The prairies of North America, west of the Mississippi, abound with vast herds of buffaloes, which form almost the entire food of many Indian nations, who have many modes of hunting down these powerful animals. One of the most characteristic is represented in the opposite cut. Besides buffaloes, the prairies abound with wolves; and of these animals the buffaloes, when herded together, appear to have very little dread, and allow them to approach very nearly. The Indian, knowing this fact, covers himself with the skin of a wolf, drawing the head over his own shoulders, and, armed with the short, sinewy bow, and a handful of arrows, crawls towards the herd on his hands and knees, until he approaches within a few rods. of the unsuspecting group, and easily shoots down the fattest of the throng.

A WARROW VILLAGE-GUIANA.

In the northwest of South America, between the great rivers Oronoco and Amazon, is the Warrow country-a land, in some respects, similar to that of Ashantee, described in a previous chapter. The vegetation is equally luxuriant, but the climate is less deadly; the inhabitants have not the wild and savage energy of the Ashantees, but having all the necessaries of life at hand, without the need of cultivating the soil, they indulge in a luxurious indolence, which is equally unfavorable to their advancement in civilization.

A considerable portion of the country is under water for three-fourths of the year, and from this circumstance the Warrows are almost amphibious. They build their habitations about four feet from the ground, upon the stems of eta-trees, which grow in very thick clusters. Many of these huts are very large, being capable of accommodating one hundred and fifty people, who are all slung in hammocks, which serve them both for bed and

chair, and are, in fact, almost the only furniture they use or require. At night, a fire made close to the hammock, envelops it in smoke, which keeps off the swarms of moschetoes and sand-flies that infest this land of mud, and slime, and water, and overhanging boughs; and in this cloud the Warrow, from long use, luxuriates where we should be more than half blinded and suffocated.

The waters flowing beneath and around the floor of their abodes abound with fish, which forms the chief food of the people, almost all of whose industry and ingenuity are displayed in the construction of their canoes, and the singular abodes we have described.