4t.  Tbekoh  G-TJiAirA,  eastern,  stretches  from  the  3faro-
wyne  to  i^  Brazilian  border.  Cayenne,  the  capital,  is  an
insignificant  place  on  a  small  river-island,  notorious  for
inssdubrity,  and  for  a  species  of  capsicum,  which  bears  the
name  of  Cayenne  pepper;  population  15,000.  Political
delinquents,  during  flbe  tVench  revolutions,  were  sent  here,
jmd  to  Sinamari,  in  the  neighbourhood,  at  the  mouth  of
the  river  of  its  name,  where  they  perished  in  the  unwhole-
some swamps.  The  whole  coast  of  Guiana  is  low  and
unhealthy,  subject  to  the  ravages  of  yellow  fever  during
the  rainy  seasons.
At  the  southern  extremity  of  South  America  is  Pata-
O017IA,  an  extensive  and  inhospitable  region,  of  above
350,000  square  miles,  bordered  on  its  western  coast  by  the
Andes,  wmch  here  rise  from  3,000  to  8,000  feet.  It  was
first  discovered  by  Magellan,  in  1519,  after  whom  the
Straits,  which  separate  the  mainland  from  the  Archipelago
of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  were  named.  The  inhabitants,  stalwart
Indians,  once  regarded  as  giants,  lead  a  wandering  life,
chiefly  on  horseback,  are  cannibals  in  war,  and  have  been-
said,  when  pressed  by  hunger,  as  they  sometimes  are  in  win-
ter, to  kill  and  eat  their  old  women  in  preference  to  their  dogs.
Cape  Horn,  a  steep  rock  about  600  feet  high,  and  the  most
extreme  southerly  point  of  America,  is  on  Hermit  Island,
the  chief  town  of  the  Fuegian  Archipelago :  it  was  first
doubled  by  Schouten,  who  named  it  after  his  birthplace,

Digitized  by  LjOOQ  IC


464  POLITICAL  AKD  DI80BIPTITB  GIOOSAPHT,    [Amnia.
Hoom,  in  North  Holland.    The  natives  subsist  chiefly  on
mushrooms  and  fish.
The  Falkland  Islanda,  300  miles  east  of  Patagonia,  belong
to  Britain,  and  consist  of  two  large,  and  about  200  enmll
islands,  destitute  of  trees,  and  mostlj  covered  with  peat.
