Scholarship & beautiful book plates, 26 Jun 2001
In this scholarly work, the minutiae of map and territory disputes defining British Guiana are exhaustively examined via the extant literature of the principal explorers. These date from questionable maps created under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh to Schomburgk and Humboldts' perambulations in the nineteenth century. Discovery of an El Dorado was the lure drawing the Dutch, French, Spanish, English and North Americans to dispute and fight for territorial claims over the intervening centuries. The reality of colonisation was a mudbank stretching interminably into dense tropical swamplands, dangerous jungle and a habitat to native tribes unpredictable in their alliances.

Graham Burnett also explains the many myths, the proving of which or otherwise, preoccupied all explorers. He gives a detailed analysis of those pertaining to the anticipated inland sea, the Mahanarva Empire and El Dorado. The contemporary problem of equating an unknown terra incognita recognised as an historical source with the living actuality of the terrain is discussed. Inaccuracy of early maps exacerbated the difficulties whilst a parallel concern was to find land suitable for cash crop cultivation for Britain who ultimately succeeded in adding the colony to a burgeoning Empire. Botanical specimens assisted in defraying the cost of expeditions.

The explorers drew on whatever resources were available to them in the attempt to produce a definitive, accurate map of Guiana. This included co-opting the navy to navigate the many rivers flowing through the Orinoco Delta and calibrating this data to their own observations. The survival skills involved plus polymorphous scientific techniques are redolent of renaissance man traversing the wilderness. Astonishing in the modern era of specialisation.

The illustrations included, particularly the maps dating from the period, are apt and vividly evocative both in place and artistic style and are deservedly collector's items.