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Just above Wismar the Demerara Bauxite Company has begun mining operations, and it is very interesting to visit the Company’s settlements at Fair’s Rust and Akyma. Fair’s Rust is a mile above Wismar and can be reached by ocean-going steamers, but the principal bauxite mines, or rather quarries, are twelve miles farther up, where the low hills consist of almost solid pink-coloured ore, once the overburden has been removed. The Company pays great attention to the health of its employés: good houses are built; bush is cleared away, and drainage and sanitation carefully contrived.

The Demerara River: View from Three Friends’ Mine across to Akyma.

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A very pleasant way of accomplishing the journey to Wismar is to travel as a guest of the Company in one of its comfortable motor-boats, starting from Georgetown at about tea-time and following the silvery pathway of the river, aglow in the setting sun; to anchor in the starlight and sleep in the grateful coolness and velvet silence of the river night; to get under way again in the dawn, and to reach the settlement at Akyma before the full heat of the day. Especially is this delightful when such a journey is but the first stage on towards all the glories of mountain and river which lie awaiting those who venture to explore the wonders of an unknown land.