FEENCH GUIANA. 



67 



settled at tlie foot of the Eemire Hills some distance to the east of the present 

 town, which was founded at the little fort of Saint-Louis, but did not become the 

 permanent capital of French Guiana till the year 1877. 



Cayenne is comparatively speaking a large place, containing 10,000 inhabi- 

 tants, or about one -third of the whole population of the colony. It is laid out in 

 the usual American chessboard fashion, with streets at right angles and shady 

 squares on a peninsular space at the foot of the verdant Ceperou eminence at the 

 north-west extremity of the island. 



The administrative and Government buildings, hotels, barracks, and prisons 

 occupy a large part of the town, which is encircled by parks and magnificent 

 avenues of palm-trees. Being well exposed to the Seabreeze, Cayenne would 



Fig. 20. — Cayenne. 

 Scale 1 : 30,000. 



52*19 



to Z 



Feet. 



Depths. 



3 toe 



Feet. 



6 to 10 

 ieet. 



to Feet 

 and upwards. 



1,100 Yards. 



naturally enjoy a healthy climate but for the canals in the environs, which often 

 get choked. A supply of water is brought by conduits from a neighbouring 

 height fed by the Rorota rivulet. By far the greater part of the population 

 consists of negroes, chiefly descendants of the freedmen who flocked to the place 

 after the emancipation of 1848. But all the other races of the colony have their 

 representatives in Cayenne. Most of the domestic servants are Creoles from 

 Martinique ; the booths and stores are chiefly in the hands of Chinese hucksters, 

 while the fish markets are supplied by natives of Annam. The harbour is 

 accessible to vessels drawing 14 feet, but it is partly exposed, and the shipping 

 has occasionally been wrecked by high tides occurring in rough weather. A 

 lighthouse has been erected on the Enfant Perdu, a rock at the northern entrance. 

 Formerly gardens and plantations abounded in the environs of Cayenne, 



