that the intending emigrant has clear
and definite ideas on the subject of his
promised land. Where it is, what it is like,
and what are its capabilities, subjects of
the highest importance to him, are, nevertheless,
subjects on which many emigrants
have the haziest ideas. No doubt the
advantages and disadvantages of Canada, New
Zealand, Australia, the United States, and
other such beaten tracks for the adventurous,
are well enough known, even in the dullest
and remotest districts of this country.
Trustworthy information concerning them
can be readily obtained, and there is not
much fear of even the most ignorant going
very far wrong. It is when the beaten
tracks are left, that the danger begins.
The less known the country, the more
magnificent are the promises of the agent.
The more florid the descriptions of the
agent, the more eager is the ignorant
victim to swallow the bait. Dazzled by
the brilliant promises of the fluent salesman,
the unfortunate emigrant invests his
little all in an eligible lot, and too often
finds too late, that his Eden is a fool's
paradise. When once the money is got,
and the victim is packed off, his future fate
is usually a matter of supreme indifference
to the Mr. Scadder who has robbed him.
That astute personage well knows that
whatever may happen to his man in the
wilderness to which he has been sent, he is,
at all events, pretty certain never to get
home again and demand his money back.
Thus Scadder lives and prospers, and, as
the race of the credulous and ignorant
never ceases out of the land, fresh dupes
succeed and the emigration agency never
lacks clients.

These assertions may be illustrated by a
little story of certain South American
emigrants of quite recent date.

The edifying history has just been
communicated to our parliament, through the
medium of a despatch addressed by the
Hon. A. H. Gordon, Governor of Trinidad,
to Earl Granville. It seems that in the
month of February, 1868, a company,
bearing the grandiloquent title of the "American,
English, and Venezuelan Trading and
Commercial Company," was incorporated
according to the forms of law, in the city of
Richmond, in Virginia, in the United States.
The company was described as being based
upon a grant of land made by the
Venezuelan government to Dr. Henry M. Price
and associates, September 13th, 1865, and
its objects were declared to be the
establishment of certain lines of steamers
between New Orleans and the ports on the
Orinoco river in Venezuela. Trade,
commerce, and the carrying of passengers and
freight, were announced as its chief
business. A board of directors, all resident in
the United States—with the exception of
one gentleman, Mr. J. Frederick Pattison,
described as of America-square, in the city
of London, England—was appointed to
manage affairs. The capital was fixed at
two millions of dollars, and the company,
without loss of time, proceeded to business.
It would appear that the point which first
attracted the attention of the directors was
not so much the establishment of the line
of steamers, and the attainment of the
other more immediately specified objects of
the association, as the development of the
territory ceded by the Venezuelan government
to Dr. Price. Two hundred and forty
thousand square miles (the extent of the
little piece of ground in question), is a
good property for a company with a capital
of two millions of dollars, especially when
the land is very thinly populated. It is
only natural that the directors should
have felt anxious to promote emigration to
Venezuela, and to establish on their
domain colonies of industrious agriculturists,
miners, and planters, whose payments for
land would increase the resources of the
company, and whose exports and imports
would, in the fulness of time, keep the
line of steamers and the other branches
of the company's business in constant and
lucrative work. The method by which the
managers sought to attain the desired end
is to be gathered from an interesting little
volume, published in London, under the
auspices of Mr. James Frederick Pattison
—not of America, but, the next thing to it,
of America-square—"director-general in
Europe of the company." This literary
treasure is called, the Emigrant's Vade
Mecum, or Guide to the Price Grant in
Venezuelan Guyana.

It appears from this work, which is quoted
in Mr. Gordon's despatch, and is now before
us, that of all places in the world for the
emigrant, Venezuelan Guyana is the very
best; and, further, that in the whole of
Venezuela there is not such another eligible
situation as Dr. Price's grant. Watered
not only by the mighty Orinoco, but by
such minor though still splendid streams
as the Caroni and the Caura; rich, to a
fault almost, in the luxuriance of its
produce, it is glowingly described.
Everything grows in Venezuela. Cotton, sugar,
coffee, cocoa, rice, tapioca, sago, corn,