PERILOUS BUSINESS. 113

arduous enterprises and for the execution of no
common projects.” He traversed, with eager steps,
the vast province of Guiana; dangers, privations,
and obstacles, seeming but to increase his energy.
He showed great enterprise and courage in ex-
ploring the country and dislodging from their
strongholds the savages by whom the colony was
molested; and succeeded, at great personal risk,
in making a passage by water from Cayenne to
the mountain La Gabrielle, the accomplishment of
which had been much desired by the colonists, but
abandoned by reason of the natural difficulties of
the route. This perilous business was eagerly under-
taken by Sonnini, who embarked in a frail canoe
with a company of Indians, and for ten days per-
sisted in navigating those savannahs through im-
mense low marshy plains, the haunts of the cayman
and myriads of noxious creatures. Difficult beyond
conception was the enterprise, and he suffered the
horrors of drought and famine in addition to the
polsonous exhalations of those infectious regions,
the attacks of the mosquitoes, and the murmurs of
his savage companions, who despaired of success
and were clamorous to return. Thus, when only
in his twenty-third year, the youthful Sonnini had
honourably enrolled his name in the annals of that
colony. On his return to France he was for this
service promoted to the rank of Heutenant. In