SOME LESSER KNOWN POTENTIALITIES OF 

 THE NORTH WESTERN DISTRICT. 



By Vincent Roth, J.P. 



The average Water Street man's idea of the North Western District 

 is that it consists of a small township called Morawhanna and a few 

 farms that furnish Georgetown with a portion of its supply of ground 

 provisions. The district actually comprises about one-tenth of the total 

 area of the Colony. Its western border is scarcely a hundred miles from 

 the eastern edge of the great Venezuelan cattle savannahs : its sourthern 

 boundary, running along the divide of the Cuyuni and Barama basins, 

 skirts the head-waters of the famous Pigeon Island gold-fields and its 

 north and north-eastern sections include thousands of acres of rich and 

 untouched alluvial soil, capable of producing thousands of tons of tropical 

 vegetables. 



The few head of cattle and mules that have already been driven 

 through the forest trails from Tumeremo to Arakaka may be but the 

 beginning of a great cattle import trade equal to, if not rivalling, that 

 expected from the Kupununi. As it is the trail on the Venezuelan side of 

 the frontier is quite suitable for the passage of cattle, and the judicious 

 expenditure of a couple of thousand dollars could prolong this trail, 

 suitable for cattle, to Arakaka and Morawhanna. The latter place would 

 then afford an ideal site for a meat canning and fish curing factory, some 

 lesser known potentialities of the North Western District. 



At certain seasons of the year whole boat-loads of dried morocot 

 (that most delicious of fish, still unknown to the majority of Georgetown 

 palates) come up the Barima Biver from the Orinoco where they are 

 caught. In August and September the mud-flats of the Waini Bay, but 

 an hours sail from Morawhanna, are hidden beneath billions of great blue 

 bunduri crabs, and throughout the year the equally succulent red or 

 " buck " crab is found in lesser quantities in the same locality. Why 

 not a local trade in live crabs and an export one in tinned crustaceans ? 

 At least once a week the handful of local fishermen bring in half a ton of 

 fresh fish, querrior an, cuirass, and flounders, caught in seines off the coast. 

 Why import iced fish when shoals of fresh ones may be obtained from 

 the undeveloped fisheries of the North West ? 



When the embargo on the export of foodstuffs is raised, the trade 

 between Morawhanna and the Orinoco Delta will be well worth developing. 

 The balata-bleeders of the Cuyuwini and the residents of the Venezuelan 

 shore of the Amakuru before the War depended on our port for their 

 supply of foodstuffs, and since this supply has been stopped many of them 

 have crossed the frontier and settled in this Colony. Yet still many 

 remain and in exchange for our rice and flour they can send us dried 



