The scenes through which he passed were of rich and varied beauty. Nothing terrible or threatening met his sight in that unknown land, which seems to bear upon its face one broad beaming smile, answering with fidelity to the smile of the sun. Rocky islets bearing clusters of low trees, whose stems and branches are covered with orchids and wild pines, rise from the broad bosom of the river, while its banks are clothed with forest trees; and on the rocks under its waters is a luxuriant growth of water-plants, bearing exquisite flowers. When the sun is high, gorgeous butterflies, yellow, orange, and azure blue, frequent the water’s edge in clusters, or flit over the open spaces near the cataracts; and the river abounds in deep-bodied silvery-scaled fish of various kinds.
The character of the scenery along the banks of the rivers, which form a kind of network over the face of the country in Guiana, is chiefly of the kind described above; but there is no monotony in it, and the traveller is kept constantly amused by the birds and the insect life. Morning and evening are marked by bands of screeching parrots crossing the river to and from their feeding-grounds, and all along the banks the kingfisher and the ibis abound. The Indian villages are generally within a short distance of the river, and the harmless people are unusually smart in their attire. The women wear an apron called a _queyon_, formed of cotton and bead-work, ingeniously manufactured, each bead being slipped on the cotton thread in its proper place as it is being woven. The traveller frequently halted at the villages while the natives prepared cassava bread for him, and he had a fair opportunity of forming a judgment upon their intellectual status and social condition. Both are superior to those of the average ‘natives’ with which books have made us acquainted, and Mr Brown notes as a ‘pleasing feature’ of the British Guiana Indians, that, as a rule, they treat their women well, regarding them as equals and not as slaves. The planters of the civilised portion of the country, kidnappers and tyrants of the ‘coolie,’ might learn lessons of humanity and justice from the ‘savages’ of the ‘Interior.’
A march through primeval forest to the Puruni was a less pleasant experience than the river voyage; for the ‘ticks’ which infest the forest took possession of the travellers. Of the numerous kinds of pestilent insects Mr Brown gives a horrid description; but he counterbalances it by that of the birds, the trees, the flowers, the skies, and the wonderfully exhilarating influence of the climate.