General Description of Guiana—of the Colony of Surinam in particular—Accounts of its earliest Discovery—is possessed by the English—by the Dutch—Murder of the Governor, Lord Somelsdyk—The Settlement taken by the French, and ransomed. The discovery of Guiana, by some called “the Wild Coast,” has been long (though with uncertainty) attributed to the Spanish commander Vasco Nunes, who, in the year 1504, after discovering Cuba to be an island, landed on the continent of South America, penetrated as far as between the rivers Oroonoko and Amazon, and comprehended that country in the extensive tract of land, to which, in contradiction to Cuba and the adjacent islands, he gave the name of Terra Firma. This country, the length of which is about 1220, and the breadth about 680 geographical miles, is situated between eight degrees twenty minutes north, and three degrees south latitude, and between fifty and seventy degrees twenty minutes west longitude from the meridian of London, in the N. E. part of South America. Its boundaries are marked by the rivers Viapary or Oroonoko on the N. W. and by the Maranon or river Amazon on the S. E.—The N. E. is washed by the Atlantic Ocean; and the river Negris, or Black river, terminates its extent on the S. W. which form it into a kind of island, and separate it from New Grenada, Peru, and the Brazils. Though situated, like Guinea, under the Torrid Zone, the heats in Guiana are much more supportable than those on that part of the African coast. The scorching rays of the sun are in Guiana daily tempered by cooling breezes from the sea; while in Guinea the intense heat is increased by the wind blowing continually over the land, and in its passage traversing numerous sandy desarts. The easterly or trade winds, which generally blow between the Tropics, are extremely refreshing to the coast of Guiana, between the hours of eight or ten in the morning, and six o’clock in the evening, when they cease to operate, and a zephyr is scarcely ever heard to whisper during the night. These winds are succeeded by thick fogs, and vapours exhaled from the earth, which render the nights in this country not only very chilly, but extremely damp and unhealthy. The length of the days and nights in Guiana never varies much more than forty minutes during the course of the year, as the sun always rises about six in the morning, and sets at the same hour in the evening.