174 TlMEHRI. 
From these tracts of land, nine-tenths of the timber 
exported from the Essequibo is cut; and I mention 
this fact to show that, whatever regulations may be 
made for the conservancy of the forests, — until the 
titles and boundaries of these lands are defined, or the 
timber entirely cut off them, the conservancy will be 
long delayed, and in the mean time the alleged owners 
of these tracts will be enriched ; for those persons who 
take out licences will have to conform to the regulations 
that may be enacted, while the others, by right of their 
alleged ownership, will be free from any restrictions. 
Timber is, next to sugar, our principle article of 
export ; and the cutting of timber legally or illegally 
is the principal occupation of those who reside above 
the sugar-estates, on our rivers. From below high 
water mark on the sea coast to the savannahs and 
mountains of the interior, a distance of from one to 
two hundred miles, the country, save where it has 
been cleared for the purpose of cultivation, is one 
unbroken belt of forest, containing a variety of woods 
both durable and ornamental, probably unsurpassed 
by any other country, — certainly not by any under 
British rule. At the great exhibition in London in 1851, 
this colony was awarded two prizes for the excellence of 
its woods. Most of these timber-trees are entirely un- 
known to science, and are known even to the wood- 
cutters and a few other colonists, only by their — to 
them almost unpronounceable — Indian names, often end- 
ing in ' balli.' 
Green HEART (Nee t and > a Rodi&i) does not grow 
over extensive tracts of country as do wallaba [Eperua 
