December, 1913 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 119 



Bartica is at the junction of the Essequibo and Mazareni 

 Rivers, about 20 miles up from the mouth of the Essequibo 

 and some 60 or 70 miles from Georgetown, and is a small trad- 

 ing village, also the location of the penal settlement of the 

 colony. The country in that vicinity is very uninteresting as 

 compared with the wild country up the Essequibo, and the lat- 

 ter cannot be ascended from its mouth except for a very short 

 distance, as it is blocked to boat navigation by a long series of 

 cataracts, for 10 or 15 miles. Everyone going up country goes 

 up the Demerara River to a station called Wismar and then 

 crosses to the Essequibo, a distance of 19 miles, and strikes the 

 river above the rapids, and the stream is then navigable for 

 about 100 miles up before the next rapids are reached. 



The climate in this region is not good. All of the Northern 

 coast of South America is low for many miles inland, excepting 

 a few not very extensive stretches of country, until you reach 

 the ranges which encroach on the coast adjacent to the Andean 

 range. The Guianas, Dutch, French and British, are nothing 

 but large swamps from the ocean back for 100 to 150 miles. 

 Of course there are isolated stretches of high land, but not 

 "hills", only small areas scattered miles apart that reach more 

 than 40 or 50 feet above sea level. I never saw a respectable 

 mountain in British Guiana until I got 300 miles from the 

 coast. You can travel those rivers for day after day and the 

 shores are the same always, never rising, just one big jungle. 

 Malarial fever is very prevalent in all this region and some 

 very bad forms of it. It is present always, at all seasons, but 

 is worst, of course, during the rainy spells. The temperature 

 does not vary much, about 70° in the dry and 80° to 85° in the 

 "summer" season, but the humidity is very great, and up 

 country the wet season is very enervating. I had a couple of 

 bad spells of fever when I was up in the "Bush" but I got over 

 them. Once for a week I was afraid I was going to "cash in," 

 temperature 106° one night following a very severe congestive 

 chill lasting about 4 hours. I lived on quinine, 10 grains to the 

 dose every hour for ten hours, and took at least 40 grains a day 

 for a couple of weeks after and then never less than 15 grains 

 daily for two months. I took nearly 3000 grains of quinine 

 during the year I spent in the West Indies and South America, 

 and I still have the malaria bugs in my blood, as it crops out 



