134 THE AXGLO-VENEZUELAN BOUSDARY DISPUTE 



Robert Hermann Schoniburgk was born in Freiburg, Saxony, in 

 1804, and died in Berlin in 1865, aged sixty-one. Between 1825 and 

 1830 he was in the United States, first in Boston and later in Rich- 

 mond, Virginia, where he was in the tobacco business. Failing in 

 this, he went to the West Indies, where he surveyed the island of 

 Anegada. His published observations on the cultivated plants of the 

 West Indies Ijrought him to the notice of the Royal Geographical 

 Society, which in 1834 engaged him to explore in Guiana. He reached 

 Georgetown or Demerara, as it is usuall}' called, for the first time on 

 August 5, 1835, and for nine years thereafter was engaged in explora- 

 tion and surve}^ work in Guiana. For the Geographical Society he 

 made three journeys, of about six months each, into the interior, and 

 in October, 1839, returned to England. Earl}^ in 1840 he published 

 his little book, entitled Desmption of British Guiana. The Geograph- 

 ical Society awarded him a gold medal, the King of Prussia knighted 

 him, and the same yeav Great Britain engaged the now Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk to survey the boundary between British Guiana and 

 Venezuela. This was not to be a joint survey, but only a British 

 survey, the results to be presented to Venezuela and Jirazil as a state- 

 ment of the British claim. He returned from England to Georgetown 

 in October, 1840, and made three more trips to the interior, now under 

 government auspices. In May, 1844, he took final leave of Guiana 

 and went to Barbados, where he stayed some time and wrote a history 

 of the island. In 1848 he was made British consul at Santo Domingo. 

 In 1857 he was sent to Siam as Her Majesty's Consul-General. In 

 declining health he returned to England in 1864 and retired on a 

 pension. He died in Berlin the following year. 



With him during a part of his explorations was his brother, Rich- 

 ard Schomburgk, a trained botanist, who published an interesting 

 account of the Guiana exploration, a work in three stout octavo 

 volumes. Sir Robert, having informed himself as well as the means 

 at hand and his zeal for his employer would allow, proceeded to 

 trace out on the ground a line, setting up posts, blazing trees, and 

 marking them with British insignia. His zeal seems to have over- 

 mastered his judgment, and all doubts were resolved in favor of 

 his employer. Why not? Was not his line, after all, only a claim ? 

 But, alas, it came later to be treated as a line of right. The Schom- 

 burgk boundary survey grievously offended Venezuela. She pro- 

 tested at once, and insisted upon the removal of the marks. To 

 this Great Britain, at length, consented, witii the usual proviso that 



