SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, $LC. 595 



The cost of such an expedition would be amply repaid by the 

 knowlege which the statesman would gain, and the reputa- 

 tion for good-will which would result. It cannot be that this 

 country should want to import lime from Bristol ; but its 

 mountains are yet unexplored. 



Discoveries of what can be rendered useful, avail little with- 

 out the human hands that are to turn the gifts of nature to a 

 profit. The accounts given of the Chinese, and the astonish- 

 ing rapidity with which they have got up in Pulo-penang, all 

 the parts of a complex and civilized society under British laws, 

 and in a climate corresponding with that of Guyana, render 

 it highly probable that Chinese colonists would form the most 

 valuable accession to our present stock of labourers, which 

 could be introduced. They have those habits of body, which 

 can bear the exertions of industry between the tropics, and 

 they have those habits of artificial society, which fit them for 

 a variety of labors to which rude savages cannot be brought 

 to attend. Above all, they have a rational foresight, and 

 may be intrusted with the care of their own maintenance, 

 without danger of that ruinous improvidence, that careless alter- 

 nation of intemperance and sloth, that besets the African ne- 

 gro, who is his own master. It is said that the Chinese will 

 stay, but never settle, in a strange land, and that when they 

 have earned a little money, they go home to live upon it ; but 

 if they should not generally prove to be settlers, their labor 



