An Impression of the Guiana Wilderness 373^ 



tions are on the shores of the rivers, and 

 the great forest-covered country beyond 

 is termed the "Bush.". In recent years 

 it has become the field for gold-hunters. 

 Surinam's sugar and cacao plantations 

 can be reached by the one railroad of 

 the country, forty miles in length, which 

 in the future may connect the capital with 

 the gold fields. Since the fall in the 

 price of sugar, the country has not been 

 self-supporting and is maintained by Hol- 

 land through the prosperity of the big 

 sister colony, Java. 



Paramaribo is built on a shell reef, and 

 many of its streets are well paved with 

 a mixture of shell and earth. "Heeren- 

 straat" is the city's most attractive 

 avenue — broad and lined with ancient 

 mahogany trees. The story is current 

 that the sum of forty thousand dollars 

 has been ofifered for these trees, but, being 

 the colony's pride, they are in no grave 

 danger of being sacrificed. 



The hotel which we patronized was a 

 clean, airy house, with wide verandas. 

 The rooms were large and finished in 



natural wood, the table simple but whole- 

 some. Unfortunately, however, this 

 hostelry overlooks the market (pleas- 

 antly situated near the city's main sewer), 

 and our room was just above a group of 

 cabins occupied by laundresses, who kept 

 up a steady stream of "Taki-Taki" all 

 day long and late into the night. It 

 seemed to us to be the most "actively 

 conversational language" we had ever 

 heard. 



The market-place is a narrow platform 

 shaded by a peaked roof, and the women 

 sit on the floor beside their wares, re- 

 sembling huge mushrooms in their stiffly 

 starched "Kottomissi" costumes. 



A picturesque and an interesting city 

 is Paramaribo, with its glistening white 

 streets, its majestic trees, and its old- 

 fashioned buildings ; its blending of many 

 types — European, Asiatic, and Creole! 

 Surinam does not seem to us to form a. 

 part of South America. We associate 

 it rather with the West Indies, to which 

 it is allied by ties of history, race, and 

 commerce. 



AN IMPRESSION OF THE GUIANA 

 WILDERNESS* 



By Professor Angelo Heilprin 

 Of Yale University and Editor of Lippincott's "Gazetteer' 



IN assigning to me "The Guianas" as 

 a topic in the course of lectures on 

 Latin America, I assume that the 

 Board of Directors has taken for granted 

 a special knowledge on my part of this 

 most interesting section of the earth's 

 surface. In fact, however, the knowl- 

 edge that I possess, so far as it relates to 

 a personal contact, is derived from a sin- 

 gle brief journey made to this region in 

 the spring of last year, undertaken almost 

 wholly for the purpose of satisfying an 

 old-time desire to see the great South 

 American forest, illumined by the 



writings of Humboldt, Schomburgk, and 

 other great masters, before it was de- 

 spoiled by man. The conditions of na- 

 ture in this region as they exist today 

 differ but little from those of a hundred 

 years ago. It is true the force of civiliza- 

 tion has invaded the wilderness in spots ; 

 has marked out villages here and there ; 

 but the aspects of this progress lie mainly 

 toward the ocean front, and the traveler 

 has but to travel a short distance into the 

 interior to find the wild and untrammeled 

 nature which so delighted Waterton. 

 In the vast area that stretches between 



* Abstracted from an address delivered before the National Geographic Society, February 

 8, 1907. 



