44 TIMEHRI, 
The advantages of navigation, distribution and cer- 
tainty of the crop, and superior returns, certainly enhance 
the value of Demerary property 100 per cent above that 
of the islands. This is stiffly denied by the island plan- 
ters, though fully proved by the conduét of the mer. 
chants, who certainly are good Judges of the returns of 
their own capital, and are always ready to advance it on 
Demerary, in preference to island property, an estate 
of 300 negroes in the islands not selling for more than 
£30,000, though in Demerary it is worth from 60 to 
£65,000. 
In no other colony are the buildings of the sugar works 
On a greater scale of magnificence; those of an estate of 
500 negroes will cost 20 or £25,000 and a stranger is apt 
to consider them as built in a style of superfluous expense. 
But the Demerarian, who in every thing else, is only 
anxious that it should last “ his time” knows perfe&tly well 
that his land will be produétive for a century, and 
that to sell it to advantage, his works must be per- 
manently adequate to take off its produce, not only 
during his own time, but perhaps during that of two 
or three successors, Another great inducement to put 
up works on a large scale, is the great plenty on the 
spot, of the finest and most durable building timber in 
the whole world, but which timber when young and of 
small scantling is sappy, and quickly decays. It is neces- 
sary therefore to use beams of a large size, from mature 
and full grown trees—and these require a proportionate 
increase of strength and dimensions in the other parts 
of the constru€tion. The expense of these immense 
buildings is therefore an inevitable one, and though it 
demands a great increase of capital in the beginning, is 
