INHABITANTS OF GUIANA. 45 



" Posth older " wus formerly a simple delegate from the whites, who at last became 

 the chief magistrate aud arbitrator in lawsuits between private persons and in 

 differences between the various village communities. The Gramman of the Boni 

 people in French Guiana is no longer much more than a civil functionary receiv- 

 ing a regular subsidy from the Colonial Government. 



like the aborigines, the negroes, other than the immigrants from Trinidad, 

 Barbadoes, and Martinique, are decreasing, although the climate of the Guianas 

 appears to be as favourable to the black race as it is unfavourable to Europeans. 

 Miscegenation with other races may, to a small extent, explain this decrease ; but 

 even amongst those living apart, as well as amongst those intermingled with the 

 cosmopolitan populations of the towns and coastlands, the number of deaths 

 exceeds that of the births ever^'where except amongst the Aucans. In the last 

 century it was supposed that the Africans could never multiply in Guiana, because 

 nearly all the infants died of convulsions during the first nine days after birth. 



This excessive mortality is attributed by Palgrave to the ill-regulated affection 

 of the mothers for their offspring, whom they literally "kill with kindness," 

 which takes the form of overfeeding. But this cause being prevalent elsewhere 

 as well as in Guiana, some other explanation must be sought. It would seem, in 

 fact, that the blacks have not yet become perfectly acclimatised, as shown by their 

 feeble resistance to such disorders as leprosy, elephantiasis, small-pox, and many 

 others, which commit great havoc amongst them. Those dwelling in the bush 

 are also exposed to the attacks of the IncUia homiuivora, a horrible insect pest 

 which deposits its eggs in the cars and nostrils with fatal results. 



The Coolies — European Settlers. 



After the emancipation most of the freedmen having abandoned the planta- 

 tions either to seek work in the towns or else to cultivate their own holdings, the 

 great landowners had to seek elsewhere for labourers. French and Dutch Guianas 

 were too poor to import many alien hands ; but British Guiana, with its wider 

 extent of cultivable lands, and with the great labour market of British India 

 thrown open by the Government, has engaged no less than 170,000 Asiatic 

 coolies since the year 1845. At present this element represents fully one-third of 

 the whole j)opulation of the English colony, the most valued being the so-called 

 hill- coolies from, the uplands south of the great bend of the Ganges. Emigrant 

 offices have been opened in Calcutta and Madras to meet the demands of the 

 Demerara planters, who have also engaged a few thousand Chinese coolies. 



On the other hand, the Surinam planters have introduced labourers from Java, 

 while Arabs, Annamites, and Senegal negroes have been attracted to the French 

 colony. Even white labour has been sought, but only in such markets as 

 Madeira and the Azores, whose inhabitants are accustomed to a tropical climate. 

 These immigrants, collectively called " Portuguese," though a very mixed race, 

 seem destined to become the true ethnical element of the Guianas of the future. 

 They have already established themselves in several districts beyond the zone of 

 plantations which it has taken the French, Dutch, and English some two hun- 



