SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, kc. 369 



it can still be cultivated with a profit in Guyana, while the 

 island planters will incur absolute ruin. The rapid mortality 

 of their slaves, the capricious visitations of the hurricane, the 

 great risk of drought, and especially the vast expense of re- 

 moving, by means of mules, the produce from the field, 

 which is here accomplished by water-carriage, operate as 

 heavy draw-backs on their profits, which an interruption of 

 their intercourse with North America may at any time anni- 

 hilate. Earthquakes are sometimes felt in Guyana ; but they 

 are never formidable in the lowlands and flat regions, where 

 alone there are setdements. Inundations are more frequent 

 and more destructive accidents ; but as the forests beside the 

 rivers waste, these floods are observed to become seldomer. 

 Pestilence is very rare. 



The Carribbee islands, especially the more northern, are as 

 much overvalued in Great Britain, as the continent is under- 

 valued. They have ceased to be of use: they have per- 

 formed their appointed task in the civilization of the world. 

 Without first undertaking the cultivation of sugar in small 

 islands, whence the African labourers could not run away ; 

 there would have been no possibility of rearing and training 

 a Creole peasantry, adapted for the coasts of the West Indian 

 archipelago. The blacks, whom it was attempted to inure 

 on the continent to agricultural toll, deserted incessantly, as 

 they do in the neighbourhood of the Cape, and formed their 



B b b 



