ON THE SEA-SHORE. 251 



with his confrere in Surinam to make the great 

 river Corentyne the boundary, and this arrange- 

 ment having been retained when Surinam was 

 restored to the Dutch, a great difficulty and 

 possible occasion of a boundary dispute have been 

 obviated. It is easy to conceive from this how 

 important is the struggle between the sea and the 

 courida if our readers were not convinced by the 

 apparently wild statements made a few pages back. 

 However, we have not yet finished the story 

 of this marvellous tree. At the beginning of this 

 century the charts of the mouth of the River 

 Essequebo showed a bank of " hard sand, dry at 

 low water," to the east of Leguan Island. This 

 place continued as a sandbank for over sixty 

 years how long it had been in existence before is 

 doubtful, but we may safely state that it could hardly 

 have been less than a century altogether, and 

 from all appearances it might remain in the same 

 condition for as long again. About the year 1862, 

 however, an estates schooner, named the Dauntless, 

 was wrecked on this Leguan Bank, partly broken 

 up and embedded in the sand, where its presence 

 was shown by a slight elevation, and one or two 

 ribs sticking out above the surface. These jagged 

 points arrested a few pieces of the tangle which 

 came down the river, and on this were deposited 





