The other is that fine large fish called by the English rock-cod, by the Indians baro-ketta, and new-mara by the negroes, which I have several times mentioned, but not described; they are taken plentifully in all the upper parts of the rivers. This fish is the size of a large cod, but covered with scales, and by some compared to a salmon; the back is a brown olive colour, the belly is white, the head is strong, with small eyes, of which the pupil is black and the iris grey; the mouth is very large, and beset with one row of sharp teeth like those of a pike, and, like it, this creature is extremely voracious; the tail is obtuse and dark olive; as also the fins, six in number, one dorsal, two pectoral, two ventral, and one abdominal. This fish is extremely delicious eating, and particularly esteemed by the white inhabitants at Paramaribo, where it is very scarce, though in the upper parts of the rivers they are taken in great abundance. I painted these two fishes very correctly, the dago-fish as large as life, and the new-mara considerably less. The drawings were honoured in Surinam with the epithets of masterly performances. Several officers who kept poultry and hogs at this period lost all the latter in the space of two days, being poisoned probably by eating duncane, or some other fatal weed that was unknown to us. And yet it has been a general observation, as I have said before, that all animals know by instinct to distinguish their food from their poison. Mr. Seyburg now returned from the Hope in triumph, with Lieutenant Dederlin (one of Colonel Fourgeoud’s officers) guarded by a serjeant and six marines with fixed bayonets, for having been wanting in respect, as that gentleman pleased to call it. On the 7th, the sick officers and soldiers also arrived from the Hope in barges; some of the latter, being too ill to bear removing, died on the passage without medicines, and without assistance. One of our surgeons died also this day in camp, and a number of the privates died daily. This was the consequence of having marched so much in the wet season, which was judged however by our chief to be the only season in which he was likely to root the rebels from the forest of Guiana. CHAP. XVIII. A Tyger taken in the Camp—Fatal Rencounter of a Party with the Rebels, who killed several of the Troops, and forced the rest back—Description of a Planter of Surinam—Contagious Distempers—Suicide—Scene of primitive Nature.