■ Timehri " and Development 181 



savannahs it would pass through lands from which timber might be taken. 

 They were fortunate in having here the best timber in the world and they 

 could add to that that the savannahs already supported a large herd of 

 cattle and were capable of supporting a very much larger number, if 

 there was any prospect of selling them when they were brought into 

 existence, and they could add that, in addition to the savannahs o.i this 

 side, there were savannahs on the Brazilian side and doubtless cattle 

 from those savannahs would be offered for sale, if there were means of 

 getting them down to our coastlands. He saw no reason either why, 

 if these savannahs were opened, they should not breed horses there, not 

 for racing, but he did not mean that that would not be a profitable 

 development, although he had no doubt — he saw a prominent member of 

 the racing club sitting quite close to him — -if the savannahs were opened, 

 other owners than Mr. Flood would breed horses for racing purposes, but 

 he would rather see horses bred there for ordinary commercial use and he 

 should like to see sugar planters breed their mules there, instead of im- 

 porting them from the Argentine and New York. He was going up to 

 the interior with the hope not to see the nakedness of the land, but its 

 fertility. What struck him in all the talk that had been about develop- 

 ment was that no one had faced the problem of submitting a proper 

 scheme. People talked vaguely about a railway to the interior, but they 

 wanted to settle, aid it was not an easy matter to settle, where that rail- 

 way was to go and where it was to start from. There were other places 

 which if they had to begin anew they might without much hesitation say 

 were better places for the starting off point of a railway, but they were 

 not to forget what they had locked up in Georgetown and what loss 

 would be caused to the inhabitants here if they started a new capital in 

 some other part of the coast. They must not start a railway without 

 being quite sure where they wanted it to go and beyond that what they 

 could get on the way in which the)' wanted it to go. " 



The reconnaissance foreshadowed has since been carried out. His 

 Excellency, accompanied by Mr. E. M. Bland, a railway engineer of large 

 tropical experience, made an itinerary over the route outlined and in the 

 despatch and report published in February, 1014. embodied his conclusion 

 in favour of a line from Georgetown up the East Bank of the Demerara 

 rivers, crossing a little above Wismar thence to the East Bank of the 

 Essequibo Biver near the Potaro mouth, on to Kurupukari rapids 

 where the Essequibo should be crossed, then by a line south of the 

 Siparuni and Burro-burro to the mouth of the Ireng river on the Brazilian 

 boundary. Lines of 20 inch gauge from Potaro to Kaieteuk and thence 

 to the upper Mazaruni, Cuyuni and Barama are also recommended in His 

 Excellency's Despatch. 



A recent conversation with a gentleman who has been located in 

 the Siparuni-Echilebar district for 3| years, and whose journeyings have 

 crossed and re-crossed a considerable expanse of that district, leads me to 

 believe that a route to the north of the Siparuni may offer advantages 

 of easier country, more fertile soils and richer mineral possibilities than 



