The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

INHABITANTS OF GUIANA. 43
fathers and Indian mothers, and consequently any inferences drawn from their
appearance would be fallacious.
Some few words of the African negro or Bantu dialects are said to have been
preserved in the language of the Maroons, which has an English basis with a very
large Portuguese element. Next in order of importance come the Dutch and
French contributions, all uttered with the thick soft African pronunciation, and
connected together by an extremely simple syntax. But this primitive jargon
is gradually yielding to the cultured languages, English, Dutch, French, and Por-
tuguese, of the European settlers.
Descendants of the black insurgents, whose war-cry everywhere was " Land and
Fig. 13.
—
Inhabitants op Gxjiana.
Scale 1 : 13,000,000.
Bosh Negroes. TT^t^iflna . Ciyilised or
assimilated.
SlOililes.
Liberty," the Bush Negroes have all remained agriculturists. They grow sufficient
produce for their own consumption, and also supply the towns and plantations of the
seaboard with rice. But their main resource is wood-cutting, which is exclusively
in their hands. They fell the large forest trees suitable for buQding and cabinet
work, and convey the lumber to Paramaribo by the rivers and canals. They run
little risk of losing this monopoly, thanks to their sober habits, by which they are
favourably distinguished from the aborigines. They have, however, suffered from
the demoralisation rampant in the gold-mining districts. Indispensable as boatmen
on the upper courses of the rivers, they show remarkable skill in managing
their corials or curiares, and the light craft to which the English have given the