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 c