FEENCH GUIANA. 65 



The Mana river, which follows the Maroniin the direction of the east, has its 

 little commune of Mana, named from the river, but the other coast streams, such as 

 the Organebo, the Iracubo, and the Counamano, traverse almost uninhabited dis- 

 tricts. Maua recalls some essays at colonisation, which were carried on with 

 great vigour and perseverance. The enterprise was undertaken by a religious 

 sister, Madame Javouhey, with a rare display of determination almost indepen- 

 dently of Government control, although aided by the officials. With the help of 

 the sisters of the community, of numerous hired labourers, and several hundred 

 slaves, she founded various establishments, plantations, asylums, schools, a general 

 hospital, and a lazaretto. The present village of Mana is regarded as one of the 

 most salubrious in Guiana, and was formerly the " rice granary " of the whole 

 colony. 



SiNNAMARI — KOUROU. 



Sinnamari, originally a Dutch settlement, founded near the mouth of the 

 river of like name, has become famous as a place of banishment. In 1797 and 

 1798, after the Royalist conspiracy of Fructidor, over iive hundred suspected were 

 transported to this place; of the 329 landed by the Charente, 171, more than half, 

 rapidly succumbed to their hardships, despair, and disease. But far more disas- 

 trous had been the attempt made to colonise the district in 1763, when about 

 13,000 emigrants from Alsace, Lorraine, and Saintonge were landed on the banks 

 of the Kourou, some thirty miles east of the Sinnamari. 



France had just ceded Canada to England, and Choiseul, who with his cousin, 

 de Praslin, at that time ruled the Monarchy, decided to replace the lost territory 

 by calling Guiana '* Equatorial France," and despatching thither fleet after fleet 

 of colonists. Even some players were included for the purpose of amusing the 

 future " Guianese " in their hours of relaxation. In memory of Canada they were 

 provided with skates, but the provisions were forgotten, and no arrangements 

 were made for landing and housing the settlers, while the Chevalier de Turgot, 

 who had been appointed leader of the expedition, remained in France. Even 

 during the voyage the unhappy victims were decimated by the plague, and on the 

 banks of the Kourou famine carried off those spared by typhus. After at least 

 10,000 had perished miserably, a few hundred survivors at last succeeded in 

 getting back to Saint-Jean d'Angely, the port from which they had sailed.* A 

 coffee plantation belonging to the Government marks the spot where most of the 

 " colonists " had succumbed to their miseries. A few critical remarks on the 

 colonising genius of the promoters of this scheme cost Freron six months in the 



Bastille. 



Farther east the district about the Kourou estuary was also the scene of some 

 colonisino' experiments. At present some convicts are engaged on the plantations ; 

 but the Kourou penitentiary is a mere dependency of the three Saint Islands 

 belonging to the neighbouring penal establishment. Saint-Joseph and tlie lie 

 Boijale form the convict station proper, reserved for dangerous subjects, or for 



* J. Mourié, la Guyane fran(;aise. 



