receive kindly the guests he sends to them." They are unacquainted with Spanish, and speak language of their own-the Cuna-which is soft and sonorous.

Looking back in memory over a hurried visit to the Isthmus of Panama, apart from our notes there hangs about a vague hazy dream of the exuberance of a tropical life-the odour of spices wafted off the shore, the dank atmosphere, the hum of life, the wave after wave of flowers borne on the surface of a sea of rich vegetation which stretches far as the eye could see, from the top of the Callos de los Buccanerros. There steals over one a sleepy remembrance of hammock-swinging idleness-a vision of bright-coloured birds screaming through the groves of india-rubber and cocoa-nut trees-of bananas, and guavas, and pineapples, and monkeys, and parrots, and all the other things pertaining to the land of the sun; and ever starts up before one a green savannah, with leaf-thatched hut, where Indians, shy of the stranger, seem ever washing their scanty wardrobe by beating it between two stones, or where tall, sinewy boatmen are launching their "dug-outs" to sail to the Pearl Islands. Here is a land where men speak softly and move quietly, because it is too great an exertion to do anything else; where in somnolent villages the sight of the fresh, loud-talking, loud-laughing stranger is as refreshing to his expatriated countryman as is the sea-breeze which at midnight we drink in on the walls of Panama. When I desire the peace which is found in an absence of energy or action-utter unmoving stagnation, in which years roll on without varying, and almost without note,-where the water-melon breakfast is only varied by the banana and pineapple dinner,-where the only wish which shall disturb my passionless life is the languid desire for a little-just a very little -more air, and a little-just a little-less heat, I shall seek it in a Central American hamlet which I know of: but as I am not just yet ready to flee to this pictured Elysium, I shall be selfish enough to keep the name of it to myself, and for the time being bid good-bye to the Central Americans.

CHAPTER XI.

SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

Still

THE reader need not, of course, be told that between the South and Central American Indians there is no hard-and-fast line of demarcation; the division is only one of convenience. between the Indians of North and South America, the traveller, passing from one to the other, can never fail to notice some marked differences. The South American Indians are more olive or yellowish than reddish in complexion than the northern ones. Their face is usually heavier, and their nose not so prominent, while their heads are also of less length than those of North America, and though the eyes of the Pacific coast tribes are sometimes inclined to slope, this peculiarity is by no means common in the North, while in the South it is almost the rule among many nations. To enumerate all the South American tribes-even supposing such possible—would not be a task for the performance of which the reader would be inclined to

thank the author. Page after page could be filled with more or less unpronounceable names -names and nothing more-which, while it might give a semblance of learning where instruction is the object, would assuredly convey no information whatever. Take every river in that river-intersected continent of South America, and multiply each by from five up to twenty or thirty, according to its length and breadth, and you might arrive at something like an approximate idea of the seemingly almost endless subdivisions among the

American races, a contrast to the compact character of the political organisation of some other races we shall have occasionally to touch upon. We cannot enter into such lengthened details regarding the South Americans, as we have respecting those of the northern part of the country; nor even did space admit, would this be advisable, these tribes being in general of less interest to Europeans than those which daily come in contact with the whites in North America. We shall, however, present some particulars in regard to the chief families of the aborigines of that section of America, classifying them by means of their language and other characteristics into certain broadly-marked divisions.

CARIBS.

Suppose we take our stand in some shady place in Georgetown, Demerara, and watch the people as they move along the street, cautiously and lazily, in the coolest possible attire, and in the place least affected by the scorching sun overhead, as is the manner of the tropics. The steam-ship has brought hither men of all nations, intent on gain, and active in the pursuit of the commerce which the rich lands of the sun afford. Here are Anglo-Saxons, ruddy in complexion, pushing, loud-talking, and energetic; dolce far niente Portuguese and Spaniards,

lounging along in cigaretto-smoking listlessness; and coolies from Calcutta and Madras, distinguished by the graceful turban and robes which they have brought from the East, and the dark, polished skins and bright, snaky eyes which gleam from beneath their suspicious eyebrows. Chinese, sloping-eyed, industrious, and patient like all their race, and, so long as dollars are to be got, careless of the abuse which the overbearing European thinks fit to inflict on this yellowskinned representative of a worn-out civilisation, trip along at their silent trot, with their bamboo pole, on which is suspended on either end a laden basket. Among these and other nationalities are mingled the negroes and mongrel creoles who form the great body of the population. But before all these varied nationalities which we have mentioned, the ethnologist will at once

be arrested by another group, smaller in number and less pretentious in appearance, but still strikingly different in many respects from any of those by whom they are shouldered in the streets of this intertropical town. They are shy-faced and seemingly bewildered. At a glance you see the strangers are from the rural districts, and that everything they perceive around them is unfamiliar to them. "By the bright copper tint of their skins, their long, glossy, straight, black hair, and too frequently by their very scanty clothing, may be recognised the aborigines of the country. They usually bear in their hands little articles of their own manufacture for sale, such as baskets of various shapes, bows and arrows, models of canoes, Indian houses, &c.; frequently parrots, monkeys, and other animals are added to their stock, the price of which will supply the family with axes, cutlasses, hoes, and other necessary implements, with perhaps a gun, and a few other articles of European manufacture for the ensuing year;" perhaps indeed most. likely—with more than the proper quantity of the rum which is the bane of their race, and under the influence of which some of these children of the forest most decidedly are. They have only visited the city and the coast for the purpose of obtaining such articles as we have mentioned. Their homes are in the vast forests and on the banks of some of the rivers which intersect the country. Hither let us follow them. We are now in what, nearly 300 years ago, Sir Water Raleigh called "that mighty, rich, and beautiful Empire of Guiana," but now divided by political exigencies into Venezuela-drained by the great Orinoco-Dutch Guiana (Surinam), French Guiana (Cayenne), and British Guiana, which we shall more especially take as the type of the region, a sketch of the aborigines of which we propose to give in the few pages which follow. Over a vast portion of the country the gorgeous tropical jungle spreads its leafy shade, ¦ full of all the wondrous and beautiful things which the sunlight of equatorial lands brings forth. As we stand on an eminence and look forth over the large expanse of country, our eye is charmed, yet after a time almost wearied with the various objects which call for its attention. Trees of varied foliage and species, laden with gorgeous flowers and fruit such as only these lands bring forth, are on every side; the ground is carpeted by under-brush scarcely less lovely in its clothing, while from tree to tree climb and interlace an inextricable network of orchids, lianas (climbing shrubs), and an endless variety of twining plants, which intermingle their foliage and blossoms with those of the trees which they embrace in their leafy folds. As we look out on the endless undulation of forest country, we seem but to behold a sea of vegetation, the waves of which are crested with flowers.* Our ears, hitherto accustomed to the solitude of the pine forests of the North, are dinned by the many sounds which assail them on all sides. Birds of gay plumage dart, screaming, from the bushes, where we have surprised them devouring the luscious fruit; the long-tailed monkeys swing themselves from branch to branch as if to survey their degenerate descendant, who is doomed to walk on terra firma, and chatter to themselves as they pitch a nut or two at the object of their study. Towards nightfall the jaguars come out of their layers, and their cry may be heard in the wood mingled with affrighted

* It is, however, a mistake to suppose that the tropics are distinguished by an exuberance of flowers. On the contrary, the heat and moistness of the air are especially conducive to the production of foliage, while flowers are accordingly rather rare. This mistaken idea regarding the floral richness of the tropics has arisen from geeing tropical flowers gathered from every region grouped side by side in our conservatories. Though the trees are rich in fine flowers, yet in the number of individuals which the observer sees at one place, an English more abundantly supplied.

beasts alarmed by the dreaded cry; screams of birds of names unknown to us resound, and around us and over all is the ceaseless sound of the myriad insect life, ever singing a pæan of praise unto its Creator. Reptiles-slimy, many-cloured creatures-crawl away as our feet disturb the fallen leaves, and leave us shuddering at the unseen terrors which this fair scene hides in its sickly recesses. The dank air of the tropics is over all, the beauteous something which words cannot express, the fragrance which the evening breeze wafts seaward, laden with spices and odours, with which in our mind are associated things fair and pleasant, yet in sad remembrance, completes the picture which the name of Guiana calls up. Suddenly the sun goes down, and all is darkness; here twilight is unknown, and we swing into our hammock, suspended between two cocoa-nut trees, wearied it may be with the endless objects we have examined in our day's journey, or simply as a "diversion from the listless watching of the tide ebbing and flowing past the open door; or listening to the parrots flying high overhead in pairs to their nests, and telling by their cries that another weary day is drawing to a close." Happy even then if we see the sun rising without being disturbed by the many creatures whose deeds love the darkness. Yet, after all, these glorious forests, beautiful rivers, and green savannahs go to form "enchanting scenes" which made dear old Waterton, whose name is so enduringly bracketed with that of Schomburgk in the exploration of the natural history of this country, "overflow with joy, and roam in fancy through fairy-land."

The aboriginal inhabitants of this wide area are now only the feeble remnants of what were once powerful tribes before the whites supplanted them in their fair heritage. They early came into contact with Europeans. For here, in the sixteenth century, rumour located the famous land of "El Dorado," whose riches exceeded those of Peru. "A branch of the royal race of the Incas, flying from their conquered country with as much wealth as could be saved from the Spanish invaders, was said to have established in Guiana a new empire. As Manco Ceapac, the founder of that dynasty, had first reigned on the shores of Lake Titiaca, so his exiled descendants were believed to have fixed their abode near a lake named Parima, the sands of which contained immense quantities of gold. The city of Manoc, on its banks, had houses covered with plates of that precious metal; and not only were all the vessels in the royal palace made of the same, but gold-dust was so abundant that the natives often sprinkled it over their bodies, which they first anointed with a glutinous substance that it might stick to them. Especially was the person of their sovereign thus adorned by his Oviedo, an old Spanish writer, whose work, however, Las Casas is compli

chamberlain."

* Jaguars are not so abundant in Guiana as in some other parts lying north of that region. In Nicaragua they are called "tigers" (as indeed they are all over Central and Northern South America). When in that country, in 1866, I was benighted on the shores of the lake of Nicaragua, and though only a short distance from Virgin Bay, could bear their cries repeatedly. Mr. Collinson, a civil engineer, in the country about the same time, while sleeping in his hammock, swung between two trees, was one night awoke by a heavy body striking the edge of the hammock, and at the same time by a tremendous blow on the hip, which sent him rolling on the ground. It was a jaguar, which bad evidently made a miscalculation, and instead of lighting on the top of him with his claws, had jumped a little low and struck him with his head. The brute, or some companions, were heard walking round the camp all night, so that the surveying party were uncommonly glad when daylight appeared. The jaguars are so bold that one morning seventeen of them marched into the town of Blewfields, and frightened the inhabitants so much that they shut themselves up in their houses and allowed them to kill every goat in the place, the only animals kept on the Mosquito coast.