Squatting on Crown Lands. 
395 
Mutilla to whioli the Indians, like the Colonists, have given the dis- 
tinguishing- name of ''Tiger-ant." Like the terrible Ponera clavata they 
also only appear singly. 
987. After an 8 days' stay with Mr. Brotherson, we resumed our 
journey up the Demerara. Its breadth liad already diminished a good 
deal, and although the Avater had lost its salty tang, tlie action of the tide 
was very patent, because its fall and rise still amounted to 12 to IG feet.* 
Opposite tlie Sandhills lies tlie al»andoned p1antati(ui of Sans Souci, of 
which all traces of its previous cultivation are alrea<ly lost: a thick 
underwood now covers the fields Avhere sugar-cane flourished but a few 
years ago. On the left bank the small Turabano creek and on the right 
bank, just opposite, the Kuliserabo pour theii* Avaters into tlie Demerara : 
—immediately al»ove the mouth of the former the terraiil at the waterside 
rises to a height of 00 feet. Here, as is the case further up, some colour- 
ed people and negi-oes have settled on the abandoned estates P.erlin and 
the Loo. 
088. That elegant orchid, fToiiojiftifi ferea Lindl., flourished in 
immense quantity and rank profusion on the dense watei-side, in ]>etween 
the large leaves of which its light violet blossoms made a beautiful show. 
I had never yet found it so plentiful as I did here. Just as strange a 
botanical phenomenon is the presence on the Demerara of the 
Monnchanthuft lonf/ifolins- Lindl, which, like the Vanilla pnlmarutn, is 
found only on the trunks of the ite palmte {Maurltia fle.vuosn) : its 
narrow dependent leaves often reach a length of from 0 to 7 feet. I found 
them only on the Demerara : my brother got them on the Berbice. 
080. Beyond the abandoned estates Berlin and the Loo the dwellings 
of the negroes and coloured people became more and more scarce : thick 
virgin forest borders both banks, and it is only here and there that one 
strikes against a few acres of cleared ground which serves as pasture 
for the cattle belonging to the Xegroes, coloured people, and timber 
getters living in these isolated spots, and for the cultivation; of the 
vegetables required in their households. Timbered rises, 80 to 200 feet 
high, alternating again and again with flat tracts of land, occupied by 
Ai'awaks, stretch along the western bank. 
000. One of the chief complaints of the Colonists is the so-called 
"squatting," i.e., the arbitrary occu])ation by Negroes of uncultivated 
private or Crown lands. In spite of the many penal laws the practice 
has not been stopped but has rather increased so much within I'ecent 
years, that the object of free immigration for the estates' owneis has 
become (juite defeated. In British Guiana, the Demeraia is the main 
headquarters of the "squatters," Avho even here carry on an extensive 
timber-trade. The laws intended to put down vagrancy and sipiatting 
have been able to suppress neither the one nor the other: the only thing 
one can perhaps manage to do is to force the Negro to pay a ground-rent. 
The trees felled by the squattei s are, already in the forest, roughly hewn 
into timber: during my stay in CJeorgetown several hundi-ed dollars' 
worth of timber thus illegally obtained were confiscated from a Idack 
* Thesa numbsrs .ire evidently a 'mistake, (Ed.) 
