Abstract
THESE two works deal with a small portion of a region Of considerable interest from various scientific points of view, but of which we as yet know comparatively little; indeed much of the region included under the name Guiana is a terra incognita, and presents a fine field for an enterprising explorer. Mr. Palgrave, whose long silence since the publication of his classical work on Arabia many have wondered at and regretted, spent only a fortnight in Dutch Guiana, and this volume testifies made a diligent use of his time. The work is more connected with the historical, social, and commercial aspects of the Dutch colony than with the strictly scientific, but contains much valuable information about a country of which even the Dutch themselves, we suspect, know little. Mr. Palgrave has gathered many facts about the colony from various quarter?, and ingeniously weaves these into his pleasant narrative, so that a reader who gets to the end of the little volume will have a very fair idea of its history, present condition, and future prospects. In a graphic and popular way he describes the journeys he made up the rivers near the coast, and conveys a fair idea of the productions, the people, and the aspect of the district visited. To the ethnological reader, one of the most interesting chapters is that on the Bush Negroes. Scattered all over the colony to the number, Mr. Palgrave thinks, of about 30,000, are various tribes of independent negroes, descendants of former slaves, who rose against their Dutch masters, fought for and obtained their freedom and liberty to settle pretty much where they chose, and have lived peaceably beside their former masters ever since. These Bush Negroes are descended mostly from Africans of the same type, but are now divided into three main tribes, and several subordinate branches, with chiefs and sub-chiefs, each tribe named from the place at which its treaty of peace and freedom was signed, as Aucan, Saramaccan, and Moesinga. The interesting point is that “the grouping, once made, perpetuated, and in the course of years it has produced in each instance a distinct type, till what was at first merely nominal and accidental has become permanent and real.” Mr. Palgrave's work is one of great interest from beginning to end. It contains a clear map and a plan of Parimaribo.
Dutch Guiana.
By W. G. Palgrave. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1876.)
Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana.
By C. Barrington Brown (London: Stanford, 1876.)
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Dutch Guiana Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana . Nature 15, 311 (1877). https://doi.org/10.1038/015311a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/015311a0