GEORGETOWN. 113 



from the sea. The majority of the inhabitants of French 

 Guiana are convicts, chained for life to their prisons; here 

 the good people of British Guiana bind themselves with 

 imaginary bonds and picture their wonderful land as teem- 

 ing with serpents and heaven-knows-what other terrors. 



FIG. 57. STREET IN GEORGETOWN. 



Another unfortunate failing is the firm conviction of some of 

 the influential citizens that there is no truth in the mosquito 

 theory as a cause of malaria and yellow fever. 



A distinguished English scientist, recently sent to inves- 

 tigate yellow fever in Barbados and British Guiana, was 

 holding up as an example to the citizens of Georgetown the 

 Barbadian custom of keeping fishes in their water cisterns; 

 explaining that the fishes devoured the mosquito larvae and 



