AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Barrère and by La Condamine on his retura from his memorable expedition to 

 the equatorial Andes. 



Twenty years later Simon Mentelle arrived at Cayenne, where he sojourned 

 under conditions of the greatest difficulty for thirty- six years. During this 

 period he visited, in his capacity as engineer, the whole of the seaboard of French 

 Guiana, and had his advice been attended to, many a disastrous expedition would 

 have been avoided. The same region was traversed in 1762 — 64 by the botanist. 

 Fusée Aublet, whose work on the Fiants of Guiana is still a standard book of 

 reference. In 1787 his associate, Patris, ascended the Oyapok and its Camopi 

 affluent, and Leblond, another naturalist of considerable intelligence and enter- 

 prise, followed nearly the same route, returning by the river Sinnamari. He spent 



Fi^^. 2. — Routes of the Chief Explorées of Gtjiana. 

 Scale 1 : 13,000.000. 



, 250 Miles. 



several years in exploring a great part of the land, studying its economic plants, 

 searching especially for the quinquina, which he failed to find, observing the 

 aborigines, and developing projects for the settlement of the uplands. 



Both in French and Dutch Guiana the engineer Guisan constructed numerous 

 navigable and drainage canals, taking advantage of these works to investigate the 

 character of the soil, climate, and local products. Stedman, an English officer in 

 the Dutch service, turned to profitable account a residence of five years (1772-77) 

 in the interior of the colony of Surinam. He has left us a valuable record of his 

 travels and observations in this region, as well as an excellent history of the wars 

 with the Bush Negroes, in which he was actively engaged. 



Later the gangs of convicts transported to French Guiana contributed to a 



