. The earth and its inhabitants .. . I. French Guiana Proper. ERE Frencli Guiana increased by the addition of tlie contested region extending from its recognised frontiers southwards to the Ara- guari estuarj^ it would equal the British territory in superficial area ; but in respect of population, trade, industry, political and social life, no comparison is possible between the two colonies. Of all the French possessions beyond the seas not one has prospered less than Guiana. Its story cannot be told without a feeling of humiliation, and the example of this territory is usually chosen to show
. The earth and its inhabitants .. . I. French Guiana Proper. ERE Frencli Guiana increased by the addition of tlie contested region extending from its recognised frontiers southwards to the Ara- guari estuarj^ it would equal the British territory in superficial area ; but in respect of population, trade, industry, political and social life, no comparison is possible between the two colonies. Of all the French possessions beyond the seas not one has prospered less than Guiana. Its story cannot be told without a feeling of humiliation, and the example of this territory is usually chosen to show the incapacity of the French as a colonising people, as if the country had ever been a colony in the strict sense of the word. No really spontaneous stream of immigration has ever been directed from France to Guiana ever since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when some French freebooters, roving the seas, established a few ports of refuge or refitting stations at favourable points along the seaboard. All who, during the last 250 years, have landed on these shores between the Maroni and Oyapok estu- aries, have come either as colonial officials and soldiers, or else in gangs of slaves and hired labourers, or even in convoys of criminals and convicts often of the worst type. Essays at Colonisation. The country has never been quickened by the spirit of free colonisation. The very sites of the settlements were often selected beforehand by administrators who had never visited the colony. Impracticable decrees issued from Paris were carried out in a haphazard way ; no preparations were made on the spot for the reception of the new arrivals, who consequently perished in thousands, camping without food or shelter on the banks of swampy creeks. Even those who had been more favoured by fortune, and who had obtained some cover and supplies,
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