tettro In tht Eltitor.

ABORIGINES OF BRITISH GUIANA.

The Grove, Gravesend, 18th October, 1859. Sm—There is a people in British Guiana for whom I entertain a strong regard, and in whose condition I take a special interest : would that I could do something, or induce others to do something, that would tend to their benefit here and hereafter !

The aboriginal Indians, the native possessors of the soil, amount, it is supposed, to four or five thousand, residing within the limits of the colony, scattered in small communities along the banks of the rivers and creeks, generally far inland. They are a most interesting people, and the heart bleeds to think that they are gradually but slowly becoming extinct from the face of the earth, and " the places that know them now," will soon " know them no more for ever."

Simple,. mild, timid, yet wild in their nature, they recede before the step of the white man in every direction, and while they cannot with justice call us their foes, they are slow to acknowledge and receive us as friends. Once the sole inhabitants of the West India Islands, not one now remains in those localities excepting a few perhaps in St. Vincent, Trinidad, and

Dominic; the Carib Indians, formerly a powerful warlike nation, after whom th surrounding sea is called the Caribbean" to this day, are now reduced to a few tribes or families in distant localities along the coast of South America, and every. year becoming fewer and fewer still.

Many reasons can be given and causes assigned for this diminution and decay. First,—They have ever been too prone to assume the vices attached to ci- vilization, without a corresponding desire to adopt its virtues—ever too ready to follow dissipation and drunkenness, rather than abstemiousness and sobriety. Secondly,—They have, by coming into contact with civilized life, been fearfully afflicted with eseases of a contagious character, before unknown to them, and among these may be regarded as the most destructive and deadly " small-pox," and hitherto they have been slow to follow, or altogether re- jected, the remedies suggested by science. Thirdly, and above all,—They seem to carry within their own peculiar social system the seeds of their own destruction. They have no fixed re- sidenee—no settled home. When a death occurs among them, they quit the spot and seek for a time another resting place, until, again disturbed by the same intruder, they again move on. Thus they are, as Cain was before them, wanderers ever upon the face of the earth. I have seen something of this exemplified within the tract of country in which I exercised magisterial jurisdiction. On the right bank of Canje river, near a plantation called New Forest, and about fifty yards from the water's edge, may be seen a little, low, oblong, thatched erection, measuring perhaps six feet by three ; a stranger would never guess what it is, nor what it contains,—it is an Indian's tomb, and there, on the surface of the ground, under cover of the reeds or thatch, lies the unburied dead. The body is that of an Indian girl who, with her father, resided near the spot for some time, where she now reposes but the " arrow that tlieth " struck her, and the desolate survivor fled to the wilderness and was seen no more.

No longer now may I linger here,

But a wanderer stray—ah! whither?

'Till, mother and child, I may join ye there—

Where souls unite for ever !

Then, again, the pernicious and unchristian doctrine of "blood for blood " is rigidly enforced and followed up by them from age to age, from genera- tion to generation. Whenever feuds exist between family and family, or between tribe and tribe, as they often do, hostilities may cease for a time, but there is no reconciliation—no friendship—and the first favourable

opportunity is eagerly embraced by one party or the other for a renewal of strife and bloodshed. Nor do they meet each other in such cases in open warfare, but one tribe or family will attack another secretly in the dead of night when their victims are asleep, and destroy all they can find down to the infant at the breast.

Many massacres of this kind have occurred within my time along the banks of the Berbice and Corentyn rivers. Very lately a family of thir- teen, settled in the first-named locality, retired to rest one evening in fancied security ; at day dawn on the following morning they were sur- rounded by some of their foes, shot at in their hammocks and all eater- terminated but one, and that one wounded and left for dead, the assailants retreating at once into the interior of the country. These murders have from time to time attracted the earnest and serious attention of the local go- vernment, but without any practical result.

The fact is that these occurrences are mixed up with many legal difficulties, and the courts of justice placed by them in an awkward position. Thus, suppose the Indiana guilty of the outrage just mentioned, arrested and brought to trial, it would be contended for them—lst. That they com- mitted no murder ; they only executed the orders of their Chief according to the custom of their forefathers from time immemorial.

2d. The laws which they were said to have offended, they did not know, nor recognize ; they were in the execution of their own laws. 3d. Neither they nor their enemies had become British subjects at any time, or sought British protection ; the English came to them, they did not go to the English. 4th. They would deny that the offence, if an offence at all, was committed within British jurisdiction, no boundary of territory having as yet been de- cided and agreed upon between us and our neighbours on the south and west. Either of these objections, raised by the prisoners' lawyers, would be fatal to the prosecution, and no jury would convict. The question then naturally suggests itself to well-disposed and generous minds, is this state of things to last for ever ? Can no remedy be found ? Is there no cure for a disease so destructive to the body—so fatal to the soul ? Yes, there is one remedy and one only : if we can christianize,—we shall cure !

I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, C. H. Sraurr, Retired Stipendiary Magistrate, late of British Guiana.