Chapter Nine 
BRITISH GUIANA (1) 
N the winter of 1930-31 I set off for British Guiana by a Dutch 
boat, calling en route at Madeira and Paramaribo, capital of 
Dutch Guiana. In making this trip I was influenced by my old 
friend Dr. Vevers, who had visited the Colony ten years previously 
to study tropical diseases. 
He had described to me the hoatzins in the Canje Creek; the 
trumpeter birds, bell birds, macaws and parrots, of the jungles; the 
wonderful humming-birds; and the queer inhabitants of the great 
rivers. This was enough to rouse my curiosity, and the study of 
the bird-life from books and from skins in the British Museum 
determined me to see all these wonderful creatures in life. 
As we neared the shores of Dutch Guiana, or Surinam, the sea 
became muddy-looking through the influence of the waters of 
the great rivers along the coast, particularly the Amazon and the 
Orinoco. This was my first introduction to South America and 
I was all agog as we entered the mouth of the Surinam River and 
steamed thirteen miles upstream through tropical scenery to Para- 
maribo. 
As we stepped ashore we saw everything for the visitor—cur- 
iosity shops full of imported junk, and gaily painted cafés and 
estaminets with blaring gramophones and beseeching wenches. I 
made my way along the street until some vegetation hove in 
sight. The gardens of the poorer inhabitants resembled those 
one might see in Dar-es-Salaam, the Seychelles, the East Indies, 
or any other tropical place at coast level where there is a plentiful 
rainfall and high humidity. Coconuts, breadfruit, bananas, and 
plantains were the trees most in evidence, and in them were Blue, 
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