FRENCH GUIANA. 71 



penitentiaries successively chosen in the territory. Being now replaced by New- 

 Caledonia as the chief penal colony, French Guiana receives only a part of the 

 récidivistes, that is, those Europeans condemned to over eight years' transportation, 

 and all the Arabs, Annamites, and negroes. 



The four penitentiaries of Cayenne, the Salut Islands, Kourou, and the Maroni 

 contain on an average from 3,000 to 4,000 inmates, who are for the most part 

 employed on public works. But besides utilising them in this way, the adminis- 

 tration of the penal settlements also lend them either gratuitously or for a small 

 sum to the town of Cayenne, to the governor of the colony, and to private 

 firms. Although the labour of a convict is rated at about two francs (Is. 8d.) 

 a day, all accessories included, the charge per head usually vaiies from three to 

 eight pence. But it may be asked, on the other hand, what is the real value of 

 forced as compared with free labour ? To judge from the state of the roads on 

 which the convicts are constantly engaged, it must be concluded that their labour 

 is almost worthless, at least in Guiana, despite the large number of hands 

 employed. Thus by excluding free labourers, they retard rather than promote the 

 material progress of the colony. 



French Guiana proper, that is, the settled territory, has been divided into 

 thirteen communes in the full enjoyment of civil rights, with an organisation 

 analogous to those of the mother country and of the other colonies. Nevertheless 

 all municipal privileges were suspended for three years, and only restored in 1892 

 under the reserved condition of the governor's intervention in the choice of certain 

 communal functionaries. The only exception has been made in favour of the 

 capital, which retains its full rights without any reserve. 



The thirteen districts, to which must be added that of the penitentiaries on 

 the banks of the Maroni, comprise scarcely the eighth part of the whole territory, 

 or about 54,000 acres altogether. The unsettled inland region remains undivided. 



II. 



The Contested Franco-Brazilian Territory. 



Officially the territory in dispute between France and Brazil would appear to 

 comprise a space of at least 100,000 square miles. It forms a long zone stretching 

 from the Atlantic to the Rio Branco, and limited northwards by the course of the 

 Oyapok, the Tumuc-Humac Mountains with their western spurs, the course of the 

 Araguari, and the equator. 



The question, however, has no real importance, except so far as regards the 

 contested coast district between the Oyapok and Araguari rivers. Farther west 

 the whole valley of the Rio Branco has, beyond all doubt, become Brazilian in 

 speech, social usages, politii-al and commercial relations. The appro]3riation of 

 this section by France would be equivalent to appropriating a slice of Brazil 

 itself. 



As to the intermediate regions, which have been traversed by the explorers 

 Crevaux, Coudreau, and Barbosa Rodrigues, they are inhabited only by completely 



