A QUEER COUNTRY TO EMIGRATE TO.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 708, 30 August 1870, Page 4

A QUEER COUNTRY TO EMIGRATE TO.

*, {From the Times.') "Whoever asserted that the days of faith and credulity were over was quite mistaken. Should he still persist in Im heresy, let him read the following story, for which we have the authority of Mr Gordon, the Governor of Trinidad, who drew his information partly from the Presideut of the Republic of Guayana, and partly from eye-wit-nesses of the facts to which they bore testimony. If any of our readers affect ignorance as to the exact position ou the globe filled by the Kepublic in question, we can only console them by declaring that up to the time of reading Mr Gordon's Despatch we did not think such geographical knowledge a matter of much importance. The Eepublic of Guayana is rich, it appears, in water and waste land. As the Orinoco is part of the water-power of the State, it may be supposed that element is a drug in those parts. They do not sell that But the Kepublic sells its waste lands, so President Delia Costa says, at tho very moderate price of four pounds sterling for three square miles. When we add, on the authority of our Gazetteer, " that the lowlands about the Delta of the Orinoco reek with pestilential exhalations," '• that elephantiasis and goitre seem to be here endemic diseases," and that fever and dysentery are rather the rule than the exception, it will be evident that no settler, unless endowed with the proverbial cheerfulness of Mr Mark Tapley, ought ever to entertain the notion of colonising those swampy shores. Bub what are Englishmen but a nation of Mark Tupleys ? Here is " the Chartered American, English, and Venezuelau Trading and Commercial Compauy," which has been able to persuade a band of British emigrants to fiud their way to an unhealthy locality on the Caura ltiver, where for land " wholly unimproved, not a tree having been cut or a swamp drained or a hut built on," the company had demanded and obtained from the emigrants £4 for locs of ten acres. The story of these emigrants is briefly this : — Under the leadership of Mr Bond, lately captain in her Majesty's 91st Highlanders, they left Europe in October, and arrived at Ciudad Bolivar in November. There "tho difficulties of their position met them on landing. They were unassisted 'by the company, and 'unassisted they found it^ impossible to make their way

!o their settlement on the Caura River. We do not believe they would ever bave got thither had not the President furnished them with three months' provisions, forwarded ihem to the settlement, aud otherwise befriended thorn. Even then their troubles did not cease, for though the President was kind, the canoe men to whom they were confided stole the greater part of the President's provisions on the voyage up. At last, however, they arrived, in number between sixty and seventy souls, of all ages and both sexes, only to find their " township a dense uncleared tropical forest, liable in many places to be overflowed by the river during the wet season." Exposure to the sun produced its natural results — dysentery and fever. " The gentleman who had been charged by the President to assist them lefb the settlement, and did not return." They had no provisions and were soon reduced to subsist on beans and rice. Even those dainties were rapidly diminishing, and starvation stared them in the face." Our readers will ask, as this was in December last, whether these unfortunate settler 3 are still alive. That is more than we can say. We only repeat the tale as it is told in Mr Gordon's despatch to Lord Granville, just laid before Parliament. But we can inform them how Mr Gordon heard the woful story, and this was how it reached his ears : — "When the settlement found itself starving, and that the gentleman appointed by President Delia Costa to watch over their interests did not return like the raven that flew from the ark and never flew back again, they resolved to send out three doves of their own. Of these one died on the journey, but two of them, one being Mr S. Barry, lately an officer in the 3rd King's Own Hussars, made their way down the river and succeeded in reaching the island of Trinidad, between which and the Orinoco there is frequent communication. Their sad story, backed by remonstrances already made by President Delia Costa to Mr Gordon, produced such an effect on the Governor's mind that he sat down and wroto a despatch to Lord Granville, in which he called the attention of the Colonial Secretary to the fact that President Delia Costa begged the British Government "to aid him in taking steps to prevent any further immigration to Venezuela under similar auspices." The Governor concludes his despatch in the following words : — " President Delia Costa will, I am certain, do all in his power to alleviate the distresses of the unfortunate settlers who have already arrived, but, as.it is very probable that the sale of these lands continues, and as it is desirable that persons in England should not be induced to take such a serious step as that of emigrating to the Orinoco in consequence of anticipations not, I fear, likely to be realised, I should be much obliged if your Lordship would give such publicity to this despatch and its enclosures as your Lordship may deem proper." This request Lord Granville has complied with by laying the despatch before Parliament, and, no doubt, should any of the unfortunate settlers on the Caura escape starvation, fever, and dysentery, and be so fortunate as to find their way to Trinidad, or even to Ciudad Bolivar, and thence to England, they may have some questions to put to the Chartered American, English, and Venezuelan Trading and Commercial Company, which we hope that body will be able to answer satisfactorily. But the question we have to ask is one which we desire to put to the emigrants themselves, aud it is this — Would any of them, had they been asked to go and camp out on the wilds of Dartmoor or Exmoor, or on the bleak and boggy hills of Shetland or North Uiat, or on the wilds of Connemara, and not only to camp out, but to live and, in all probability, end their days there, after no great interval of time — would any of them, wo say, have accepted tho offer and jumped at the proposal ? No ! They would have said, " There are agues and rheumatism and typhoid fevers to be caught iv tents on bleak hill aides and boggy moors. "We men, used, some of ue, to hardship and toil and privation, could fioyer rough it in this way, much less could our wives and children." They

vfould one and all have declined the suggestion of emigrating to Devonshire, or Scotland, or Ireland, and yet they bave crossed many thousand miles of sea only to undertake another perilous river journey in a pestilential climate, to find themselves landed on a swamp at their journey's end, a prey to famine, fever, and dysentery. Credulity, indeed, like pauperism, will never cease from the earth. The fools, as well as the poor, will be always among us. We think it open to much doubt whether emigrants from the upper classes, as a rule, are ever likely to be good founders of a settlement. In some men, indeed, there is a spirit of enterprise and adventure which will overcome all obstacles ; but even these men are rare examples, one out of a thousand, fit leaders for a band of followers of baser but tougher metal. Why should they go out to perish in the swamps of the Orinoco ? As if we had no colonies of our own, as though England had not surveyed the whole earth, and taken its fairest portions in possession. There ij Canada, wild enough and cold enough, in all conscience, to satisfy the adventure of the boldest spirit, but fertile enough and healthy enough to nouriskall who can endure the monotony of her long winter. There is British Columbia, in somo respects more genial, and in none worse than Canada except in remoteness. There is Australia, with a whole continent of climates to choose from, all eminently salubrious. If the healthiness of New Zealand is partly counterbalanced by its unruly savages, there is Tasmania, now without a native ; long settled, yet with abuudance of land for emigrants ; with a perfect climate, and representative institutions, to which the greatest praise that can be given is that the Tasmanian Constitution works without making any noise. With all these British colonies, and more thau these, to choose from, our emigrants, of whatever class, must be hard indeed to please should they decline them all and give their preference to the Orinoco ____________«_„.