down at that period, and a large slice, almost as long as its whole length, is cut out of the trunk; the pith, or stringy substance, which before the maturity of the fruit is much more solid, is cut into shreds, and the trunk, deprived of its pith, now serves the Indian as a trough, which he fills with water, and in which the pith is immersed and pounded. By this process a considerable quantity of starch is disengaged, which sinks to the bottom; the woody fibre is removed from the sediment, which is then formed into moulds and dried in the sun. When it is to be used, it is broken up, and spread, like the Cassada flour, over plates, under which a brisk fire is kept, and a substitute for bread is formed, which, as already observed, is called yuruma. In consequence of its viscous property, it is, to say the least of it, almost immasticable.

The fan-shaped leaves are used as a thatch for covering their houses, and the stump of one of these leaves serves as a broom to sweep them with. The Indians of the savannahs and mountains use the case of the half-sheathing leaves, and form of it a pair of sandals, which last even in the stony soil a couple of days, and protect their feet against the angular quartz rocks which cover the path. These sandals are of the greatest use to the mountaineers and the inhabitants of the savannahs in the interior, and necessity has forced us during our journeys to use them ourselves as substitutes for shoes. The Macusis call them "salza."

The young branches are deprived of their flabelliform leaflets, the midrib split along its whole length into slices about a quarter of an inch thick, and after having been dried they are connected together with withes and bast, and serve as a sail for the Indian's canoe, or as a mat to sleep upon. The pith of these branches cannot be recommended enough to collectors of insects, as it is an excellent substitute for cork to fix the insects upon; and to those who are provided with strong beards, a square piece of the pith is a good substitute for a razor-strop. But of the greatest use are the fibres of the young leaves, which with little manual labour are manufactured into thread and ropes; and they are of such a tenacity, that the greater number of Indian tribes fabricate their beds or hammocks of it. The inhabitants of the Rio Negro make a trade of these hammocks, which are much in request in Para, and are paid as high as from ten to twenty milreis. The young leaves are used without further preparation, and twisted together to serve as a strap for carrying burdens, or as ropes.

The orioles of Guiana, which construct those peculiar hanging nests of which the earlier travellers have spoken so much, strip with great ability, by means of their pointed beaks, the fibres from the young leaves, with which they build their nests. They commence on the upper part, and as soon as they have succeeded in stripping off an inch, by a peculiar movement they fly rapidly downwards without losing the hold of the part which they have seized, and succeed generally in carrying away fibres of two to three yards in length.

Even in its decay the Mauritia is of use, and affords a delicacy to the Indian, which many Colonists do not even refuse, in the larvæ of a large beetle, the Curculio palmarum, which is found in large numbers

in the pith when the trunk is near its decay. The larva or grub, called Oturuma by the Waraus, is frequently of the size of the little finger, and, after being boiled or roasted, resembles in its taste beef marrow. The Indians frequently cut the Mauritia for the purpose of attracting the beetle to deposit its eggs in it, and when they collect a large quantity they are roasted over a slow fire to extract the fat, which is preserved in calabashes.

Raleigh, and after him Gili, Depons, Leblond, and others, tell us that the Tivitivas, the Guaraunos of the Spaniards, or the Waraus of the British Colonists, built their habitations (like the bird called oriole) suspended from the Mauritia palms and from large trees. We are told that these tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle on a layer of moist clay the fire necessary for their household wants. Debonds and Leblond, who wrote after Raleigh, have only copied his remarks, without having had the opportunity of investigating their truth. Raleigh's accounts border on the wonderful, like his relation of the Indian tribe called by him Ewaipanoma, who, he says, are without heads. During the different expeditions in the interior of Guiana which I have had the honour of commanding, I have been several months among the Waraus at the Delta of the Orinoco, but I always found that they possessed more staple places of abode than a hanging nest. I cannot do better than extract a description of a Warau hut given by Mr. Hillhouse in the Journal of the Geographical Society, which perfectly corresponds with what I have seen myself:— "The Mauritia grows in clusters as thick as trees can grow; the Warrow selects one of these groves, and fells the trees about four feet from the surface; on their stumps he lays a floor of the split trunks: the troolies are generally adjacent for the roof; but if not, the leaves of the Mauritia serve a similar purpose: lumps of clay are laid on the floor, on which fires are made, which at night may perhaps illuminate the tops of the adjacent trees as if they were actually inhabited; but the habitation is an irregular hut raised on a platform just above the level of the water, which in these regions is three feet above the level of the earth for three-fourths of the year. Some of them contain one hundred and fifty people."

I have now enumerated the different uses, as far as I can vouch from my own experience, which the aborigines of Guiana make of this palmtree; and it might be taken as a proof that the indigenes of Guiana are not inclined to the worship of idols or Fetichism, or surely such a useful tree, which furnishes "victum et amictum," or rather, bed, bread, and wine,—would not have escaped their adoration.

There is a tale among the Spaniards at the Orinoco, that one of the kings of Spain, hearing of this wondrous tree which at once furnished a family with all the necessaries of life, attempted its importation into the mother-country. We need not inquire after the result of this

Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, p. 42.

The Trooly palm is Gaertner's Manicaria saccifera.-R. H. S.

attempt, which was sure to fail. The Mauritia wants just more than any other offspring of Guiana's fertile soil, the heat of the tropical sun and the moist atmosphere of these regions.

If we combine the accounts which we have received from the traveller of all travellers, the illustrious Humboldt, with those of Von Martius and others, the Mauritia extends from the Llanos of Camaria to the western tributaries of the Rio Negro and to the mouth of the Amazon, or over an area of 550,000 square miles.* I wish to correct those who have written on this tree in two points. It is firstly described as a tree scarcely thirty feet high: my experience tells me that their average size is not less than fifty feet. Splendid as the Murichis or Itas appear on the savannahs, which seem to be their favourite place of growth, they cannot vie with those I observed in the mountain valleys adjacent to the upper Essequibo. The trunk reached more than one hundred feet in height before the beautiful fan-shaped leaves spread in tropical grandeur. Their luxuriant growth was here really surprising; the more so since hitherto I had only seen them on plains and arid savannahs; while at those valleys which were about one thousand two hundred feet above the sea, their summit was not less than one hundred and twenty feet above the ground.

The next point refers to an observation of M. Von Martius, the great illustrator of the Palm tribe, who asserts that they are seldom to be found at a greater height than eight hundred feet above the sea. I do not adduce the circumstance of having found them at a height of merely one thousand two hundred feet above the sea as very material; but I consider it of importance to a correct knowledge of the geographical distribution of this useful plant, to state that I have found them in large groups and of as luxuriant a growth as those on the banks of the Rupununi, which are merely three to four hundred feet high, on the savannahs at the foot of Roraima on an absolute height of from three to four thousand feet above the sea; but, strictly to its nature, the Murichi grows likewise here in groups and in swampy soil.

Since I have written the above, I have ascertained that the Mauritia extends to the rivers Chambina, Pastaca, and Marona, in the republic of Ecuador, or to the eastern declivities of the Andes. The Maynas prepare from the fibres of the leaves of the Mauritia, which they call Atshua, a peculiar kind of cloth called Catshivango, with which they dress themselves. They make likewise a kind of netting of it, which is used as a protection against the mosquitos. The river Marona falls in latitude 44 degrees South, and longitude 76) degrees West, into the Maranon: it is therefore most likely that this useful palm extends as far as 15 degrees South latitude, to the eastern foot of the Andes.

THE FREED BIRD.

[Among the superstitions of the Senecas, is one which, for its singular beauty, is already well known. When a maiden dies, they imprison a young bird until it begins to try its powers of song; and then, loading it with kisses and caresses, they loose its bonds over her grave, in the belief that it will not fold its wing nor close its eye until it has flown to the spirit-land, and delivered its precious burden of affection to the "loved and lost."-"It is not unfrequent," says an Indian historian, "to see twenty or thirty birds loosened at once, over one grave."

The following beautiful stanzas are founded on this legend. poetry, and for such we have always a welcome corner.]-EDITOR.

SPEED away! speed away! on thine errand of light!
There's a young heart awaiting thy coming to-night;
She will fondle thee close-she will ask for the loved,
Who pine upon earth since the "Day-Star" has roved.
She will ask if we miss her, so long is her stay:

Speed away! speed away!

Wilt thou tell her, bright songster, the old chief is lone;
That he sits all the day by his cheerless hearth-stone;
That his tomahawk lies all unnoticed the while,

And his thin lips wreath ever in one sunless smile;

That the old chieftain mourns her, and why will she stay?
Speed away! speed away!

And oh! wilt thou tell her, blest bird on the wing,

That her mother has ever a sad song to sing;
That she standeth alone in the still, quiet night,
And her fond heart goes forth for the being of light,
Who had slept in her bosom, but who would not stay?
Speed away! speed away!

Go! bird of the silver wing, fetterless now;

Stoop not thy bright pinion on yon mountain's brow,
But hie thee away, o'er rock, river, and glen,

And find our young "Day-Star" ere night close again.

Up! onward! let nothing thy mission delay:

Speed away! speed away!

It is true

THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES.

[We have for some time purposed drawing up a series of articles on the condition of our Fisheries in different quarters, but have been prevented by circumstances hitherto from carrying our intention into effect. We were, therefore, very much pleased at receiving the following valuable document, being the Report of the Committee appointed by the General Assembly of Newfoundland to inquire into the state of the Fisheries of that Colony, of which the Hon. Mr. Morris (the Colonial Treasurer) was Chairman.]

The Bank and Shore Fisheries have engaged the deep attention of your Committee. These important subjects have not hitherto been investigated by the Legislature; they have therefore considered it their duty to take a general review of them from the earliest period.

These Fisheries are coeval with the Colonial dominion and maritime superiority of England. Newfoundland was her earliest Colonial Possession; the Fisheries, the first nursery of those seamen that gained for her the dominion of the ocean, and with it her vast, unbounded Colonial Empire, and the trade of the world.

Soon after the discovery of the island by Cabot, in the reign of Henry VII., the Fisheries gave employment to a considerable number of ships and seamen. As far back as the year 1549, an Act of the British Parliament (Edward VII.) was passed for the better encouragement of the Fisheries of Newfoundland. During the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I. & II., the trade and Fisheries engaged much of the attention of the Crown and Parliament. There were two hundred and sixty ships employed in the Newfoundland Fisheries in the reign of Elizabeth. The seamen nursed in these Fisheries mainly assisted in manning her fleets, which defeated the powerful Armada of Spain.

Charles I., in a commission for well-governing his subjects of Newfoundland, observes, that "the navigation and mariners of the realm have been much increased by the Newfoundland Fisheries." Various Acts were passed in the reign of Charles II., and measures were adopted to revive the Fisheries of Newfoundland, which had greatly declined. The preamble of the Act 10th and 11th William and Mary declares, that "the trade and Fisheries of Newfoundland is a beneficial trade to the kingdom, in the employing of a great number of seamen and ships, to the increase of Her Majesty's revenue, and the encouragement of trade and navigation."

The Act 15th George III. declares the Fisheries to be "the best nurseries for able and experienced seamen, always ready to man the Royal Navy when occasion may require; and it is of the greatest national importance to give all due encouragement to the said Fisheries."