like a beard dangling down upon their chins. Some wear feathers through their cheeks and through their noses, though this is but seldom. But the most unaccountable ornament in my opinion is, that the girls at ten or twelve years old work a kind of cotton garter round their ankles, and the same below the knee; which being very tight, and remaining for ever, occasions their calves to swell to an enormous size by the time they are grown women, and gives their limbs a very odd and unnatural appearance. They also wear girdles, bands, and bracelets, of various coloured beads, shells, and fish-teeth, about their necks, across their shoulders, or round their arms, but generally above the elbow. Upon the whole, the Indian women, naturally disagreeable in their shapes, with their toes turned inwards, are still less attractive by their ornaments. But from this general description I must exempt one cast in particular, called Arrowouks, whom I shall describe in their proper place.

The ornaments of the men consist of crowns of various coloured feathers, or a sash of boars or tygers teeth across one shoulder, as a token of their valour and activity. The chiefs of families sometimes wear the skin of a tyger, and a silver plate resembling a croissant, called by them a caracoly; they also frequently have small oval bits of silver in the cartilaginous separation of their noses, and sometimes a green or yellow coloured stone. All these nations live in the forest, near rivers, and along the sea-coast, where they are scattered in small villages or hamlets. Their houses or wigwams, which they call carbets, are built as I have already described those of the negroes; but instead of being covered with the leaves of the manicole-tree, they are covered with the leaves of rattans or jointed canes, here called tas, which grow in clusters in all marshy places: but they mostly use troolies, which are leaves that diverge immediately from the root, and are no less than twenty or twenty-four feet in length, and from two to three in breadth, and this will for years effectually exclude all inclemencies of weather.

Their furniture is very simple, but sufficient for their wants, consisting of a few black earthen pots of their own making; a few callebashes or gourds; a few baskets, called pagala; a stone to grind, called matta, and another to bake their cassava bread; a fan to blow the fire; a wooden stool or mulee; a sieve they call manary; a press to squeeze the wet cassava, called matappy; and a cotton hammock or net for them to sleep in.

Besides these, since their intercourse with the Europeans, many of them are furnished with a hatchet and a knife, which last, like a dagger, the Indians always wear by their side. But I must not forget that every Indian family is provided with a large boat or canoe to carry all that they possess when they travel by water, which is not unfrequent.

The only vegetables cultivated by these people are the yams, plantains, and bananas, already described, and particularly cassava or manioc. This last is a shrub, which grows about three feet high, of a grey colour, and knotted; the leaves are digitated and large, and supported by cinnamon-coloured foot-stalks. Of this shrub there are two species, distinguished by the appellation of the sweet and the bitter cassava, of which the roots alone are for use. These are soft and farinaceous; and in colour, size, and shape, much resemble European parsnips. The sweet cassava, roasted in hot ashes, like the green plantains, and eaten with butter, is an agreeable and healthy food, tasting much like the chesnut. But the bitter cassava, which when raw is the most fatal poison both to man and beast, is (however strange it may seem) when prepared by fire, not only a very safe food, but the most natural bread of the Indians in this country, as well as of several Europeans and negroes. The manner in which the Indians prepare it is first by grinding or grating these roots on the matta or rough stone: after which they put it in a press, to separate the juice from the meal. This press is a kind of long tube, made of warimbo or reeds; which being hung to a tree, and filled with ground cassava, a heavy stone or log of wood is fixed to the bottom, the weight of which gradually lengthens the tube, which is compressed in proportion, and the liquid substance is squeezed through the plated reeds. This done, the meal is baked on a hot stone in thin round cakes, until it becomes brown and crisp, and then it is a wholesome food, that will keep good for half a year; yet I must acknowledge that the taste, which by that process becomes sweetish, is at the same time extremely insipid. The extracted water of this root, if not carefully prevented by the slaves, is sometimes drunk by cattle, and poultry on the estates, whom it instantly kills with convulsive tortures and swelling; yet this very liquid, if boiled with pepper, butcher’s meat, &c. is frequently made use of for soup. None should use the cassava root for food but such as are perfectly acquainted with it: many people having been poisoned, to my knowledge, by using the one species for the other; the distinction between the two consisting chiefly in a tough ligneous fibre or cord running through the heart of the sweet or innocent cassava root, which the fatal or bitter has not. The acajou nuts are also used by the Indians; and they often bring them to Paramaribo, where they are called inginotto. The kernels of these nuts are in size and shape very like lambs kidneys, and are exceedingly delicate. They grow very far inland upon high trees, which having never seen, I cannot describe.

The other food of the Indian consists of sea and land turtle, and crabs, called seereeca, which last are seen in great quantities in the mud all along the coast of Guiana at low water. Of these they are extremely fond, as also of the river lobsters called sarasara, which are here in great abundance. But nothing pleases them so much as the iguana or wayamacca lizards, that I have already described: every thing they eat is so highly seasoned with Cayenne pepper, that the mere tasting of their food excoriates the mouth of an European. They use little or no salt, but barbacue their game and fish in the smoke, which equally preserves it from putrefaction; and if an Indian has neglected to provide food by hunting or fishing, his hunger is asswaged by eating the seeds of the green-heart or the eta tree, or of similar productions of the forest.

Their drink consists of various fluids, such as the juice of the coumoo fruit. The coumoo tree is one of the smallest of the palm kind. Its seed grows in bunches of purple blue berries, resembling grapes, the pulp of which thinly adheres to a round hard stone, about the size of a pistol bullet. These berries are dissolved and macerated in boiling water; which beverage, when mixed with sugar and cinnamon, is frequently used by the fair inhabitants: it tastes very much like chocolate. A drink they call piworree is a composition of the cassava bread, chewed by the females, and fermented with water, when it has something of the taste of ale, and will intoxicate. It appears at first very extraordinary, that what has been within the teeth, mixed with the saliva, and spit from the mouths of others, should be drank without loathing by the people of any country: but those who have read Cook’s Voyages will find that this practice was so common in the islands he discovered, that had he not complied with it, his refusal might have fatally offended the inhabitants. His officers, indeed, did not think it so necessary for them to comply, and therefore excused themselves from the disgusting draught. A beverage nearly of the same kind they compose from the maize, or Indian corn, which is first ground and baked into bread, after which it is crumbled and macerated with water till it ferments like the former, and this they call chiacoar. Another drink called cassiree is also much used by these Indians, being a composition of yams, cassava, sour oranges, and sugar or treacle, well macerated, and fermented with water. I shall only add, that all these beverages are inebriating, if used beyond moderation, which is frequently the case with both males and females among the copper-coloured generation I am speaking of. This is the only time when they are unruly, and when quarrels arise among themselves.

In pronunciation the language of the Indians in general much resembles the Italian, their words being sonorous and harmonious, mostly terminating with a vowel, as may be observed by the few specimens above. They have no calculation of time, a string with some knots being the only calendar they are acquainted with. Their musical instruments consist of a kind of flute called too-too, and made of a single piece of thick reed, on which they make a sound no better than the lowing of an ox, without either measure or variety.—Another instrument is also used by them to blow upon, called quarta (by Ovid a sirinx; by some poets Pan’s chaunter) and consists of reeds of different lengths, that are joined together like the pipes of an organ, but even at the top, which they hold with both hands to the lips, and which, by shifting from side to side, produces a warbling of clear but discordant sounds, agreeable to none but themselves; nor have I seen a better representation of the god Pan playing on his chaunter, than a naked Indian among the verdant foliage playing upon one of those reedy pipes. They also make flutes of the bones of their enemies, of which I have one now in my possession. Their dancing, if such it may be called, consists in stamping on the ground, balancing on one foot, and staggering round in different attitudes for many hours, as if intoxicated.

The Indians are a very sociable people among themselves, and frequently meet together in a large wigwam or carbet that is in every hamlet for the purpose, where, if they do not play or dance, they amuse each other with fictitious stories, generally concerning ghosts, witches, or dreams, during which they frequently burst out into immoderate fits of laughter. They greatly delight in bathing, which they do twice at least every day, men, women, boys, and girls, promiscuously together. They are all excellent swimmers without exception. Among these parties not the smallest indecency is committed, in either words or actions.

The employments of the men are, as I have stated, but very few, and, indeed, may be comprized in two words, hunting and fishing: at both of these exercises they are indisputably more expert than any other nation whatever. For the first they are provided with bows and arrows of their own manufacturing, the arrows being of different kinds for different purposes. The Indian bows are all made of the hardest and toughest kind of wood, about five or six feet in length, and wonderfully well polished; and this is effected by means of a stone. In the middle they are wound round with cotton, and strung with chords made of silk-grass. The arrows are generally about four feet long, made of a very straight and strong kind of reed, to the end of which is fixed a thin twig about one foot long, to balance them; this is armed with a point made of steel or of fish-bone, generally barbed. Some of the Indian arrows are pointed like a lance, others are doubly and trebly barbed, and so contrived as to stick in the wound when the reedy part is pulled back. These are used mostly for game and fish; for though they be not mortal, they encumber the first, and being buoyant bring the latter to the surface, till both are taken. These arrows, like all others, are stuck with feathers six or seven inches long. Some arrows have blunted heads instead of points, about the size of a large chesnut, like what our ancestors called bolts; with these they do not kill, but stun the macaws, parrots, and small monkeys, so that they can take them with their hands, soon after which they recover, and are sent alive to Paramaribo. Some of the arrows for killing fish have the appearance of a trident, three and sometimes five barbed sticks being fixed to the reed instead of one, which enables them to shoot fish even at random. A few of the above arrows are frequently dipped in the woorara poison [34], which is instantaneously fatal: but when intent on certain destruction, this people make use of another kind of arrow that is not above ten or twelve inches long, extremely thin, and made of the hard splinters of the palm-tree bark, having, instead of feathers, one end wound round with a tuft of raw cotton, so as to fill up a hollow tube made of reed near six feet in length, through which they blow them with their breath. These little implements of death will carry to the distance of forty paces, and with so much certainty, that the intended victims never escape, the points being dipped in the woorara poison. As an instance of the dreadful effects of this poison, I shall only mention a negro woman, who, during the late rebellion in Berbicè, being slightly wounded by a poisoned arrow, not only almost instantly expired, but her sucking infant, though not touched by the arrow, lost its life by tasting her milk.

Their manner of catching fish is much the same as I have described at the Hope, by inclosing the entry of small creeks or shoal water with a paleing, shooting them with their trident arrows, or poisoning the water by throwing in it the roots of hiaree [35], in Surinam called tringee-woodo or konamee, by which the fish become stupified, and are taken by the hand, while they float on the surface of the water; as boys in England, who by mixing the Coculus Indicus, or drugs of similar effect, with baits which the fish will take, find them soon after rise to the surface, whence, if they are not speedily taken, they will recover and escape, the drugs only stupifying them for a while. These are the only occupations of the men, except making their furniture, ornaments, and arms.

I must not forget that every Indian carries a club, which they call apootoo, for their defence. These clubs are made of the heaviest wood in the forest; they are about eighteen inches long, flat at both ends, and square, but heavier at the one end than the other. In the middle they are thinner, and are wound about with strong cotton threads, so as to be grasped, having a loop to secure them round the wrist, as the sword-tassels are used by some cavalry. One blow with this club, in which is frequently fixed a sharp stone, scatters the brains. They are used by the Guiana Indians like the tomahawk by the Cherokees, on which, besides other hieroglyphical figures, they often carve the number of persons they have slain in battle. The manner of fixing the stone in the club or apootoo is by sticking it in the tree while it is yet growing, where it soon becomes so fast that it cannot be forced out; after which the wood is cut, and shaped according to fancy.

The women are occupied in planting cassava, plantains, and other roots, besides yams, &c. in dressing the victuals, and in making earthen pots, bracelets, baskets, or cotton hammocks. Their best baskets are called pagala, and are formed of a double matting of rushes called warimbo, some white, some brown, between which is a separation of tas, or trooly-leaves, to keep out the wet. The covering is usually larger and deeper than the basket itself, which it altogether envelopes, and thus makes it stronger; the whole resting on two cross pieces of wood fixed to the bottom. Their hammocks are woven, which must require a considerable portion of time and trouble, being done thread after thread, traversing the warp in the manner that a hole is darned in a stocking; after which they are stained with the juices of trees according to fancy.

The Indian girls arrive at the time of puberty before twelve years old, indeed commonly much sooner, at which time they are married. The ceremony consists simply in the young man’s offering a quantity of game and fish of his own catching, which, if she accepts, he next proposes the question, “Will you be my wife?” If she answers in the affirmative, the matter is settled, and the nuptials celebrated in a drunken feast, when a house and furniture is provided for the young couple. Their women are delivered without any assistance, and with so little inconvenience or suffering, that they seem exempt from the curse of Eve. They go about the menial services for their husbands the day after their delivery; then, however ridiculous and incredible it may appear, it is an absolute fact, that every one of these gentlemen lie in their hammocks for above a month, groaning and grunting as if they had been themselves in labour, during which time all the women must attend them with extraordinary care and the best food. This the Indian calls enjoying himself, and resting from his labour. Most of these people esteeming a flat forehead a mark of beauty, they compress the heads of their children, it is said, immediately after their birth, like the Chactaws of North America.

No Indian wife eats with her husband, but serves him as a slave: for this reason they can take but very little care of their infants, which, nevertheless, are always healthy and undeformed. When they travel, they carry them in small hammocks slung over one shoulder, in which sits the child, having one leg before and the other behind the mother. For an emetic they use the juice of tobacco, which they seldom smoke.

When the Indians are dying, either from sickness or old age, the latter of which is most frequently the cause, the devil or Yawahoo is at midnight exorcised by the peii or priest, by means of rattling a calibash filled with small stones, peas, and beads, accompanied by a long speech. This office is hereditary, and by these pretended divines no animal food, as I have before said, is publicly tasted, and yet on the whole they live better than all the others. When an Indian is dead, being first washed and anointed, he is buried naked, in a new cotton bag, in a sitting attitude, his head resting on the palms of his hands, his elbows on his knees, and all his implements of war and hunting by his side; during which time his relations and neighbours rend the air by their dismal lamentations; but soon after, by a general drunken riot, they drown their sorrows till the following year. This practice, by the way, bears some affinity to Dr. Smollet’s description of a burial in the Highlands of Scotland. At the expiration of the year, the body, being rotten, is dug up, and the bones distributed to all the friends and acquaintance, during which ceremony the former rites are repeated for the last time, and the whole neighbourhood look out for another settlement. Some tribes of Indians, having put their deceased friends in the above posture, place them naked for a few days under water, where the bones being picked clean by the piree and other fish, the skeleton is dried in the sun, and hung up to the ceiling of their houses or wigwams; and this is done as the strongest instance of their great regard for their departed friend.

When these Indians travel by land, their canoe, which is made of a large tree hollowed by means of fire, is always carried along with them to transport their luggage across swamps, creeks, and rivers; it is, like themselves, all over besmeared with arnotta. If they travel in the rivers, they generally paddle against the tide, to have a better opportunity of shooting such game as they see in the trees or on the banks; whereas, if they went with the current, the rapidity of the stream would often make them run past it. When travelling on the coast, it frequently happens that these canoes ship a sea which fills them, but no such thing as a shipwreck is heard of: both sexes immediately leaping over-board; then with one hand they hang by the canoe, with the other, and by means of calibashes, they throw out the water.

Notwithstanding the Guiana Indians are upon the whole a peaceable people, they sometimes go to war among themselves, purely for the sake of capturing prisoners, to which they are too much encouraged by the Christians, who receive them in exchange for other commodities, and make them slaves, which is too frequently practised. But these kind of slaves are only for shew and parade, as they absolutely refuse to work, and if at all ill-treated, or especially if beaten, they pine and languish like caged turtles, even refusing food, till by affliction and want they are exhausted, and finally expire.

The Indians always fight their battles by midnight: indeed their contests resemble more a siege than a battle, as these broils consist only in surrounding the hamlets of their enemies while they are asleep, making prisoners of the women, boys, and girls, while they shoot the men with poisoned arrows, or with their clubs or apootoos divide their sculls when they come to close quarters; they also scalp their male prisoners, bring home their hair, and even their bones, as trophies of war, and presents to their wives, unless they intend to sell them to the Europeans at Paramaribo. In their open rencounters, which happen very seldom, the bows and barbed arrows are their principal weapons of offence; with these they often kill at the distance of sixty paces; nay, the swiftest bird in its flight, provided it has the magnitude of a crow, seldom escapes them. In truth, such is the skill of these people at these manly exercises, that the best archers at Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, must have yielded to their superiority.

Now with full force the yielding bow he bends,
Drawn to an arch, and joins the doubling ends;
Close to his breast he strains the nerve below,
’Till the barb’d point approach the circling bow.
Th’ impatient weapon whizzes on the wing,
Sounds the tough bow, and twangs the quivering string.

Pope’s Homer.

I shall only add farther on this subject, that when these Indians go to war they chuse one general commander, whom they distinguish by the title of Uill.

The trade or traffic which the Indians of Guiana carry on with the Dutch consists chiefly in slaves, earthen jars, canoes, hammocks, baskets, Brazil-wood, hiaree-roots, macaws, parrots, monkeys, balsam capivi, arracocerra, caraba or crab oil, and arnotta, for which they receive in return checquered cloth, fire-arms, gun-powder, hatchets, knives, scissars, different coloured beads, looking-glasses, fish-hooks, combs, needles, pins, &c. The balsam capivi exudes from the bark of a thick tree that grows far inland, with large pointed leaves, bearing a fruit like a cucumber. This gum is yellow, hard, and transparent, resembling amber; when melted, it has an agreeable smell: its uses are for varnish, and to stop diuretic complaints, &c. The gum called arracocerra exudes from an inland tree also; it is yellow as the former, but tenacious and soft; it has a most fragrant smell, and is held in great esteem by the Europeans as well as Indians, on account of its efficacy in curing wounds, and many other complaints. The caraba or crab oil is made by bruising, macerating, and boiling the kernels that grow on the crab-tree in brown angular nuts, much about the size of a large chesnut; this oil, which is bitter, besides anointing the Indians, is used for many purposes by the Europeans. The tree grows to near fifty feet high, with leaves resembling those of the laurel; but as I neither have seen this nor the two former growing, to my knowledge, I can say nothing more concerning them. The mawna tree is high, straight, and light brown coloured; its leaves are oval; its nuts resembling nutmegs, but without either taste or flavour. The gum exuding from its trunk by incisions in the bark is dissolved by the Indians in water, and, as I have said, mixed with arnotta to anoint them. The castor or palmachristi bush, by botanists called the ricinus, is a shrub about four feet high, jointed, being covered with large digitated leaves on long foot-stalks, viz. both the stem and the branches. This shrub consists of the red and the white, and produces triangular nuts inclosed in a green hulk, which, when ripe, turns to brown, and falls off. From these nuts is expressed the castor oil; in Surinam it is called carrapat oil; it is very like that made of olives, and, as I have mentioned before, is much used by the Indians to paint themselves with.

Among all the Indian nations, the Caribs are the most numerous, active, and brave. These reside in great numbers near the Spanish settlements, which they often harass, in immortal revenge for the inhuman cruelties inflicted on their forefathers at Mexico and Peru. They are commanded by a captain, and assemble by the blowing of a conch or sea-shell; they have also frequent battles with neighbouring Indians; but what disgraces them above all others in Terra Firma is, that however unnatural it may seem, and however much it has been contradicted, they are anthropophagi or cannibals; at least they most certainly feast on their enemies, whose flesh they tear and devour with the avidity of wolves, though this is generally supposed to be more from a spirit of revenge than from any depravity in their taste.

The Accawaw Indians are few in number, and live farther distant from the sea than the former. Though like these they live in friendship with the Dutch, they are both treacherous in administering slow poison concealed under their nails, and very distrustful, as they palisade the ground round their hamlets with poisoned spikes.

The Worrow Indians, if not the most cruel, are the most despicable of any in Guiana. These are settled along the coast from the river Oronoque to Surinam; they are dark-coloured and extremely ugly; though strong they are pusillanimous, and withal so very lazy and indolent, that their poverty will scarcely afford them a covering to hide their nakedness, which they often supply by the web-like bark of the palm-tree. They often go quite naked, and are stinkingly dirty; from their sluggish inactivity they are reduced to live mostly upon crabs and water. If it should seem strange to have called these people happy, let it be recollected that their wishes are confined to their enjoyments, and that no Indian was ever heard to complain that he was unhappy.

The Taiiras are settled also on the sea-coast between Surinam and the river Amazon. These are exceedingly numerous, being computed, in this settlement alone, to amount to near twenty thousand: they are a very peaceable but indolent people, and in many particulars resemble the Worrows.

The Piannacotaus live very far inland, and are enemies to the Europeans, with whom they refuse all connection or dealings whatever: of this tribe the only thing that I can say farther is, that they would murder all the Christians in Guiana, if they had an opportunity.

The only Indian nation within my knowledge now remaining to be mentioned are the Arrowouks, my favourites;—but as this Chapter is already swelled to a considerable length, I must defer them to another opportunity.——Thus for the present do I take my leave of this happy people, who with the distinctions of rank or land (the causes of contention in more enlightened states) are unacquainted; who know no evil but pain and want, with which they are very seldom afflicted in this ever-verdant, this ever-blooming climate; who, while their wishes are so very limited, possess all that they desire in this world: and who, while they expect a future state, never give their minds the smallest uneasiness, but die in peace; nay, who seldom think upon to-morrow. But while I allow them this species of negative happiness, let it not be understood that to the contented European I have held up their condition as an object of envy.

For a better idea of their furniture, ornaments, and arms, I refer the curious to the annexed plate, where

No 1. is an Indian coriala or canoe, which is generally made of one
tree.
2. Paddles in place of oars.
3. A sieve called manary.
4. An Indian fan, or way-way.
5. A stool called mulee.
6. A pagala or basket.
7. A matappy or cassava press.
8. An Indian bow.
9. Arrows for shooting fish.
10. A blunted arrow for birds.
11. Common arrows barbed.
12. Small poisoned arrows.
13. The pipe or tube to blow them.
14. A crown of various feathers.
15. An apron called queiou.
16. An Indian earthen pot.
17. An apootoo or Indian club.
18. An Indian cotton hammock.
19. A sash of tigers or wild boars teeth.
20. A magic shell or gourd.
21. An Indian flute called too-too.
22. A flute made of the human bone of an enemy.
23. An Indian flute or syrinx called quarta.
24. A stone to grind cassava, called matta.

For a fuller botanical description than either my knowledge or my limits will allow, I refer the reader to the ingenious Dr. Bancroft, whose merit in this particular is perhaps known by few, but who claims every attention from having lived so long in Demerary; and to whom the thanks of the world in general are due, for his ingenious “Letters to Dr. Pitcairn, F. R. C. P. &c.” published in 1766.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

NOTES

[1] Each officer was permitted to re-enter his former regiment, if he survived the expedition, and returned to Europe, a vacancy being there preserved for him during his absence.

[2] The Stormy Petrel of Pennant.

[3] I have never seen this necessity properly accounted for: probably the mucus which covers the fins or wings may become so consolidated by the heat of the sun, and the action of the air, that it may impede their motion; or it may be that the fish itself cannot endure to be long out of its proper element: either of these suppositions will account for its dropping so often as it were involuntarily on board ships, and into the mouth of its enemies, the dolphin, dorado, &c.

[4] ——Exotic of Cerean dye,
Sweet acid offspring of an injur’d sky;
O Shaddock! like thy country, captive led,
And doom’d to grace the board her children spread.

[5] I cannot but notice in this place a strange error, into which Mr. Guthrie has inadvertently fallen, in dating the commencement of the dry season at the north tropic, from the time when the sun is vertical at the tropic of Capricorn; and describing it as continuing till the sun is again vertical at Cancer, or from the beginning of January to the latter end of May.

[6] See the Map prefixed to this work.

[7] Of this extraordinary enterprize the curious reader may see a full account, written by Sir Walter Raleigh himself, as it was published by Dr. Birch, in 1751, among the rest of Raleigh’s works, printed for Dodsley, in two vols. octavo.

[8] Somelsdyk had the character of a tyrant; he was, under the cloak of religion, despotic, passionate, brutal, and cruel; he even ordered an Indian chief’s head to be struck off for some domestic misdemeanour, for which he could not produce, especially in those days, the smallest shadow of authority.

[9] In the year 1667, Captain Abraham Cruisen gave the town the name of new Middleburg; but it was before and after called nothing but Paramaribo, which is said to be the true Indian name, and should signify The Spot of Flowers. This is the general account. But in my opinion not only Parham’s Point, but the Para Creek, and the town of Paramaribo, nay, even the great water called the Golden Parima, on Parham Lake, took their names from Francis Lord Willoughby of Parham; who, as I have mentioned, received this settlement from Charles the Second, and was one of the first possessors of this beautiful country. Surinam is also called a province by the Dutch, but mostly known by the name of colony, settlement, &c.

[10] This fact is noticed by the Abbé Raynal.

[11] A corps of European chasseurs, or rifle-men, was since added to these troops, after the manner of the light infantry in England.

[12] Blood-hounds were also proposed, to discover and attack the rebel negroes in the woods, but never adopted, from the difficulty of their proper training, &c.

[13] In Surinam all such children go with their mothers; that is, if she is in slavery, her offspring are her master’s property, should their father be a prince, unless he obtains them by purchase.

[14] A samboe is between a mulatto and a negro.

[15] A ponkee is a flat-bottomed boat of four or six oars, something like a square-toed shoe; sometimes it has a tilt, and sometimes not.

[16] Kill-devil is a species of rum which is distilled from the scum and dregs of sugar cauldrons. This is much drunk in this colony, and the only spirits allowed the negroes; many Europeans also, from a point of œconomy, make use of it, to whom it proves no better than a slow but fatal poison.

[17] This gentleman formerly belonged to the life-guards in Holland, from which he fled, after thrusting his antagonist through the heart with his sword in a duel.

[18] This I am astonished to see contradicted by Dr. Bancroft, who says they improve in South America, while one bullock of Smithfield market assuredly weighs down two of the largest in Guiana.

[19] Mr. Greenwood, of Leicester Fields, has told me himself that he killed one of eleven feet long.

[20] Doctor Bancroft mentions the power of fascination in the aboma. This I am obliged to contradict. Nor can I, without great difficulty, attribute this quality even to the rattle-snake.

[21] This rusk biscuit is made of a coarse rye loaf, cut in two, and baked as hard as a stone; I often broke it with my fuzee, and was glad to eat it, though mouldered, and impregnated with worms, spiders, gravel, and even broken bottles.

[22] The largest of all the palm species.

[23] This Dr. Bancroft, I think, calls the Tetermer.

[24] Water, Madeira wine, nutmeg and sugar.

[25] Dr. Fermyn is mistaken, when he says this fish weighs but forty pounds.

[26] The offspring of an European and of a Quaderoon.

[27] Dr. Bancroft erroneously calls this bird the only dove in Guiana.

[28] The first sugar was refined anno 1659.

[29] Sometimes from ten to twenty thousand pounds weight.

[30] These triangles have three long barbed spikes, like small grapplings, projecting from an iron collar.

[31] Not to go so far eastward, it is notorious that nearly similar to these dances are those which we find practised on a part of this continent. They are called fandangos, and are said to have been brought from Peru to Spain. As I have been favoured with a very accurate and curious description of them, extracted from a collection of letters of Emanuel Martinus, dean of Alicant, I shall venture to insert it as it came to my hands, since I doubt not but it may afford amusement to some of my readers, while I hope the admission of it will not be offensive to others; it being my wish and desire to please all, by bringing to light whatever might otherwise escape observation.

E.M. I.A. suo.

I nunc, et veterum morum licentiam accusa, nostrorum verecundiam lauda. Nosti saltationem illam Gaditanam, obscœnitate suâ per omne ævum famosam. At qui hodiè ipsammet per omnia hujus urbis compita, per omnia cubicula, cum incredibili astantium plausu, saltari videas. Nec inter Æthiopas tantum et obscuros homines, sed inter honestissimas fœminas, ac nobili loco natas.

Saltationis modus hoc ritu peragitur. Saltant vir et fœmina vel bini vel plures. Corpora ad musicos modos per omnia libidinum irritamenta versantur. Membrorum mollissimi flexus, clunium motationes, micationes femorum, salacium insultuum imagines, omnia denique turgentis lasciviæ solertissimo studio expressa simulacra. Videas cevere virum, et cum quodam gannitu, crissare fœminam, eo lepore ac venustate, ut ineptæ profecto ac rusticæ tibi viderentur tremulæ nates Photidos Appuleianæ. Interea omnia constrepunt cachinnis et ronchis. Quin spectatores ipsi satyricæ atellanæque ορχησεως furore correpti, in ipso simulatæ libidinis campo, leni quodam gestu nutuque, velitantur ac fluctuant.

[32] This, however uncommon it may appear to an European, is often practised in Surinam by such as can afford it; amongst which class was the hospitable Mrs. Lolkens, who generously presented Joanna with the wine.

[33] See the account given to the Members of the Royal Society, by John Hunter, Esq; F. R. S.

[34] The bark of a tree so called, mixed with others; but for a very particular description of this acute poison, viz. of its composition, and of its dire effects, I refer the reader to Dr. Bancroft, and the repeated experiments which that gentleman has made to ascertain its instant fatality.

[35] This tree is much sought after by the Indians, who send quantities of it to Paramaribo and the plantations.