No. MCCLXXXI.

VOL. CCXII.

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THE only portion of the vast and largely unknown continent of South America that owns European sway is the territory of the Guianas-British, Dutch, and French, of which the largest and least undeveloped is British Guiana. But, although it may, bear a favourable comparison with its French and Dutch neighbours, British Guiana, one of our oldest colonies, has been outstripped in development by many far more recently acquired possessions, and to-day it remains largely unexplored and unsurveyed. Its north-west district, a comparatively small part of the whole colony, is contiguous with Venezuela, and is greater in area than all the British West India Islands, including Jamaica, put together; yet this region is almost entirely neglected, despite its admirable waterways, navigable for some 200 miles, its equable climate,

VOL. CCXII.-NO. MCCLXXXI.

its gold, its timber, and its fertility of soil. Low hills most suitable for settlement rise within two miles of the coast; but there are scarcely any roads, and the sole means of regular communication with the outside world is the weekly steamer which plies between Morawhanna on the Barima river and Georgetown, the colony's capital, at the Demerara estuary. Very few of the inhabitants of the rest of the colony have seen anything of this territory, and it is only known to them as the source of most of the ground provisions, such as maize, yams, eddoes, cassava, and tanias, which are the chief food of the Creole population.

Except for the sea-journey above mentioned, which is only to be undertaken if one is an exceptionally good sailor, or else philosophically prepared for the endurance of some twentyfour hours of acute misery, the

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only other approach to Morawhanna is by inland waterways, which afford a very delightful, though somewhat devious, means of reaching the district. This is the route over which I recently journeyed-an Odyssey of fourteen rivers, rich in interest and charm.

The first of these, the Demerara, has given its name to the yellow-crystal sugar which at present is British Guiana's chief title to fame; and, indeed, the colony is more often than not spoken of simply by the name of this one river, at the mouth of which lies Georgetown with its 60,000 inhabitants, a medley of many immigrant races. The Demerara, as it slips lazily into the Atlantic, affords a beautiful river harbour to Georgetown; its broad smooth stream, leading away inland almost due south, is navigable by oceangoing ships for sixty miles. White sails of sloops, schooners, and fishing-boats shine against the blue-grey glimmer of the opaque water or the vivid green of the low flat banks, a scene of peace which no Caribbean hurricane ever threatens. there is a wicked fairy who neutralises all British Guiana's heaven - sent gifts. Currents sweeping along the coast wash seas of mud into the Demerara with each tide, and have laid a bar to seaward, which denies all steamers of deep draught access to what should be one of the best and safest harbours of South America.

But

From Georgetown on the east bank to Vreedenhoop, a

mile opposite on the western bank, there runs a Government ferry, and on this occasion we were concerned only to cross the Demerara and leave it behind us. Then we drove by motor-car westwards for twenty miles along the coast to Parika on the Essequebo estuary. The road, like all the coast roads of British Guiana, is thrown up as an earth-dam with a trench on either hand. To the south lie rice-fields and sugar and coco-nut plantations, but the Atlantic is too close and too encroaching in its habits to permit much cultivation on the northern side. The dwellings of East Indian colonists are strung out all along the way, and their poultry, donkeys, and cattle-for there is much fine cattle on the coast-wander about the road in easy and untended fashion, and in serene disregard of the frantic hoots of the motorist desirous of catching the Demerara or Essequebo ferries. The bright red highway in its deep eternally green setting is picturesque enough; but the low-lying coastal flats are flooded after any heavy rainfall, and their inhabitants live an amphibious life, only rendered possible by the marvellously healthy seabreezes and the sanitary effect of tropical sunshine.

At Parika we are in the delta of the Essequebo, a great river over 600 miles long, which, with its big tributaries the Mazaruni and Cuyuni, spreads over the greater part of the colony. In the extreme south