witch; and it is probable, long before this,
that cruelty, old age, and want have worn her out, and that both poor
Mary and her cat have ceased to be.

Would you wish to pursue the different species of game, well stored and
boundless is your range in Demerara. Here no one dogs you, and
afterwards clandestinely inquires if you have a hundred a year in land to
entitle you to enjoy such patrician sport. Here no saucy intruder asks
if you have taken out a licence, by virtue of which you are allowed to
kill the birds which have bred upon your own property. Here

"You are as free as when God first made man,
Ere the vile laws of servitude began,
And wild in woods the noble savage ran."

Before the morning's dawn you hear a noise in the forest, which sounds
like "duraquaura" often repeated. This is the partridge, a little
smaller, and differing somewhat in colour from the English partridge; it
lives entirely in the forest, and probably the young brood very soon
leave their parents, as you never flush more than two birds in the same
place, and in general only one.

About the same hour, and sometimes even at midnight, you hear two species
of maam, or tinamou, send forth their long and plaintive whistle from the
depth of the forest. The flesh of both is delicious. The largest is
plumper, and almost equals in size the black cock of Northumberland. The
quail is said to be here, though rare.

The hannaquoi, which some have compared to the pheasant, though with
little reason, is very common.

Here are also two species of the powise, or hocco, and two of the small
wild turkeys called maroudi; they feed on the ripe fruits of the forest,
and are found in all directions in these extensive wilds. You will
admire the horned screamer as a stately and majestic bird: he is almost
the size of the turkey cock; on his head is a long slender horn, and each
wing is armed with a strong, sharp, triangular spur, an inch long.

Sometimes you will fall in with flocks of two or three hundred waracabas,
or trumpeters, called so from the singular noise they produce. Their
breast is adorned with beautiful changing blue and purple feathers; their
head and neck like velvet; their wings and back grey, and belly black.
They run with great swiftness, and, when domesticated, attend their
master in his walks with as much apparent affection as his dog. They
have no spurs, but still, such is their high spirit and activity, that
they br