ITrst Typ£ of Immigrants. 
25 
brought out at a cost of 3S0,000 dollars : yet, with the exception of the 
two first-named, none of them withstood the climate: the largest number 
fell a sacrifice to the never satiated Angel of Destruction.* 
1)2. The few Hill-Coolies justified to the fullest extent the hopes that 
had been placed on them, because with the honest will to work they are 
the best to defy the attacks of the tropical atmosphere. The poor 400 
Germans, mostly Rhinelanders and Wurtemburgers, enticed here by an 
emigration agent of the name of Ries between 1839 and ;the beginning of 
1841, had the best will to work, but almost all succumbed to the awful 
climatic influences. Notwithstanding that the larger number of them la- 
boured practically speaking only in the shaded coffee fields, yellow fever 
broke out amongst them within a few months of landing, when it claimed 
many a victim, and finally — particularly in the second and third year 
after arrival — raged amongst them to such a degree that it pretty well 
snatched away the remainder. It is not to be denied that although the 
majority of them drew this terrible epidemic upon themselves through 
the unrestricted taste for strong drink, particularly rum, of which they 
obtained as much as they liked on the estates, there were nevertheless 
others who kept themselves completely free from this vice. On my depar- 
ture from Demerara in June 1S44 some 20 of the Germans were still left. 
The 10,000 immigrant Portuguese died to just the same extent; and at, the 
time of my departure had dwindled in a very short period down to 3,000. 
Intemperance in the use of spirituous liquor» had far away less to do 
with this terrible mortality of the Portuguese than their filth and sordid 
avarice that induced them to buy up provisions which even a negro would 
not have eaten. 
93. The Portuguese of Guiana are the Jews of Europe. With the same 
perseverance, the same calculating craft and guile, after making a point 
of discovering the little weaknesses of every seller, they will wheedle him, 
and soon close the bargain to their advantage. If this trick fails and the 
vendor kicks them out of the front, the back door finally opens the way 
to the end in view. Dealing honestly by means like these in numbers 
of articles old and new, they hurry off to the more remote estates whence 
it is not long before they are back to the city with double and three times 
the amount of money originally paid, to commence their haggling afresh, 
until they finally acquire a capital of from 4-000 dollars when they re- 
turn to Madeira. 
94. Only an Egoist without a conscience and without a character can 
ask the German or European workman in general to emigrate to this 
portion of South America. Everybody who lets himself be inveigled will 
fall an irretrievable victim to those diseases which the European rarely 
* Dr. Carlos Finlay, of Havana, first promulgated the theory of the propagation of yellow 
Fever by the mosquito before the Royal Academy in that city in 1881. while the experi- 
ments of Reed. Carroll. Agramonte and Lazear, of the American Board, thoroughly and 
finally implicated Stegomyia faxciata as the agent of its transmission in lWO JSoW. twenty 
years' later, S/ey omnia fasciata is as ubiquitous among us as ever it was, and our freedom from 
Yellow Fever 'is not tobe attributed to the activity of our Sanitary Authorities. A plausible 
theory was su ,nr est cm l in one of the numbers of the Annals of Fropical JlFed ieme and Parasi- 
tology for 19ffh°by an American Surgeon General, to which reference may be made. It is 
Certainly unfair to lay so much emphasis on the taste for strong drink as a factor in the 
mortality from this disease ; this taste has undergone no atrophy in the intervening years 
(F.G.R.) 
