periment has miserably failed, as
acknowledged by the chancellor of the exchequer in his speech on
the introduction of the sugar duties bill, now in progress through
parliament. The Coolies were conveyed to Demerara from Madras in
ship-loads to supply the labour market in British Guiana, at the expense
of that colony; and, as our correspondent learned, at a rate which
even reached the Negro himself, against whom they came to compete.
Many agents were employed in their importation, and large bounties were
given; such temptations led parties to crowd the colony with numbers of
miserable persons, quite unable to perform any laborious employment. It
was the general opinion that, owing to physical inability, scarcely one
in a hundred of these Coolies was fit for manual labour; and whilst our
correspondent was at Demerara a law was issued by the governor granting
permission for labourers to enter Guiana from certain countries only,
omitting the East Indies. The wretchedness of these immigrant Coolies
was truly distressing; numbers of them might be seen wandering about,
and living in the open air on charity, in George Town, congregating
about the market-house and elsewhere, many of them covered with sores,
and all but naked. Hospitals were subsequently provided for them in
different places, in which they were maintained at the public expense;
and by this means they were removed from about the town and frontier of
the colony. Mr. Stocqueler, in his very useful 'Oriental Interpreter,'
refers to the Coolies in connection with the Bheels, a race of people
who inhabit the northern part of the chain of Ghauts, running inland
parallel with the coast of Malabar. On one side they are bordered by the
Coolies, and on another by the Goands of Goandwana. They are considered
to have been the aborigines of Central India, and, with the
Coolies, Goands, and Ramooses, are bold, daring, and predatory
marauders--occasionally mercenaries, but invariably plunderers.
There are, however, many shades of difference in the extent of the
depredations of these several people, in which the balance of enormity
is said to be considerably on the side of the Bheels. They are,
nevertheless, described as faithful when employed and trusted; and the
travellers who pay them their _choute_, or tribute, may leave untold
treasure in their hands, and may consider themselves as safe with
them as in the streets of London. Their word is sacred, their promise
unimpeachable.