CHAPTER IT. 



GUIANA. 



WIDE belt of low land borders the ocean side of 

 Guiana on the north-east of the continent, where 

 white men dwell, in houses elevated on piles of 

 timber, among sugar-estates and cotton-plantations, tall wind- 

 mills, and numerous canals crowded with shipping, which 

 would present a thoroughly Dutch scene were it not for the 

 stately cocoa-nut and cabbage palms rising amid them, the 

 dark-skinned labourers, the blue sky, and burning heat. The 

 province is, however, for the most part a region of rugged 

 mountains, dense forests, open savannahs, broad streams, cata- 

 racts, waterfalls, and rapids ; where the yet untamed savage, 

 making war on his neighbours, and sunk in the grossest bar- 

 barism, lives as his predecessors have done for centuries past. 

 Through the centre of the territory flows the Essequibo, 

 the largest river between the Amazon and the Orinoco. Its 

 source is among the same mountains which give birth to some 

 of the tributaries of those mighty rivers, the one running to 

 the north, the other to the south ; thus adding to the wonder- 

 ful network which unites the waters of South America. 



It was through this region that the gallant Raleigh, and 



