Guiana

“ That beautiful, solemn, silent life up-reaching through tropical forest to the sun for warmth, for color, for power,—filled me, I remember, with a sensation of awe different from anything which I had ever experienced.... But even here in Guiana, standing alone under the sky, the palm still seems a creature rather than a tree,—gives you the idea of personality;—you could almost believe each lithe shape animated by a thinking force,—believe that all are watching you with such passionless calm as legend lends to beings super-natural.... ”

“ Little, however, does the average colonist or the chance visitor to British Guiana see of the wonder and beauty of South America. The forest builds an impenetrable barrier, keeping him a close prisoner upon seaside mud flats, which are in the main a dreary waste of uncultivated land. Lack of labour renders it impossible for more than a small fraction even of the coastal fringe to be made to yield its increase. ”

“ Venezuela and Guiana are watered by the Orinoco and by several rivers that flow from the Amazonian mountains to the ocean. The whole coast is low and fertile, but hot and unhealthy. The principal product is sugar, raised by negroes and coolies. The interior is sultry and thickly wooded; it is inhabited by Indian tribes, the principal of which are the cannibal Caribs, and by negroes as uncivilized as any of the tribes in Africa. Guiana is controlled by the English, French, and Dutch. Cayenne, the prison for French convicts, is the capital of French Guiana. ”

“ Now that it hath pleased God to send us safe to our ships, it is time to leave Guiana to the sun, whom they worship, and steer away towards the north. I will, therefore, in a few words finish the discovery thereof. Of the several nations which we found upon this discovery I will once again make repetition, and how they are affected. At our first entrance into Amana, which is one of the outlets of Orenoque, we left on the right hand of us in the bottom of the bay, lying directly against Trinidad, a nation of inhuman Cannibals, which inhabit the rivers of Guanipa and Berbeese. ”

“ Guiana, an extensive tract of country in the N. of S. America fronting the Atlantic, bordering on Venezuela on the W., and for the rest hemmed in by Brazil; it is divided into British, Dutch, and French Guiana, all fronting the sea; the physical characteristics of all three are practically the same; a fertile alluvial foreshore, with upward-sloping savannahs and forests to the unexplored highlands, dense with luxuriant primeval forest; rivers numerous, climate humid and hot, with a plentiful rainfall; vegetation, fauna, &c., of the richest tropical nature ”

“ Upper Guiana comprehends all the country west of the Caroni river; few plantations are seen there, though the soil is rich beyond imagination. Lower Guiana is east of the Caroni, or in the space bounded by the sea on the east, the Orinoco on the north, the Caroni on the west, and the Essequibo on the south; than which, a more fertile soil cannot be found, watered by numerous rivers, whose periodic overflowings deposit a slime as prolific as the Nile; but this fine district is nearly a waste, harbouring anthropophagical tribes, of whom the Caribs are the most formidable, as well as sanguinary. ”

“ From Rio the Hercule called in succession at Guiana, Martinique and Guadaloupe. The low shores of Guiana are clothed with mangrove swamps, the trees of which seemed scarlet, so covered were they with red ibises! Nothing more gay-looking can be imagined than the Cayenne River, and the pretty town standing on its banks—the wooden houses all separated from each other by gardens in which the tropical vegetation displays an unexampled luxuriance and variety. ”

“ The three Guianas, British, French, and Dutch, represent one of the least attractive parts of South America in almost every way.
British Guiana has 300,000 inhabitants of whom one-third are Negroes, another third Orientals, mostly Hindu, and the remainder is largely made up of crosses between these two elements, of a few thousand native Indians, and of a handful of Whites.
Dutch Guiana has a population well under a hundred thousand, largely Orientals imported to furnish coolie labor and including Hindus, Javanese, and Chinese. There are many Negroes and a couple of thousand Whites. ”

“ It hath divers beasts which the Indies have not; the Spaniards confessed that they found grains of gold in some of the rivers; but they having a purpose to enter Guiana, the magazine of all rich metals, cared not to spend time in the search thereof any further. This island is called by the people thereof Cairi, and in it are divers nations. Those about Parico are called Jajo, those at Punta de Carao are of the Arwacas (Arawaks) and between Carao and Curiapan they are called Salvajos. ”

“ The empire of Guiana is directly east from Peru towards the sea, and lieth under the equinoctial line; and it hath more abundance of gold than any part of Peru, and as many or more great cities than ever Peru had when it flourished most. ”

“ The Portuguese Guiana now belongs to Brazil and Spanish Guiana is part of Venezuela. Many petroglyphs have been found in the several Guianas. They appear throughout the whole of the part belonging to Venezuela, but they are more thickly grouped in parts of the valley of the Orinoco.
The subject is well discussed in the following extract from Among the Indians of Guiana, by im Thurn (a) :
The pictured rocks of Guiana are not all of one kind. ”

“ South of the Orinoco there is a gradual rise to the Guiana Highlands, which are as yet sparsely populated and but little given over to cultivation; this hilly country, constituting about half of the republic’s area, ascends in uneven ridges to the higher altitudes of the Brazilian frontier ranges. North of the river the rolling plains, or llanos, sweep inland from the Atlantic between the Guiana highlands and the coast ranges like a great green arm of the sea—past the Mérida sierra and the western escarpment of the highlands, to merge in the hot plains of the Amazon region. ”

“ Look you, master, the furthest an Englishman has penetrated into Guiana by the Oronoque is a matter of thirty or forty leagues, and that with the succor of lusty fellows well armed with boats and stores; now, what we two men, with no arms but what we can beg of the Ingas, and no stores but what we may carry on our backs, propose to compass is a journey through that same Guiana by untrodden ways and broken waters—a distance of three or four hundred leagues, as I reckon; and with a female, remember. ”

“ A wide belt of low land borders the ocean side of Guiana on the north-east of the continent, where white men dwell, in houses elevated on piles of timber, among sugar-estates and cotton-plantations, tall windmills, and numerous canals crowded with shipping, which would present a thoroughly Dutch scene were it not for the stately cocoa-nut and cabbage-palms rising amid them, the dark-skinned labourers, the blue sky, and burning heat. The province is, however, for the most part a region of rugged mountains, dense forests, open savannahs, broad streams, cataracts, waterfalls, and rapids ”

“ It can therefore hardly be regained, if any strength be formerly set down, but in one or two places, and but two or three crumsters (Dutch, Kromsteven or Kromster, a vessel with a bent prow) or galleys built and furnished upon the river within. The West Indies have many ports, watering places, and landings; and nearer than 300 miles to Guiana, no man can harbour a ship, except he know one only place, which is not learned in haste, and which I will undertake there is not any one of my companies that knoweth, whosoever hearkened most after it. ”

“ This river of Orenoque is navigable for ships little less than 1,000 miles, and for lesser vessels near 2,000. By it, as aforesaid, Peru, Nuevo Reyno and Popayan may be invaded: it also leadeth to the great empire of Inga, and to the provinces of Amapaia and Anebas, which abound in gold. His branches of Casnero, Manta, Caura descend from the middle land and valley which lieth between the easter province of Peru and Guiana; and it falls into the sea between Maranon and Trinidad in two degrees and a half. ”

“ Guiana, the northeastern section of South America, was looked upon by the Spanish adventurers as the hiding-place of this fabulous wealth. Others fancied that Guiana was the true El Dorado in itself, a land marvellously rich in gold, silver, and precious stones. Gonzalo Pizarro, in his expedition in 1540, had heard much from the Indians of this land of wealth, and Orellana brought back from his famous descent of the Amazon marvellous stories of the riches in gold, silver, and precious stones of the land of the north. ”

“ Its area is roughly 690,000 sq. m. Comprised in this vast territory are Venezuelan (formerly Spanish) Guiana, lying on both sides of the Orinoco and extending S. and S.W. to the Rio Negro and Brazilian settlements; British Guiana, extending from Venezuela to the left bank of the Corentyn river; Dutch Guiana (or Surinam) , from the Corentyn to the Maroni river; French Guiana (or Cayenne) , from the Maroni to the Oyapock river; [2] Brazilian (formerly Portuguese) Guiana, extending from the southern boundaries of French, Dutch, British and part of Venezuelan Guiana, to the Amazon and the Negro. ”

“ THE GUIANAS On the northeastern shoulder of the continent lies a huge block of territory as large as France and Spain combined. It is in reality an island, since it is bounded on the north and east by the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Amazon River, and on the northwest and west by the continuous waterway formed by the Orinoco, the Casiquiare and the Negro rivers, the last named an affluent of the Amazon. Like the north Andean republics, the Guiana country is made up of mountains, highlands, and low-lying plains, and lies wholly in the tropics ”

“ After the death of Ordas and Martinez, and after Orellana, who was employed by Gonzalo Pizarro, one Pedro de Orsua, a knight of Navarre, attempted Guiana, taking his way into Peru, and built his brigandines upon a river called Oia, which riseth to the southward of Quito, and is very great. This river falleth into Amazons, by which Orsua with his companies descended, and came out of that province which is called Motilones ("friars"—Indians so named from their cropped heads) ”

“ It is a magnificent country, with grand rivers, cascades and the most wonderful mountains and scenery, which it is difficult to surpass in any part of South America. And here the traveller and the naturalist may revel in the works of Nature.
Guiana was the first part of the New World to be explored by adventurers other than the Spaniard and the Portuguese, and to this day it stands out as foreign to the rest of Spanish [56] America. The English, the French, the Dutch fought between themselves for its territory and its colonizing and trading stations. ”

“ Like a New York garbage boat carrying refuse to the sea, French convict ships dump the offal of humanity on these shores. The Pilgrims came to America with religious convictions, somewhat different from the convictions criminal and otherwise those Frenchmen held who settled Canada, Caledonia and Cayenne. Climate here is one long season of sorrow. Guiana is an outlaw country, a jumping-off place of the world, a back-door to perdition; a dominion of dolour, despair, mud and blood, where Death is the jailer who frees. ”

“ It is governed by the same laws, and the emperor and people observe the same religion, and the same form and policies in government as were used in Peru, not differing in any part. And I have been assured by such of the Spaniards as have seen Manoa, the imperial city of Guiana, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, that for the greatness, for the riches, and for the excellent seat, it far exceedeth any of the world, at least of so much of the world as is known to the Spanish nation. It is founded upon a lake of salt water of 200 leagues long, like unto Mare Caspium. ”

“ We descried afar off three other canoas as far as we could discern them, after whom we hastened with our barge and wherries, but two of them passed out of sight, and the third entered up the great river, on the right hand to the westward, and there stayed out of sight, thinking that we meant to take the way eastward towards the province of Carapana; for that way the Spaniards keep, not daring to go upwards to Guiana, the people in those parts being all their enemies, and those in the canoas thought us to have been those Spaniards that were fled from Trinidad, and escaped killing. ”

“ These three European colonies, the only ones by the way, in South America, British Guiana being the most westerly, French Guiana the eastern and Dutch Guiana between the others, have for their northern boundary the Atlantic Ocean. Venezuela is the western neighbor of British Guiana. Brazil touches each of these colonies as their 193southern border, also forming the western boundary of French Guiana. ”

“ H. G. Dalton, History of British Guiana, volume 1, chapter 1.
E. F. im Thurn, Among the Indians of Guiana, chapter 6.
"Recent researches have shown that the original home of the stock was south of the Amazon, and probably in the highlands at the head of the Tapajoz river. A tribe, the Bakairi, is still resident there, whose language is a pure and archaic form of the Carib tongue."
D. G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, page 268.
"Related to the Caribs stand a long list of small tribes ... all inhabitants of the great primeval forest in and near Guiana. ”

“ In which time one Vides, Governor of Cumana, won him to be his conductor into Guiana, being allured by those croissants and images of gold which he brought with him to trade, as also by the ancient fame and magnificence of El Dorado; whereupon Vides sent into Spain for a patent to discover and conquer Guiana, not knowing of the precedence of Berreo's patent ”