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