and have verandahs; and surrounded as they are by gardens, planted with the stately cocoa-nut and cabbage-palm, they present a lively appearance. In the streets may be seen a strange mixture of the various people and tribes who compose the population of Guiana-English and Portuguese emigrants and settlers, Hindoos, Negroes (by far the largest class), and members of the numerous different tribes of Indians from the interior. It is among these different races that the missionary work of the Church in this diocese has to be carried on. We will here state a few facts in reference to the present circumstances of each of the three branches into which the heathen population divides itself. The Negroes were formerly slaves, brought mostly from Africa. By the Act of Emancipation in 1834 they became apprenticed labourers, and on the 1st August, 1838, they were set completely free. Great pains were taken at this time to provide them with religious instruction. By the care of Bishop Coleridge, under whose spiritual charge Guiana was at first placed, parishes were formed, churches, chapels, and schools were built along the line of coast, and zealous ministers were set to labour among them. Several causes however have combined to hinder the work of religious instruction from advancing among the negro population so rapidly as could have been desired. The Hindoos or Coolies, many thousands of whom are brought over (in 1864 their numbers in Guiana were estimated at 10,000) to assist as labourers in the cultivation of the soil, only come for a few years and then return to their own country, their place being supplied by fresh bodies of their heathen countrymen. They are described as sunk in all the vices as well as follies of paganism; but, removed as they are for these five years from their ancient temples, and the spiritual tyranny of the 118 WORK IN THE COLONIES. Brahmins, there is a very great opening for missionary work among them. But we pass now from the coast and its teeming population of various races, to the thinly-peopled interior, where in the depths of the primæval förest are to be found the remnants of the Indian races, which were once masters of the land, and though dispossessed of their ancient sovereignty, cannot but be objects of special interest and concern to that Christian Church and people into whose hands it has pleased God to give them. Little seems to have been done by the Dutch authorities in later times to propagate Christianity among the natives. The devoted Moravian Missionaries however laboured zealously among them from the year 1738 till about the close of the century, on the Berbice and Corentyn rivers. After these missions were given up the religious instruction of the Indians was totally neglected for many years. At length, in 1829, fresh efforts were made for their conversion at Bartica on the Essequibo, by Mr. Armstrong, under the Church Missionary Society. This mission was followed by others under Mr. Youd and Mr. Bernau, missionaries of the same Society. The first connexion of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel with this country was in 1835, when it administered the Fund raised for Negro education, and sent its first missionaries and catechists to Guiana. But the first mission undertaken by it to the aboriginal Indians, was that founded upon the banks of the Pomeroon in 1840. A clergyman and lay catechist were appointed, but the former was prevented from going, and the mission was begun and for ten years carried on by the latter alone, Mr. W. H. Brett, who was subsequently ordained, and who has given a most interesting description of his labours among the Indians, in his book entitled "Indian Missions in Guiana," from which the chief part of the foregoing account of this distant country has been derived. The Our missions have been principally directed to four of the many Indian tribes, the Arawaks, Waraws, Caribs, and Wacawoios. The first three of these, though residing close together, as they have done for the last three centuries, speak totally different languages. The Arawak is the most numerous and the least barbarous of all the tribes along the coast. Their settlements lie in an extended line, within 100 miles of the sea. Waraws come next. Their settlements are very numerous along the swampy coast district from the Pomeroon to the Orinoco, the delta of which seems to be their head-quarters. They possess some good qualities, but are dirty and improvident. The Caribi tribe, famous in history, and regarded by the rest with awe, even when now verging to extinction, is the next in order, their settlements lying more inland than either of the former. Their numbers are now small, and rapidly diminishing. The Wacawoios are the most wandering in their habits of all the tribes. They speak a dialect of the Caribese. In 1842 the Rev. W. H. P. Austin, who had for some time been Archdeacon, was consecrated Bishop of Guiana. In 1844 Queen's College was founded at George Town, to which the Society made a grant of 500l.: the Bishop himself gave two separate donations of 500l., and the contributions of the clergy of the diocese (though enjoying far from superabundant incomes), amounted to above 8007. From various causes this colony has gradually declined in prosperity of late years, in consequence of which the Legislature in 1848 withdrew some of the support hitherto given to the ecclesiastical establishment. This measure has added considerably to the difficulties of the Bishop and his clergy. In 1851 a Diocesan Church Society was established in Gui |