300 TlMEHRI. 
asked them what they intended to do with the money, 
and have advised them to save it until they acquired a 
small capital which they could invest in some form of 
agriculture. Their reply has invariably been that they 
had never been taught or encouraged to cultivate any 
kind of agricultural produce other than plantains and 
ordinary ground provisions, for which there was only a 
limited local demand, and that directly provision growing 
was taken up in anything like an extensive scale, over- 
production would ensue, and the industry cease to be 
profitable. The moral is obvious. The Creole may, and 
too often does, exhibit a certain amount of apathy and in- 
difference in matters of moment affecting the welfare of 
his country, but perhaps not to a greater degree than is 
manifested by many of those whom he delights to imi- 
tate, in most subjects that are not concerned in the 
bolstering up of an effete industry. When a public 
meeting is called to discuss even such a burning question 
as the opening up of the country, what do we find ? — the 
meeting postponed time after time for want of an audi- 
ence, and when at last it does come off, the speakers 
addressing themselves to a "beggarly array of empty 
benches." 
It is gratifying to find the Government at last assuming 
a definite attitude with respea to the boundary question, 
a matter which has too long been left in abeyance. The 
importance of the subject may be gathered from the 
following statement made nearly twenty years ago, 
on excellent authority. "It is understood that at one 
time the feeling of the inhabitants of the Province 
of Angostura, or Bolivar as it is now called, a&ually 
tended towards annexation to British Guiana, and that a 
