46 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



dred aad fifty j^ears of patient labour to reclaim from the swamps and woodlands. 

 Even the whites who formerly succeeded best in Dutch Guiana were Jews for the 

 most part of Portuguese origin. The chief group, a body of Hebrew planters 

 expelled from Brazil, arrived in 1663, and to their influence is due the large pro- 

 portion of Portuguese words that have found their way into the Creole language 

 of the Bush Negroes. 



All the costly attempts to colonise the country with whites drawn from other 

 lands have ended in disaster. Individuals of strong constitution may no doubt 

 become acclimatised by carefully observing all the rules of health. But to adapt 

 whole families and communal groups to an environment so different from that of 

 Europe is certainly a far more dangerous and difficult experiment than to settle 

 them in Canada or the United States, especially when the emigrants are deprived 

 of ordinary comforts and even of proper food, as has too often been the case. 

 Although consumption is almost unknown on the coastlands, the new arrivals are 

 rapidly decimated by the marsh fevers, which are most dangerous, especially when 

 the hot sun begins to suck up the deadly exhalations in the swampy districts. 

 Since the year 1855, yellow fever also has made frequent visits to this sea- 

 board. 



Hence the Europeans, although the political masters of the land and owners of 

 the plantations, have remained practically aliens in the midst of a motley cosmo- 

 politan population, in which the half-caste elements are steadily increasing. Except 

 in some favourable years, the mortality is always higher than the birth rate, and 

 meanwhile the Europeans of pure descent are being outstripped on all sides by the 

 Portuguese islanders from the north, by the Brazilians, also of Portuguese speech, 

 from the south, by the Spanish Venezuelans from the west; in a word, by intruders 

 of Latin speech and culture arriving from every quarter. 



