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French empire in America is now represented only by two puny islands off the coast of Newfoundland, two small islands in the West Indies, and an unimportant tract of tropical Guiana, but historic traces of its former greatness and promise have survived alike in Canada and in Louisiana.
There some Spaniards boarded him, to buy linen and other things, all which he 'entertained kindly, and feasted after our manner, by means whereof I learned as much of the estate of Guiana as I could, or as they knew, for those poore souldiers having been many years without wine, a few draughts made them merrie, in which mood they vaunted of Guiana and the riches thereof, much which it had been better for Raleigh had he never heard.
It was a fast boat, even under oars, and with a sail set to it, and a fair wind, they might calculate upon making eight or ten knots an hour. This would in no great time enable them to run down the "trades," and bring them to some port of the South American coast, perhaps to Guiana, or Brazil. These speculations occupied them only a few seconds of time.
What we see in our cabinets under the false denomination of Amazon-stone, is neither jade, nor compact feldspar, but a common feldspar of an apple-green colour, that comes from the Ural mountains and on lake Onega in Russia, but which I never saw in the granitic mountains of Guiana.
In the month of April 1812 I left the town of Stabroek to travel through the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, a part of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, in South America. The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity of the strongest wourali poison and to reach the inland frontier-fort of Portuguese Guiana.
Whatever the Spaniards introduced, and which bore no resemblance to anything the Indians had been accustomed to see, retains its Spanish name to this day. This argues strongly against the existence of dogs in Guiana before it was discovered by the Spaniards, and probably may be of use to thee in thy next canine dispute.
Which two forts will be a sufficient guard both to the empire of Inga, and to an hundred other several kingdoms, lying within the said river, even to the city of Quito in Peru. There is therefore great difference between the easiness of the conquest of Guiana, and the defence of it being conquered, and the West or East Indies.
Before his fall the Duke of Choiseul had made a last effort to revive abroad that fortune of France which he saw sinking at home without his being able to apply any effective remedy. He had vainly attempted to give colonies once more to France by founding in French Guiana settlements which had been unsuccessfully attempted by a Rouennese Company as early as 1634.
After admiring and marvelling at this rare entertainment and show of Nature, I said it did mind me of what the Spaniards and Portuguese relate of the great Incas of Guiana, who had a garden of pleasure in the Isle of Puna, whither they were wont to betake themselves when they would enjoy the air of the sea, in which they had all manner of herbs and flowers, and trees curiously fashioned of gold and silver, and so burnished that their exceeding brightness did dazzle the eyes of the beholders.
It is plentiful in Trinidad; still more plentiful in Guiana; and yet all of it which reaches Europe is a little of its hard beautiful wood for the use of cabinetmakers; while in Demerara, I am assured by an eye-witness, many tons of this precious Greenheart bark are thrown away year by year.
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