DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1327#0049
AN ILLUSTRATED CYCLOPEDIA OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.
^ceiv^
actly in proportion as the
ited and well instructed h
ire they, and the more dis
coincide happily with our duties os men. if
native collectors of nature's stores are well tr
the best ways of civilisation, the more expert
posed to be vigilant and honest in their work.
British Guiana.__The survey O.f j\boric;uial products m (lie Exhibition
niav be conveniently ln-mm with British Guiana, as the collections from
this colonv are remarkably complete, and it is a country admirably
described bv Sir Kohort .U.'Sohomburgk. one of the most accomplished of
modern travellers. It is a portion of South .America on the Atlantic, in
latitude t> decrees north of the equator, and contains i$\- millions of acres
of land. The staple produce is sugar, rum, and coffee, with some cotton.
Other produce of less value are its plaintains, and various esculents, with
timber and oilier articles approved by the experience of the Aborigines.
The chief food of the natives, the cassava bread, is to bo seen here,-
which it is seriously proposed to export to England, as being superior to
tiie potato in nutritious quality, and so much more abundant than any
meal known, that a profit of £50 per aero may be gained by its culture.
The graters used by the natives in preparing the cassava meal from the
root are of the manufacture of particular tribes, fin nous for this business,
as others arc especially famous for the manufacture of hammocks—the
materials probably in both cases being abundant in their countries, as
Manchester owes "its ancient celebrity to the streams and coals of its
neighbourhood.
The cassava bread is made in an elastic tube, called the metofp&e, a
very ingenious contrivance of the Indians, says Sir E. Schomburgk, to
press the juice from the root, which is one of the most violent poisons
before being pressed. After die root is scraped it is pressed in this tube
plaited of the stems of the calathea. A pole in the tube is -used as a
powerful lever, and weighed down by two persons sitting on it. The juice
escapes through the plaited work; and the dried meal is baked in a pan iu
a few minutes. A specimen of the macliiue, as well fls of the bread, is hi
' the Exhibition.
Another new article of food was also exhibited—the plaintain meal—which
the Indians use; and our settlers calculate it may be made to produce a
gross return of £112 per acre I "Well may Europeans be surprised, as
Humboldt says they are, upon arriving within the tropics, at seeing the
small space of ground that keeps an Indian family.
The juice of the cow-tree, sometimes used as a substitute for milk, is
perhaps more valuable as one of the numerous materials for India-rubber.
The physic mit in common use by the natives is one of the hundred
vegetable medicines of the American forests, well worth further study.
There is also, a species of Jesuits' bark, of far greater importance, con-
sidering its dearness almost prohibits its proper amplication in our hospitals;
and this, also, is well known by the Indians.
But the most valuable articles exhibited from Guiana are the woods
originally made known to us by native experience. For ship-building,
they are certainly superior to oak and teak; and the bright colours of the
specimens strongly recommend them for furniture. Iu regard to ship-
building, it is a curious fact, attested by Sir II. Schomburgk, tiiat one tribe
ill particular, the WarrauSj have been famous builders of canoes and
corrials, the durability and speed of which far surpassed any boats from
Europe. They made a class of launches, carrying from 50 to 70 men,
celebrated in the last revolutionary wars. The timber they selected, the
mora tree, is now acknowledged to be the very best for the purpose,
Specimens are iu the Exhibition.
A more primitive canoe is exhibited, also, made of the bark of a tree,
quickly constructed, of extremely light draught, and portable. Its con-
venient use in this last respect carries us back to the days of our most
primitive forefathers, when tiie wicker and skin boat, to be still seen on
the Wye and in Ireland, was easily borne on the shoulders of the adven-
turous waterman when obstacles impeded his navigation, or be wished to
suprise a neighbour at a distant stream.
In this collection, too, we observed the original hammock, which we have
so extensively adopted at sea, and which in France is wisely used in crowded
rooms, from which it can be removed by day to purify the air. It is interest-
ing to know that the Indians make their hammocks of extraordinarily strong
textile materials, new to us, and of excellent cotton. Nor is it less
interesting to learn that the sugar of Guiana, of winch many specimens are
exhibited, has furnished the native people with one comfort from us which
they appreciate. They now grow sugar for domestic use; and the cane
f cultivate is universally of the kind introduced by us from the Ereneh.
Cook found it in the South Seas. Bougainville .
thence, by way of the French West India Isli
about seventy years, over the civilised and aboriginal Western World
These Aborigines, then, can adopt our improvements. They possess,
also, the elements of the potter's art, which usually denotes a decided
advance from savage life. The mere savage is content with what nature
has provided to put liquids in—a sea-shell, a gourd, a part of an egg. The
Indian of Guiana manufactures his buck-uots of clay ; a specimen oY which
is exhibited. In a new edition of M.arrvat's beautiful" I listory ol'Porcelain,"
' the catalogue oi such utensil,:, from (hose of !v.;vpt to those of Peru, should
be enriched from well-authenticated examples such as these among
Aborigines.
Iu some instances the Aborigines arc proved to have completely adopted
our usages. From Nova Scotia samples of wheat grown by Indians are
sent of the same respectable weight (G-L lb. 11 oa. to the bushel) as our
own farmers' wheat. The Sioux saddle and huuter's belt, wrought by an
cd it to Mauritius; and
copt
naiden, sent by a citizen of tho United States, is entitled to bo
:d a work of'-honest housewifery," quite as much as tho carpet
lur cur "ivj.m,, <.)■•„Ti; ],y tin- :>0lJ English women. So the New
chief, Tao Nuij who sends his contributions through his London
, Gillmon, surely has ceased to bo an uncivilised man, Those
, thoroughly Aboriginal 'specimens of New
>ark-,flax and flax manufactures." Tho same
a favour of the capacity of the North American
" a tho model of the house of tho once wild
Zealand woods, gums, a
conclusions may he dra'
Indian to adopt our usu..
Carlo, the cannibal of Columbus, witli every household convenience most
minutely represented. The easy chair, the wax tapercs, the neat table, tho
tinder-box, the old man's modern bod, as well as the aboriginal hammock,
various musical instruments, various cooking utensils, the sugar-press,
cassava-pot. the grind-stone, the neat mat, even the grog-can and a hundred
other articles arc there, to show the profusion of comforts which civilisation
produces. And yet this is the race, thus making progress under a little
protection, to which we often refuse common justice, and then we wonder
that they floe to the bush. This little Indian picture of civilised barbarism
is a lesson that should in: perpetuated by such a simple work being, by and
by, deposited in the British Museum, after tiie Exhibition is broken up.
The models of Guiana native dwellings, also, are very interesting, as
furnishing, in the abundance of their domestic comforts, some guarantee
for their permanence in one place, so that they have clearly arrived at a
condition beyond that of nomadic life. Other South American models are
exhibited; for instance, there is one of a native raft in the Brazil depart
merit, although none, as far as we could find, of the far more curious flying
bridges which span the awful abysses of the mountains. Mexico and New
Grenada, Chili and Peru, are no longer subject to civil disturbance so con-
tinually, whatever may be the case with Centra] America, but that their
engineering wonders of that character, from very old times, might have
been produced with advantage.
Western Africa offers articles so various in kind, so abundant, and so
valuable in commerce, that, when compared with the barbarism of the
people, they irresistibly compel the admission, that trade alone docs not
solve the problem how men are to be civilised. These Africans, in parti-
cular, arc most active merchants; and they have one usage which should
strongly recommend them, as it furnishes a proof of their respect for honest
dealing. If a bale of goods is not found at its place of destination to answer
the sample, it may be returned to the broker, who is bound to get compen-
sation from the original seller for the purchaser. The specimens of cotton,,
both raw and manufactured, from this region, are numerous. The plant
grows everywhere; and if our best sort shall be found worth substituting
for the native varieties, the habits of the people are prepared for its adoption.
The pottery works are very various, although, calabashes, or vegetable
vessels, are common. Dves and medicines are-abundant: and it is to be
noted with regret, that poisons are familiar to the natives for the worst
purposes. One article of export collected by the rudest people of West
Africa is of great value, and it has an interesting history. This is palm oil,
the import of which has increased since the abolition of the slave-trade,
from a small amount, to more than 20,000 tons a year, worth more than
GD0,000Z. This new African trade in a legitimate commodity is interesting,
as a proof of the correctness of judgment in one of the earlier friends of
Negro emancipation, whose very name has been forgotten in the long
catalogue of the friends of that cause. Mr. Thomas Bentlcy, of Liverpool,
a predecessor of Sharp, and Clarkson. and Wilberlbree, was sagacious enough
to perceive, and bold enough to maintain, when a merchant in that slave-
trading port, that some articles existed in Africa more suited to the con-
science and commerce of Englishmen than Negroes. He told his fellow-
townsmen that they should send their ships, not for slaves, but for palm .
oil; and now it is for Mr. Thomas Beutlev's palm oil that the very fleets
are sent, which, but for the efforts of such men as ho, would still be groan-
ing with human victims. This good man became, the partisan of YVedgewood,
iu the famous potteries, to the beauty of which his excellent taste secured
tflcir most successful character.
From Western Africa have also been sent the small leathern bottles of
dye for the eyelids, wddch along with other like usages have been cited to
prove the assimilation of the Negroes with ancient Egypt. The real
aboriginal products of both regions are well worth comparing together, in
order to illustrate; the question.
Egypt, Tnnh, and Alijh "*.—But the superior condition of modern Egypt,
in p'o'int of progress, has led its exhibitors to confine their contributions too
much to the results of civilised industry. Indeed, not only Egypt, but
Tunis and Algiers, to judge from products thence on this occasion, must be
excepted from the class of barbarous states, more absolutely than it is to be
feared is consistent with the real conditions of a large portion of their
people. Their contributions are chielly showy silks and, woollens; but, f.B
is I,.■■rayed in the case of some articles from Algiers, to which the prices
are fixed, their dearness really detracts much from their value, paradoxical
as this remark mav seem. In truth, a barbarous method of manufacture
renders cheapi
quality. These examples sli.
Commissioners to let prices
In one Tunisian article,
abundantly demonstrated,
it is, and by its lowuess easi
waves of the desert, Its ca:
but it-marks the nomado ni:
impr.
impossible, without in the slightest degi
impl.es show how indiscreet hasTbeou the refusal of the
b articles exhibited.
1 the c
of i
duration, ;
___j Arab's tent.
iltered from the wind, and even the sand-
hair roof, too, is doubtless water-tight,
nd beyond all doubt the people whose
^ceiv^
actly in proportion as the
ited and well instructed h
ire they, and the more dis
coincide happily with our duties os men. if
native collectors of nature's stores are well tr
the best ways of civilisation, the more expert
posed to be vigilant and honest in their work.
British Guiana.__The survey O.f j\boric;uial products m (lie Exhibition
niav be conveniently ln-mm with British Guiana, as the collections from
this colonv are remarkably complete, and it is a country admirably
described bv Sir Kohort .U.'Sohomburgk. one of the most accomplished of
modern travellers. It is a portion of South .America on the Atlantic, in
latitude t> decrees north of the equator, and contains i$\- millions of acres
of land. The staple produce is sugar, rum, and coffee, with some cotton.
Other produce of less value are its plaintains, and various esculents, with
timber and oilier articles approved by the experience of the Aborigines.
The chief food of the natives, the cassava bread, is to bo seen here,-
which it is seriously proposed to export to England, as being superior to
tiie potato in nutritious quality, and so much more abundant than any
meal known, that a profit of £50 per aero may be gained by its culture.
The graters used by the natives in preparing the cassava meal from the
root are of the manufacture of particular tribes, fin nous for this business,
as others arc especially famous for the manufacture of hammocks—the
materials probably in both cases being abundant in their countries, as
Manchester owes "its ancient celebrity to the streams and coals of its
neighbourhood.
The cassava bread is made in an elastic tube, called the metofp&e, a
very ingenious contrivance of the Indians, says Sir E. Schomburgk, to
press the juice from the root, which is one of the most violent poisons
before being pressed. After die root is scraped it is pressed in this tube
plaited of the stems of the calathea. A pole in the tube is -used as a
powerful lever, and weighed down by two persons sitting on it. The juice
escapes through the plaited work; and the dried meal is baked in a pan iu
a few minutes. A specimen of the macliiue, as well fls of the bread, is hi
' the Exhibition.
Another new article of food was also exhibited—the plaintain meal—which
the Indians use; and our settlers calculate it may be made to produce a
gross return of £112 per acre I "Well may Europeans be surprised, as
Humboldt says they are, upon arriving within the tropics, at seeing the
small space of ground that keeps an Indian family.
The juice of the cow-tree, sometimes used as a substitute for milk, is
perhaps more valuable as one of the numerous materials for India-rubber.
The physic mit in common use by the natives is one of the hundred
vegetable medicines of the American forests, well worth further study.
There is also, a species of Jesuits' bark, of far greater importance, con-
sidering its dearness almost prohibits its proper amplication in our hospitals;
and this, also, is well known by the Indians.
But the most valuable articles exhibited from Guiana are the woods
originally made known to us by native experience. For ship-building,
they are certainly superior to oak and teak; and the bright colours of the
specimens strongly recommend them for furniture. Iu regard to ship-
building, it is a curious fact, attested by Sir II. Schomburgk, tiiat one tribe
ill particular, the WarrauSj have been famous builders of canoes and
corrials, the durability and speed of which far surpassed any boats from
Europe. They made a class of launches, carrying from 50 to 70 men,
celebrated in the last revolutionary wars. The timber they selected, the
mora tree, is now acknowledged to be the very best for the purpose,
Specimens are iu the Exhibition.
A more primitive canoe is exhibited, also, made of the bark of a tree,
quickly constructed, of extremely light draught, and portable. Its con-
venient use in this last respect carries us back to the days of our most
primitive forefathers, when tiie wicker and skin boat, to be still seen on
the Wye and in Ireland, was easily borne on the shoulders of the adven-
turous waterman when obstacles impeded his navigation, or be wished to
suprise a neighbour at a distant stream.
In this collection, too, we observed the original hammock, which we have
so extensively adopted at sea, and which in France is wisely used in crowded
rooms, from which it can be removed by day to purify the air. It is interest-
ing to know that the Indians make their hammocks of extraordinarily strong
textile materials, new to us, and of excellent cotton. Nor is it less
interesting to learn that the sugar of Guiana, of winch many specimens are
exhibited, has furnished the native people with one comfort from us which
they appreciate. They now grow sugar for domestic use; and the cane
f cultivate is universally of the kind introduced by us from the Ereneh.
Cook found it in the South Seas. Bougainville .
thence, by way of the French West India Isli
about seventy years, over the civilised and aboriginal Western World
These Aborigines, then, can adopt our improvements. They possess,
also, the elements of the potter's art, which usually denotes a decided
advance from savage life. The mere savage is content with what nature
has provided to put liquids in—a sea-shell, a gourd, a part of an egg. The
Indian of Guiana manufactures his buck-uots of clay ; a specimen oY which
is exhibited. In a new edition of M.arrvat's beautiful" I listory ol'Porcelain,"
' the catalogue oi such utensil,:, from (hose of !v.;vpt to those of Peru, should
be enriched from well-authenticated examples such as these among
Aborigines.
Iu some instances the Aborigines arc proved to have completely adopted
our usages. From Nova Scotia samples of wheat grown by Indians are
sent of the same respectable weight (G-L lb. 11 oa. to the bushel) as our
own farmers' wheat. The Sioux saddle and huuter's belt, wrought by an
cd it to Mauritius; and
copt
naiden, sent by a citizen of tho United States, is entitled to bo
:d a work of'-honest housewifery," quite as much as tho carpet
lur cur "ivj.m,, <.)■•„Ti; ],y tin- :>0lJ English women. So the New
chief, Tao Nuij who sends his contributions through his London
, Gillmon, surely has ceased to bo an uncivilised man, Those
, thoroughly Aboriginal 'specimens of New
>ark-,flax and flax manufactures." Tho same
a favour of the capacity of the North American
" a tho model of the house of tho once wild
Zealand woods, gums, a
conclusions may he dra'
Indian to adopt our usu..
Carlo, the cannibal of Columbus, witli every household convenience most
minutely represented. The easy chair, the wax tapercs, the neat table, tho
tinder-box, the old man's modern bod, as well as the aboriginal hammock,
various musical instruments, various cooking utensils, the sugar-press,
cassava-pot. the grind-stone, the neat mat, even the grog-can and a hundred
other articles arc there, to show the profusion of comforts which civilisation
produces. And yet this is the race, thus making progress under a little
protection, to which we often refuse common justice, and then we wonder
that they floe to the bush. This little Indian picture of civilised barbarism
is a lesson that should in: perpetuated by such a simple work being, by and
by, deposited in the British Museum, after tiie Exhibition is broken up.
The models of Guiana native dwellings, also, are very interesting, as
furnishing, in the abundance of their domestic comforts, some guarantee
for their permanence in one place, so that they have clearly arrived at a
condition beyond that of nomadic life. Other South American models are
exhibited; for instance, there is one of a native raft in the Brazil depart
merit, although none, as far as we could find, of the far more curious flying
bridges which span the awful abysses of the mountains. Mexico and New
Grenada, Chili and Peru, are no longer subject to civil disturbance so con-
tinually, whatever may be the case with Centra] America, but that their
engineering wonders of that character, from very old times, might have
been produced with advantage.
Western Africa offers articles so various in kind, so abundant, and so
valuable in commerce, that, when compared with the barbarism of the
people, they irresistibly compel the admission, that trade alone docs not
solve the problem how men are to be civilised. These Africans, in parti-
cular, arc most active merchants; and they have one usage which should
strongly recommend them, as it furnishes a proof of their respect for honest
dealing. If a bale of goods is not found at its place of destination to answer
the sample, it may be returned to the broker, who is bound to get compen-
sation from the original seller for the purchaser. The specimens of cotton,,
both raw and manufactured, from this region, are numerous. The plant
grows everywhere; and if our best sort shall be found worth substituting
for the native varieties, the habits of the people are prepared for its adoption.
The pottery works are very various, although, calabashes, or vegetable
vessels, are common. Dves and medicines are-abundant: and it is to be
noted with regret, that poisons are familiar to the natives for the worst
purposes. One article of export collected by the rudest people of West
Africa is of great value, and it has an interesting history. This is palm oil,
the import of which has increased since the abolition of the slave-trade,
from a small amount, to more than 20,000 tons a year, worth more than
GD0,000Z. This new African trade in a legitimate commodity is interesting,
as a proof of the correctness of judgment in one of the earlier friends of
Negro emancipation, whose very name has been forgotten in the long
catalogue of the friends of that cause. Mr. Thomas Bentlcy, of Liverpool,
a predecessor of Sharp, and Clarkson. and Wilberlbree, was sagacious enough
to perceive, and bold enough to maintain, when a merchant in that slave-
trading port, that some articles existed in Africa more suited to the con-
science and commerce of Englishmen than Negroes. He told his fellow-
townsmen that they should send their ships, not for slaves, but for palm .
oil; and now it is for Mr. Thomas Beutlev's palm oil that the very fleets
are sent, which, but for the efforts of such men as ho, would still be groan-
ing with human victims. This good man became, the partisan of YVedgewood,
iu the famous potteries, to the beauty of which his excellent taste secured
tflcir most successful character.
From Western Africa have also been sent the small leathern bottles of
dye for the eyelids, wddch along with other like usages have been cited to
prove the assimilation of the Negroes with ancient Egypt. The real
aboriginal products of both regions are well worth comparing together, in
order to illustrate; the question.
Egypt, Tnnh, and Alijh "*.—But the superior condition of modern Egypt,
in p'o'int of progress, has led its exhibitors to confine their contributions too
much to the results of civilised industry. Indeed, not only Egypt, but
Tunis and Algiers, to judge from products thence on this occasion, must be
excepted from the class of barbarous states, more absolutely than it is to be
feared is consistent with the real conditions of a large portion of their
people. Their contributions are chielly showy silks and, woollens; but, f.B
is I,.■■rayed in the case of some articles from Algiers, to which the prices
are fixed, their dearness really detracts much from their value, paradoxical
as this remark mav seem. In truth, a barbarous method of manufacture
renders cheapi
quality. These examples sli.
Commissioners to let prices
In one Tunisian article,
abundantly demonstrated,
it is, and by its lowuess easi
waves of the desert, Its ca:
but it-marks the nomado ni:
impr.
impossible, without in the slightest degi
impl.es show how indiscreet hasTbeou the refusal of the
b articles exhibited.
1 the c
of i
duration, ;
___j Arab's tent.
iltered from the wind, and even the sand-
hair roof, too, is doubtless water-tight,
nd beyond all doubt the people whose