The Gentleman's Magazine (Volume 2)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PROSPECTING IN BRITISH GUIANA. ALONG the north-eastern border of South America, and having rather undefined lines with Venezuela and Brazil, with the Corentyne River between it and Dutch Guiana, and a sea frontage of somewhere about thrse hundred miles, lies the little-known colony of British Guiana, or, as it appears to be more generally called, of Demerara, although this latter is only the name of its chief county and river. As yet, only the land along the coast has been taken under cultivation?at least, generally speaking?but much has been said of prospects in the interior for the cultivation of general tropical products. As to its suitability for agriculture of all sorts not a doubt can be entertained; its fertility and mineral wealth have been proved beyond question; but I do not think that it is at present, at any rate, a desirable place for young men to settle in with the object of starting tropical agriculture of any sort. One reason, and only one, need be given, and that conclusive?there is no labour; and I suppose it is generally conceded that the white man cannot do hard manual work in such a climate. Given continuous and certain labour I have no doubt there is money to be made in the interior of British Guiana; but at present all the available men are taken up, either by the sugar estates, or by the gold miners, a few being employed on the wood- grants. The great drawback to general tropical agriculture, where there is even a fair supply of labour, is that, as a rule, most of your hands have some sort of produce of their own growing, so that the very time you require them most is, naturally enough, the time they take to look after their own crops. This I can speak of from personal experience, not in British Guiana certainly, although I have known cases ther...