Volume 1

Richard Schomburgk's Travels in British Guiana, 1840-1844 / translated and edited, with geographical and general indices, and route maps, by Walter E. Roth.

  • Richard Schomburgk
Date:
1922-1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Richard Schomburgk's Travels in British Guiana, 1840-1844 / translated and edited, with geographical and general indices, and route maps, by Walter E. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    til some fresli requirement drives liim to town again. The Colony owes the poor neglected Indian an old-time heavy debt, the present-day re¬ payment of which is not to be expected. While it wanted him to suppress xhe many insurrections of the slaves, it used to wheedle him and once a year fix a certain day to give him a big spread and valuable presents, whereat several thousands, wearing the most beautiful feather ornaments would generally be gathered: all these means of recognition have been abandoned. “They are now of no more use to us, and there is no need to worry any more about them,” is the stereotyped answer which the astonished questioner receives. ]STo one remembers that almost all the negro revolts were suppressed through the help of the aborigines, and that in the Coromantyn negro rebellion in 1793 and 1794 the Car* ibs alone sent 800 young warriors to assist the overpowered Colonists. 194. During our almost four years1 stay with these “Tribes without Tears,” all the signs we gathered point incontestably to the fact that the Present is the closing scene for them in that great drama which everywhere is, and will be, renewed where European culture gains and has gained a footing. 195. The many European-introduced diseases that have become in different ways indigenous amongst the tribes of the interior, particularly small-pox, are helping on this closing scene to an increased degree. In 1794 the Caribs were still able to place 800 young fighters in the field: according to the census of 1841 the whole coast tribe including women and children only amounts to 500. Nine-tenths of the Arawaks have dis¬ appeared in the interval, and half of the Akawais and Warraus are no more. 196. After several days’ stay in the city I was constrained to yisit the more or less distant environs, to make myself at home and conver¬ sant with the field of my labours. Of course my earliest excursions, could and only dared be of short duration, my brother and new acquaint¬ ances having impressed upon me the most sacred duty of not exposing mvself too suddenly to the sun’s rays which exert such a harmful in- fluence on the newly-arriving European. My trips were accordingly limited to between six o’clock day-break and eight, when it was always incumbent on me to hurry back to the protecting roof and avoid the danger threatening. 197. On leaving the city proper, almost all the roads lead to the same surrounding sugar, plantain, and abandoned cotton estates: upon the latter, which at present form pasturage for cattle as already men¬ tioned, one now and then finds an isolated cotton-tree (Gossypium her- baceum), dotted over with its large yellow mallow-like flowers, that rises like a sort of memorial of former extensive cultivation. What a beau¬ tiful and fairy-like sight must these cotton-fields in blossom have pres¬ ented in the olden days! 198. Hie whole cultivated portion of the Colony, but particularly in the immediate neighbourhood of Georgetown, is an alluvial flat, ex¬ posed to flooding during the spring-tides. A front dam extending along the whole stretch of coast-line parallel with the sea or river on the inner side of which run the public streets, protects the estates and has to be kept in repair by the respective owners of estates bordering on it. To