The History of British Guiana: Comprising a General Description of the Colony ; a Narrative of Some of the Principal Events from the Earliest Period of Its Discovery to the Present Time ; Together with an Account of Its Climate, Geology, Staple Products, and Natural History, Volume 2

Capa
Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855
 

Outras edições - Ver todos

Termos e frases comuns

Passagens mais conhecidas

Página 508 - Except in some of the best villages,* they care not for back or front dams to keep off the water ; their side-lines are disregarded, and consequently the drainage is gone, while in many instances the public road is so completely flooded that canoes have to be used as a means of transit. The Africans are unhappily following the example of the Creoles in this district, and buying land on which they settle in contented idleness ; and your commissioners cannot view instances like these without the deepest...
Página 142 - The following circumstance is still more remarkable, and illustrates, in a singular manner, the care of God over his servants. Being one evening attacked with a paroxysm of fever, he resolved to go into his hut and lie down in his hammock. Just, however, as he entered the door, he beheld a serpent descending from the roof upon him. In the scuffle which ensued, the creature bit him in three different places ; and, pursuing him closely, twined itself several times round his head and neck as tightly...
Página 468 - It has twelve teeth in all, the four incisors being remarkably long, and often curved; it has four toes on the fore feet and three on the hind ones; the tail is merely rudimentary, barely an inch long, and naked.
Página 508 - A districtf that in 1829 gave employment to 3635 registered slaves, but at the present moment there are not more than 600 laborers at work 'on the few estates still in cultivation, although it is estimated there are upward of 2000 people idling in villages of their own. The roads are in many parts several feet under water and perfect swamps, while in some places the bridges are wanting altogether. In fact the whole district is fast becoming a total wilderness, with the exception of the one or two...
Página 21 - The town was illuminated when I landed, in consequence of the news of high prices from England. Three splendid trains of De Eosne's machinery, costing $40,000 each, had just arrived from France, and were in process of erection ; steam-engines and engineers were coming over daily from America ; new estates were forming ; coffee plantations were being broken up ; and their feeble gangs of old people and children who had hitherto been selected for that light work, were formed into task-gangs and hired...
Página 506 - The abandoned plantations on this coast,* which, if capital and labor could be procured^ might easily be made very productive, are either wholly deserted, or else appropriated by hordes of squatters, who of course are unable to keep up at their own expense the public roads and bridges; and consequently all communication by land between the Corentyne and New Amsterdam is nearly at an end. The roads are impassable for horses or carriages, while for foot passengers they are extremely dangerous. The...
Página 20 - 1 spent," says that intelligent witness, " the beginning of this year in Cuba, with a view of ascertaining the preparations which were being made in that island to meet the opening of our markets. To an Englishman coming up from Grenada and Jamaica, the contrast between the paralysed and decayed aspect of the trade of those colonies, and the spirit anH activity which your measures had infused into that of the Havannab, was most disheartening.
Página 506 - The number of villages in this deserted region must be upward of 2500, and as the country abounds with fish and game, they have no difficulty in making a subsistence. In fact, the Corentyne coast is fast relapsing into a state of nature.' " ' Canje Creek was formerly considered a flourishing district of the county, and numbered on its east bank seven sugar and three coffee estates, and on its west bank eight estates, of which two were in sugar and six in coffee, making a total of eighteen plantations.
Página 491 - Should the Post-holder be desirous of employing any Indians for clearing wood, or for fishing or paddling his boat, he shall be at liberty to hire them for that purpose, with the consent of the Protector, who shall previously...
Página 20 - The question of the East Indies differs materially, in respect to the supply of sugar, from the West India colonies, but those with whom I acted agreed in the opinion which I myself entertained, that this country did stand in a very special and peculiar relation to our West India colonies. You had emancipated from slavery those on whose labour in former years you had mainly relied for the supplying of this country with West India produce.

Informações bibliográficas