50 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



populations, nor has any centre of Eui^opean enterprise leeii yet established within 

 its limits. The region about its headwaters is occupied by the Taruma Indians, 

 who are rarely visited by travellers, and whose relations with the colony are con- 

 ducted through the agency of a few traders thinly scattered over a wide space. 



Groups of hamlets follow at great distances along the course of the rivers, 

 especially about the portages, where the cataracts have to be turned by the boat- 

 men. The river tratfic carried on by their means is almost entirely limited to the 

 section of the Essequibo below the confluence of the Eupununi, although this 

 affluent follows the natural route between the Atlantic and the Amazons basin 

 through the Pirara depression. But everywhere the riverside stations are wide 

 apart, and till recently they were exclusively inhabited by Indians and half-breeds, 

 with a few black or Portuguese dealers from the distant coast towns. Neverthe- 

 less, there can be no doubt that sooner or later the broad highway leading from 

 the Atlantic to Amazonia will acquire great commercial importance. 



Meanwhile, the chief group of huts near the Pirara depression is the obscure 

 village of Quatata, trysting-ground of the Wapisiana, Macusi, and Wayewé 

 Indians, who here carry on a barter trade in hammocks, sarbacanes, and other 

 objects of native industry, taking in exchange the cutlery, beads, dogs, and 

 manioc rasps supplied by the European dealers. The natives have been visited 

 both by Protestant missionaries from Demerara and by Catholic Fathers from 

 I^lanaos, and near Quatata are ' seen the remains of the little Fort Kew Guinea, 

 erected by the English to uphold the claims of Great Britain to this important 

 strateo-ical position. The district is yearly visited by half-caste Brazilian immi- 

 grants engaged in stock-breeding. 



Bartica. — Zep:landia. 



At the confluence of the navigable Mazaruni and Cuyuni affluents above the 

 estuary stands the little town of Bartica Grove, or simply Bartica, at one time a 

 flourishing mission station, till lately reduced to a few wooden huts embowered 

 in the overhanging riverside vegetation, a recently restored church, some small 

 residences, and a few timber-sheds. The picturesque village, with i\s avenues of 

 tall mango-trees and tangle of flowery shrubs overtopped by groups of graceful 

 palms, was till recently occupied chiefly by the so called " river-men," idle negroes 

 and half-breeds, who make a precarious living on the Government timber-grants, 

 or as boat-hands to help travellers in surmounting the numerous cataracts of the 

 Essequibo affluents. 



Since 1887 the prosperity of Bartica has revived, thanks mainly to the develop-- 

 ment of the gold-mining industry in the western districts. The place is now 

 rapidly increasing, and tends to become the chief trading centre of the colony. 

 Chinese and Portuguese traders have already opened numerous stores for the 

 supply of the mining populations, and the future of Bartica seems to be assured 

 by its advantageous position at the converging point of a network of navigable 

 waters leading in one direction up the Essequibo to the Amazons and Brazil, in 

 another by the Cuyuni towards the Orinoco and Venezuela. 



