. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 46 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. dred aad fifty j^ears of patient labour to reclaim from the swamps and woodlands. Even the whites who formerly succeeded best in Dutch Guiana were Jews for the most part of Portuguese origin. The chief group, a body of Hebrew planters expelled from Brazil, arrived in 1663, and to their influence is due the large pro- portion of Portuguese words that have found their way into the Creole language of the Bush Negroes. All the costly attempts to colonise the country with whites drawn from other lands have ended in disaster. I
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 46 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. dred aad fifty j^ears of patient labour to reclaim from the swamps and woodlands. Even the whites who formerly succeeded best in Dutch Guiana were Jews for the most part of Portuguese origin. The chief group, a body of Hebrew planters expelled from Brazil, arrived in 1663, and to their influence is due the large pro- portion of Portuguese words that have found their way into the Creole language of the Bush Negroes. All the costly attempts to colonise the country with whites drawn from other lands have ended in disaster. Individuals of strong constitution may no doubt become acclimatised by carefully observing all the rules of health. But to adapt whole families and communal groups to an environment so different from that of Europe is certainly a far more dangerous and difficult experiment than to settle them in Canada or the United States, especially when the emigrants are deprived of ordinary comforts and even of proper food, as has too often been the case. Although consumption is almost unknown on the coastlands, the new arrivals are rapidly decimated by the marsh fevers, which are most dangerous, especially when the hot sun begins to suck up the deadly exhalations in the swampy districts. Since the year 1855, yellow fever also has made frequent visits to this sea- board. Hence the Europeans, although the political masters of the land and owners of the plantations, have remained practically aliens in the midst of a motley cosmo- politan population, in which the half-caste elements are steadily increasing. Except in some favourable years, the mortality is always higher than the birth rate, and meanwhile the Europeans of pure descent are being outstripped on all sides by the Portuguese islanders from the north, by the Brazilians, also of Portuguese speech, from the south, by the Spanish Venezuelans from the west; in a word, by intruders of Latin speech and culture arriving from every
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