450 



GUIANA 



preserved no traditions relating to the inscrip- 

 tions. 



History. The first Europeans to explore the 

 coast of Guiana seem to have been the Spaniards 

 Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499 and Vicente Pinzon in 

 1500. Several attempts were made by adventurers 

 of different European nations to found colonies in 

 this region in the later part of the 16th and the 

 early part of the 17th centuries. To this period 

 belong Raleigh's and the other expeditions which 

 visited this part of South America in search of the 

 fabulous gold city El Dorado (q.v.) and the Lake 

 of Parima. Apart from semi-buccaneering expedi- 

 tions and landings, the first successful colonisation 

 of Guiana seems to have been made by the Dutch, 

 on the Essequibo, shortly before 1613. The 

 English got firm footing at Surinam in 1650, and 

 the French on the Kourou and Oyapock in 1664. 

 Two years later the English seized both French 

 and Dutch Guiana, but restored them in 1667, and 

 at the same time handed over Surinam to the 

 Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam 

 i.e. New York. The French, in 1674, renewed 

 their attempts to settle at Cayenne, and with 

 success ; that part of Guiana has remained in their 

 hands ever since. Except for two short periods 

 (1781-83 and 1796-1802), the settlements on the 

 Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice and in Surinam 

 were held by the Dutch down to 1803, when they 

 were again taken possession of by the English, 

 who at the peace of 1814 restored the last named, 

 but retained the first three. Berbice was at first 

 administered as a distinct colony, but in 1831 it 

 was incorporated with the rest of British Guiana. 

 During slave-holding times sugar-planting brought 

 some degree of prosperity to these colonies ; but 

 their productiveness in this respect was very 

 sensibly crippled by the abolition of slavery, which 

 deprived them of their supplies of the requisite 

 kind of labour for the plantations. Since that 

 event coffee and cotton have almost entirely ceased 

 to be grown ; and the cultivation of beetroot for 

 sugar caused a serious crisis in Guiana cane- 

 planting. British and Dutch Guiana, however, 

 still show signs of vitality : the cane-sugar 

 industry, if not reviving, is at least not retrograde, 

 whilst gold-mining is a decidedly progressive in- 

 dustry. Except for gold-mining, which however 

 remains stationary, French Guiana is in a hope- 

 lessly deplorable condition. 



BRITISH GUIANA, or DEMERARA, with a coast- 

 line of 320 miles, is separated from Dutch Guiana 

 on the E. by the river Corentyn ; on the S. and 

 W., next Brazil and Venezuela respectively, the 

 boundaries have never been definitively determined. 

 The British make the limits of the colony extend 

 southward to the sources of the Essequibo in the 

 Acarai Mountains (about 1 N. lat. and 59 W. 

 long. ), and trend thence nearly due east to the 

 head-waters of the Corentyn, whilst the west 

 boundary (going north) coincides with the Takutu 

 and Cotinga as far as Roraima ; thence it proceeds 

 north-east to the Imataca range and onwards 

 north to the mouth of the Amacuro. The Vene- 

 zuelans, however, claim all the region west of the 

 Essequibo right up to the sources of this river. 

 The area of British Guiana is approximately set 

 down at 76,000 so. m. The western part of the 

 colony is diversified by chains of the Pacaraima or 

 Parima mountain-system, which stretch generally 

 from west to east, as the Imataca range in the 

 north, the Merume or Pacaraima Mountains, which 

 rise to 3000 feet between 4 and 5 30' N. lat. , and 

 to some 8000 or 9000 feet in the table-topped 

 Ror ima (q.v.), and the Acarai Mountains, which 

 form the southern boundary of the colony as well 

 as the watershed betAveen the Essequibo and the 

 feeders of the Amazons. Between the two ranges 



last mentioned comes an eastward extension of the 

 great Brazilian savannah region. The more im- 

 portant rivers are the Corentyn, Berbice, Demerara, 

 Essequibo (with its tributaries, the Rapununi and 

 the Mazuruni, and the Cuyuni, an affluent of this 

 last), Waini, and Barima, all flowing north into 

 the Atlantic ; and the Takutu, which, supple- 

 mented by the Ireng and Cotinga, feeds the Ria 

 Branco, tributary to the Amazon. The prolonged 

 negotiations concerning the frontier disputed with 

 % Venezuela(q. v. ) led in 1895 to a threatening message 

 from the President of the United States, but were 

 settled by arbitration in 1899, in favor of Guiana. 



The leading industry of the colony is the cultiva- 

 tion of the sugar-cane. Wood-cutting and gold- 

 mining are the only other industries of any 

 moment. The exports embrace sugar, average 

 value 1,200,000 per annum ; rum to the amount 

 of nearly 100,000; molasses 20,000; timber, 

 shingles, charcoal, cocoa-nuts, balata, and gums. 

 The export of gold increased from 9000 in 1884 

 to 500,446 in 1894. The total value of the exports, 

 which go principally to the United Kingdom and 

 West Indies, fell from 3,208,631 in 1882 to 

 2,039,900 in 1895. More than half the exports go 

 to the United Kingdom. The imports (mostly from 

 the United Kingdom), which consist chiefly of flour, 

 rice, dried fish, butter, pork, and beef, fell from 

 2,224,000 in 1883 to 1,668,750 in 1895. 



In 1894 the population was 280,869, and em- 

 braced Europeans, Creoles, negroes, coolies from 

 India, Chinese, natives of Madeira and the Azores^ 

 and aboriginal Indians ; but of these last only 

 some 10,000 are included in the census return. 

 The negroes number 100,000, the East Indians- 

 106,000, the Chinese 3800, the Europeans 2600. 

 Most of the plantation work is done by immigrant 

 coolies from British India and by Chinese. 



The colony is divided into three counties, 

 Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo. The ports 

 are Georgetown (q.v.), the capital, and New 

 Amsterdam. The administration is in the hands 

 of the governor, appointed by the crown, and 

 two legislative councils the Court of Policy ( 15 

 members) and the Combined Court (23 members) 

 the latter having the control of the finances. 

 Slavery was abolished in the colony in 1834, though 

 the importation of slaves from Africa had practically 

 ceased twenty years before. Compensation was 

 paid to the amount of 4,297,117 for 84,915 slaves 

 (50, 12s. per head). The colony possesses one line 

 of railway, from Georgetown to Mahaica (21 miles 

 long), telegraphic communication with Europe and 

 the United States, and a good system of postage. 



DUTCH GUIANA, or SURINAM, Avith an area of 

 46,058 sq. m., and a coast-line of 240 miles, has for 

 its boundary on the Avest the river Corentyn, on the 

 south the Acarai Mountains and their eastern con- 

 tinuation, the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, and on 

 the east the Maroni or MaroAvijn, Avhich separates 

 it from French Guiana. It is, hoAvever, a matter 

 of dispute betAveen the French and the Dutch which 

 of the two upper branches of this last river the 

 right-hand arm, the AAva or LaAva, or the left- 

 hand arm, the Tapanahoni is the upper part of 

 the main stream. The Dutch claim that it is the 

 former, the French the latter. The other rivers of 

 the colony are the Surinam, Saramacca, Coppe- 

 name, and Nickerie, all floAving into the Atlantic. 

 The greater part of the surface is covered Avith un- 

 explored primeval forest, scarcely more than 210 

 sq. m. of the entire area being cultivated. The 

 chief products are sugar, cocoa, gold, rum, molasses, 

 bananas, rice, corn of which sugar, cocoa, and 

 gold are largely exported. The total annual value 

 of exports is from 300,000 to 500,000 ; that of 

 imports is from 400,000 to 600,000. Gold-mining 

 has made rapid strides since 1875 ; the export 



