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GUI, 
GUIA'NA, a very extenfive country of South Ame¬ 
rica, bounded on the north by the provinces of Vene¬ 
zuela and New Andalufia ; on the eaft and north-eaft 
by the Atlantic Ocean; on the fouth by the-river of 
the Amazons ; and on the weft by New Grenada : noo 
miles in extent from eaft to weft, and from 300 to 600 
in breadth from north to fouth. Several fettlements 
- have been formed on the fea-coafts by the Dutch, by 
the French, and by the Portuguefe : the latter have 
been united to the government of the Brafils, and are 
now confidered as part of that country.. Dutch Guiana 
is bounded on the eaft by the river Marawina, and on 
the weft by Cape Nalfau ; and contains the fettlements 
,of Surinam, Berbice, Effequibo, and Demerary, all 
which are now (1807) in poffeifion of the king of Great 
Britain. French Guiana is (ituated between the rivers 
Marawina to the north-weft, and Oyapoco to the fouth, 
eaft, and goes by the name of Cayenne, from the ifland 
fo called, which produces the fo much noted Cayenne 
pepper. 
The inland part of Guiana is but little known. Al- 
phonfo de Ojeda firft landed in this country in 1499, 
with Americus Vefputius, and John de la Cofa. He 
went over a part of it ; but this expedition afforded 
him only a fuperficial knowledge of fo vaft a country. 
Many others were undertaken, at a greater expence, 
but turned out ft ill more unfit ccefsful. A report pre¬ 
vailed, though its origin could not be difcovered, that, 
in the interior parts of Guiana, there was a country 
known by the name of El Dorado, which contained im- 
menfe riches in gold and precious ftones ; more mines 
and treaTures than ever Cortez and Pizarro had found. 
This fable not only inflamed the ardent imagination of 
the Spaniards, but fired every nation of Europe. Sir 
Walter Raleigh, in particular, determined, in 1595, to 
undertake a voyage to Guiana ; but he returned with¬ 
out difcovering any thing relative to the brilliant objedt 
of his voyage. 
Mr. Lochead, in his Natural I-Iiftory of Guiana, pub- 
lifhed in the Edinburgh Tranfadtions, vol. iv. gives the 
following interefting account of the creeks and rivers, 
as explored by himfelf, in that country. “A number 
of creeks fall into the Demarary on both fides, but fo 
fmall that they bear no proportion to the fize of the 
river. You can hardly diltinguifh their mouths in the 
woods which overhang the banks. They are fo narrow 
that it is difficult to run a fmall boat in them ; yet you 
will find in them throughout from two and a half to 
four fathom water ; and they run winding fo far back, 
that it will take five, fix, eight, hours, or more, to carry 
you up to their heads, where they terminate in fmall 
ftreams from among the fand-hills. The banks of the 
creeks at their mouths are of the fame height, as thofe 
of the river clofe by, from five perhaps to twelve feet 
above the water in the dry feafon. As you afcend the 
creek, you might naturally expedt to find them rife : 
it is, however, the very reverfe ; they become gra¬ 
dually lower and lower; till at laft all round them is a 
fwamp ; and the trees, on each fide, in like manner be- 
conie fmaller and fmaller, and of different fpecies from 
what they were. It is now in Ihort exactly a mangrove 
fwamp, with this difference, that the water is quite 
frelh, the vegetables are not the fame, and there are 
abundance of arunis and other low herbaceous plants. 
A little higher up, you lofe the wood altogether, and 
find you tie If in a beautiful deep canal, winding through 
a fpacious wet favannah, which is fometimes many 
leagues in circumference. The firft time we went up 
one of thele Creeks, called Camouni, I was furprifed at 
this appearance, and thought it mud be a mere local 
circumftance peculiar to it. We found afterwards the 
fame in one or two more inftances, and were fatisfied 
’upon enquiry, that it is common to them all. It was 
natural to look for an explanation of this phenomenon, 
and I loon found it in one of thofe laws, which probably 
1 N A. 
extend to all rivers fubject to frequent inundations. 
It has been obferved, in particular, of the Ganges, that 
the banks of that river are higher than the adjacent 
lands at a diftance from the ftream, owing, no doubt, 
to the annual depofitions of mud, &c. during the fwell 
of the river. Apply the fame rule to the Deniarary, 
and the difficulty will be folved. The w’et favannah 
behind, and the fwampy woods around them, are the 
body of the low country at its natural level, fcarcely 
a foot or two above the fea. Whatever additional 
height the land has in the vicinity of the river, from 
the time you have afeended about twenty miles, is all 
acquired. It has arifen from the fediment of the river 
during the rainy feafon, when the country is overflowed 
fo as that all the lower part of it is under water. This 
depofition mu ft be always more copious, in proportion 
as it is nearer the ftream, where additional quantities 
are always brought, and where it is kept in motion 
both by the current and the tide. Every thing which 
we afterwards faw confirmed this theory, and nothing 
more direClly than the canals which run out at right 
angles from the river. Some of thefe extend four 
mile's inward, and they prove to a demonftration, that 
the land becomes lower and lower the farther you re¬ 
cede from the river. The maps of the colonies con-' 
firm it ; for in all of them the main body of the low 
land of Guiana is laid down as favannah, and the woody 
country, which a ftranger or fuperficial o-bferver would 
fuppofe to be the whole or much the greater part of it, 
is in fa£t only a border on the fides of the rivers and of 
the fea, but of confiderable breadth, more or lefs, in 
proportion to the fize of the adjoining river, or, which 
is generally the fame thing, to the acquired height and 
extent of the foil on either bank. 
“It followed as a confequence, and, as far as we had 
opportunities of obferving, we found it to be the cafe, 
that the low land was fomewhat higher, and continued . 
fo farther down about the Effequibo than the Demerary ; 
the woods confequently were of greater extent. We 
found, befides, in the foil adjoining the Effequibo, at 
leaft upon the eaft fide, a mixture of fand. The river 
is full of fand-banks and it appears that the finer 
arts of even this lefs fufpenfible fubftance are raifed 
y the floods and carried among the adjacent woods to 
be depofited with the mud. The Mahayka, a fmall 
river or creek which falls into' the fea about thirty 
miles to the eaftward of the Demerary, though it runs 
a long way up the country, and fpreads into many 
branches, has but a very narrow and often interrupted 
border of wood upon its banks ; it runs through an im- 
menfe favannah, and fo do its branches, with little or 
no wood till they approach the fand-hills. The Deltas 
of the river of Oroonoko, and its numerous mouths, 
make a figure even in the map of the world. It is to 
be regretted, that its noble ftream has been fo long hid 
from fcience. What I learned in Trinidad from a gen¬ 
tleman, who had failed from its mouth to the Anguf- 
turas, about three hundred miles .up, confirms and illuf- 
trates, in the fulleft manner, the above general rule. 
The vveftern mouths of it, oppofite Trinidad, are navi¬ 
gable only for launches drawing fix or feven feet water. 
At and,oppofite them, the bottom is (hallow and mud¬ 
dy, and the coaft a low mangrove fwamp, referhblihg, 
in all refpeits, that of Guiana. You muft afcend thofe 
branches feveral days before you ready the main ftream; 
and, in doing fo, you find tlie fame'phenomena as in 
afeending the Demerary, but in a ftill greater degree. 
At firft you have the mangrove, or fome fimilar fwamp, 
and behind it, on both fides for about twenty leagues, 
the land, if you can call it fo, hardly emerging from 
the water. ■ AffterWards the ground appears; and, as 
you go up, rifes (till higher and higher on the banks 
above the common level of the ftream. The trees be¬ 
come, in the fame manner, of differed fpecies, and 
much taller than they were below. The channel in 
