the city of Para, or that it was their intention to deceive you. You ought
to be cautious in giving credit to their stories, otherwise you will be apt
to be led astray.

Many a ridiculous thing concerning the interior of Guiana has been
propagated and received as true merely because six or seven Indians,
questioned separately, have agreed in their narrative.

Ask those who live high up in the Demerara, and they will, every one of
them, tell you that there is a nation of Indians with long tails; that they
are very malicious, cruel and ill-natured; and that the Portuguese have
been obliged to stop them off in a certain river to prevent their
depredations. They have also dreadful stories concerning a horrible beast
called the water-mamma which, when it happens to take a spite against a
canoe, rises out of the river and in the most unrelenting manner possible
carries both canoe and Indians down to the bottom with it, and there
destroys them. Ludicrous extravagances! pleasing to those fond of the
marvellous, and excellent matter for a distempered brain.

The misinformed and timid court of policy in Demerara was made the dupe of
a savage who came down the Essequibo and gave himself out as king of a
mighty tribe. This naked wild man of the woods seemed to hold the said
court in tolerable contempt, and demanded immense supplies, all which he
got; and moreover, some time after, an invitation to come down the ensuing
year for more, which he took care not to forget.

This noisy chieftain boasted so much of his dynasty and domain that the
Government was induced to send up an expedition into his territories to see
if he had spoken the truth, and nothing but the truth. It appeared,
however, that his palace was nothing but a hut, the monarch a needy savage,