7-W--J^^^mm^ 
 
 
EANCROFT LIBRARY 
 
DUTCH GUIANA 
 
 AUTHOR OP ' A tear's JOURNEr THROOGn CENTRAL AND EASTERN ARABIA 
 
 " It was a chosen plott of fertile land, — 
 As if it had by Nature's cunning liand 
 Been choycely picked out from all the rest 
 And laid forth for ensample of the best " Spenser 
 
 "It would be ioterf sting to know the secret of Dutch colonial management, which 
 presents to an outside obEerver the aspect of minding one's own business, and inducing 
 other people to mind theirs " Saturday Review 
 
 " Go to Egypt. It will suit you. I look upon you as an Oriental. If you like, go to 
 South America. Tropical scenery will astonish and cure you " Disraeli 
 
 WITH PLAN AND MAP. 
 
 'Ronton 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1876 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
 ^ - io01)^'<lgS' 
 
l.fHieitudK .3P West of Greenwich 
 
 Slatifordi. Cejia^ Estah- 55 Ck/xr;/U3 Cross. 
 
DUTCH GUIANA 
 
 AUTHOR OP ' A teak's JOURNEI TaRODGH CENTRAt, AND EASTERN ARABIA 
 
 " It was a chosen plott of fertile land, — 
 As if it had by Nature's cunning hand 
 Been choycely picked out from all the rest 
 And laid forth for ensample of the best " Spenser 
 
 "It would be interesting to know the secret of Dutch colonial management, which 
 presents to an outside observer the aspect of minding one's own business, and inducing 
 other people to mind theirs " Sa'urday Review 
 
 " Go to Egypt. It will suit you. I look upon you as an Oriental. If you like, go to 
 South America. Tropical scenery wiU astonish and cure you " Disraeli 
 
 WITH PLAN AND MAP. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 187G 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
 ^ - 1001)^' <LdS' 
 
,^5 
 
BpBcroh Libtaty 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 During my residence in the West Indies, the 
 hospitable instances of my friend, Mr. A. Cohen, 
 at present Her Majesty's Consul for Surinam, 
 seconded by a courteous invitation from his 
 Excellency C. A. van Sypesteyn, Governor of 
 that colony, determined me to pay a visit to 
 Dutch Guiana. My stay there was, of necessity, 
 a short one, not exceeding a fortnight, but during 
 that period the forethought of my amiable hosts 
 had prepared, and put at my disposal, all avail- 
 able means of collecting trustworthy information, 
 both ocular and documentary, regarding tlie con- 
 dition of the people and the country. To the 
 kindness of those friends, accordingly, this work 
 owes any interest or value it may possess. 
 
 Some inaccui'acies, or, at least, some dis23utable 
 points, may occur in the historical notices 
 scattered through these pages. In the remote 
 station of my present service, I have at hand no 
 means for comparative investigation of the records 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 of tlie Guiana past ; and am -compelled, accord- 
 ingly, to throw myself for such matters on the 
 indulgence of my readers, by whom, if better 
 informed, I shall be thankful to be corrected. 
 
 Conversant for many years with the negro races 
 in those Eastern lands where they may be, from 
 long domicilement, regarded as almost indigenous, 
 I have felt a special interest in observing their 
 present condition and prol^able future in their 
 Western regions of more recent adoption. In no 
 European colony have they been so completely 
 identified with the soil as in Dutch Guiana ; no- 
 where could they be studied to better advantage. 
 To those, therefore, who feel interest, not in 
 African geography only, but in African nationality, 
 I commend the results of my observations on this 
 subject; they are grounded on experience, and 
 ratified by fact-. 
 
 The Biblical paradise, judging by the records 
 
 that have come down to us, though not, on the 
 
 whole, a very progressive, was yet a very pleasant 
 
 place. Much the same may be said of the Creole 
 
 paradise — Dutch Guiana. The gates are open: 
 
 enter. 
 
 St. Thomas, W.L, 
 October 24, 1875. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. The Coast 1 
 
 11. The Capital 32 
 
 HI. The River 71 
 
 IV. COTTIOA 108 
 
 V. Bush Negroes 139 
 
 VI. MUNNICKENDAM 174 
 
 VII. The Colony '22-2 
 
 MAPS. 
 Map Of Dutch Guiana (Surinam) 
 Plan of Paramaribo, Capital of Surinam. 
 
Bancroft Libraiy 
 
DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE COAST. 
 
 Then creeping carefully along the beach, 
 The moutli of a green river did they reach, 
 Clearing the sands, and on the yellow bar 
 The salt waves and the fresh waves were at war. 
 
 MOKRIS. 
 
 Every one avIio has read — and who has not ? — the 
 incomparable story of 'Guy Mannering' knows 
 that the predetermining thread, of our exist- 
 ence, whether spun ]3y Meg Merrilies or a Clotho, 
 is, like the life it measures, a many-coloured 
 twine of differing hues. My own particular 
 Clotho, whoever she be, had. kindly unreeled for 
 me a fortnight's length, or nearly so, of the very 
 whitest hank ever allotted to mortal, in a region 
 not incorrectly styled by Mr. Anthony Trollopo, 
 in his West-Indian reminiscences, the " true and 
 
 B 
 
DUTCH GUIANA, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE COxiST. 
 
 Then creeping cai-efiilly along the beach, 
 
 The mouth of a green river did they reach, 
 
 Clearing the sands, and on the yelloAV bar 
 
 The salt waves and the fresh waves were at war. 
 
 Morris. 
 
 Eyi:RY one wlio has read — and who has not ? — the 
 incomparable story of 'Gu}^ Mannering' knows 
 that the predetermining thread of our exist- 
 ence, whether spun by Meg Merrilies or a Clotho, 
 is, like the life it measures, a many-coloured 
 twine of differing hues. My own particular 
 Clotho, whoever she be, had kindly unreeled for 
 ]ne a fortnight's length, or nearly so, of the very 
 whitest hank ever allotted to mortal, in a region 
 not incorrectly styled by Mr. Anthony Trollope, 
 in his AYest-Indian reminiscences, the " true and 
 
 B 
 
2 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 a(;tual Utopia of tlic Caribbean Seas, namely, 
 Britisli Guiana" — a rco-ion additionally blessed, 
 at the time of my visit, with that almost Utopian 
 piece of colonial good fortmie, the right man in 
 the right place, in the person of its present 
 Governor. 
 
 But with British Guiana and the good things 
 tlioreof ni)- present tale has, except in the Avay 
 of introduction, little to do. George Town and 
 Berbice, sugar-estates and canals, coolies and 
 vacuum-pans, hospitable planters and not less 
 hospitable townsmen, are they not Avritten, and 
 well written too, in the book above alluded to — 
 the ' Book of the West Indies and the Spanish 
 Main' ? At any rate I was soon in some manner 
 acquainted, however superficially, with all these ; 
 and now my principal desire was to acquire some 
 knowledge of the neighbouring cousin-colony, if 
 '' mother" be not the fitter title — Dutch Guiana. 
 
 " 'Tis known, at least it should be," that Suri- 
 nam, geographically indicated by the easterly slice 
 of Guiana placed between our own South American 
 possessions, on the one side, and French Cayenne 
 on the other, is up to the present day under Dutch 
 rule; while Demerara, or, to speak more correctly," 
 
THE COAST. 3 
 
 the broad British territoi-y that indudes in one the 
 tliree proyinco!^ of Berbico, Demerara, and Esse- 
 qnibo, was, till a comparatively recent period, 
 Dutch also. No^y, I had often heard it affirmed 
 that the immense superstructure of prosperity 
 raised by British energy on the shores of Deme- 
 rara owed its oft-tried solidity, if not in whole, 
 at least in no inconsiderable part, to the well- 
 devised foundation-work bequeathed us as a 
 parting legacy by our Batavian predecessors. 
 Our form of administration is Dutch (so snid 
 my informants), our local institutions Dutch, our 
 sea-walls are Dutch, our canals, our sluices, the 
 entire system of irrigation and drainage from 
 which the land derives its unparalleled fertility, 
 and we our wealth, all arc Dutch. We have made 
 English use of these things, no doubt, and the 
 merit of that use is ours; but the merit of the 
 things themselves is not all our own, it belongs 
 rather to those who first created them and gave 
 them to the land. 
 
 How far might this l)e true ? Colonial success 
 amid the many failures recorded, and yet re- 
 cording in these very regions, must be, every 
 one will admit, a phenomenon, the som-cos of 
 
 B 2 
 
4 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 whicli would ] )C well worth discovery ; and here 
 before me was an instance ready to hand, and a 
 cause assigned. Why not investigate its correct- 
 ness? There was time at disposal, and from 
 George Town to Paramaribo is no great dis- 
 tance. Besides, I had already received assu- 
 rance of a hearty welcome from his Excellency 
 Van Sypesteyn, the representative of Dutch 
 majesty in Surinam; and an invitation of the 
 sort, when combined with that chief est of all 
 factors in life's calculations, juxtaposition, made 
 tlie present occasion doubly favourable ; so I 
 readily determined to follow up my Demeraran 
 visit by another to a region which, while in 
 natural respects hardly differing for good or evil 
 from British Guiana, had all along remained 
 under Batavian mastership, and where, conse- 
 quently, the original institutions of our own 
 acquired colony might be conveniently studied, 
 unmodified, or nearly so, by foreign influences 
 and change of rule. 
 
 From George Town, eastward, an excellent 
 carriage road runs parallel to the coast, though 
 at some distance from it inland ; tlie drive is a 
 pleasant one, traversing a varied succession of 
 
THE COAST. 5 
 
 large estates and populous villages, interrupted 
 here and there by patches of marsh and wood, 
 till the journey ends on the western bank of a 
 full-flowing river, the Berbice, beyond which lies 
 the small town of tlie same name, not far from 
 the Anglo'Batavian frontier. Here official kind- 
 ness had arranged for my further progress, by 
 putting at ni}-- disposal the trim little revenue 
 schooner, Gazelle, that now lay at anchor off the 
 lower to-^m-wharf, waiting to take me for a cruise 
 of a hundred and fifty miles — such being the dis- 
 tance interposed betAveen the harbour of Berbice 
 and the mouth of the Surinam river, where rises 
 the capital of Dutch Guiana. 
 
 A sailing craft, however small, if in good trim, 
 clean, possessed of a comfortable cabin, and 
 under a steady beam wind, all which advantages 
 were combined in the present instance, is a wel- 
 come change from the inevitable smoke, crowd- 
 ing, noise, oily smell, and ceaseless roll of the 
 largest and finest steamer ever propelled by 
 engine. Besides, the circumstances incident to a 
 thirty or forty ton sailing-ship tend to create a 
 friendlier fellow-feeling between passenger and 
 crew than is ordinarily to be met with on her 
 
b DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 more lju«iness-like rival of three or four thousand 
 tons; just as a traveller often finds himself more 
 at home in the modest parlour of a roadside inn 
 than amid the splendour and hustle of Charing 
 Cross Hotel or the giant structure of Portland 
 I^lace. To sum up, the losses no less than the gains 
 of steam for those who travel are, after the fashion 
 of things, much the same by water as by land. 
 In the present instance, the crew of the Gazelle 
 was, to a man, composed of creole, that is, 
 colonial-born negroes; indeed, the pilot's me- 
 mory reached back to the time when the terms 
 negro and slave were identical in his own 
 person, as in the majority of his Guiana brethren. 
 Civil, cheerful, and obliging as the descendants 
 of Ham, despite of their ill-conditioned father's 
 bad example, usually are, they were also —which, 
 for a voyage like this, amid sand-banks and 
 shoals, was of more importance — good seamen, 
 and the captain in charge a good navigator, 
 though a black one. 
 
 "I would rather by any amount have a black 
 crew than a white one under m}^ orders," is a 
 remark which I have heard made by many and 
 many a West Indian sea-captain, lamenting over 
 
THE COAST. i 
 
 tlic iiisiibordiiiiitiou, driiiikoiincs.s, iiud utlier 
 offences of his men. And in fact negroes, like 
 their half-cousins, the Arabs, liave naturally in 
 themselves the making of excellent seamen, 
 active, handy, and daring, besides being far more 
 amenable to the restraints of discipline, and less 
 so to tlie seductions of the brandy or rum bottle, 
 than the average material of which white crews 
 are, nowadays, formed. And should our own 
 strangely scattered and disunited West Indian 
 possessions ever realize among themselves the 
 ideal '' cluster of small states," the not unreason- 
 able hope of other statesmen besides the romantic 
 descendant of the Contarinis, such a confederacy 
 might even more easily recruit her indispensable 
 navy, than her less necessary standing army, from 
 among the black Creoles of her own islands and 
 coasts. 
 
 A brisk wdnd was blowing, and the white 
 cloud-drift scudding before the Atlantic trade- 
 wind over the pale blue vault had in it something 
 more akin to a Mediterranean than to a tropical 
 sky, as we weighed anchor, and, taking advantage 
 of the seaward ebb, cleared out of the narrow 
 channel alongside of the low, busli grown shoal 
 
8 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 that lies atliwart tlie Bcrbicc inouthj and bears, 
 in common witli countless other small islets and 
 rocks of these latitudes, the name of Cr^-b Island. 
 The crab here in question is not the dainty crus- 
 tacean of our seas, but tlie hideous land-crab 
 known to the students of 'Roderick Random' 
 and ' Tom Crino-le ' — a manster that mav be 
 eaten by such, and such only, as are stomach- 
 proof against the unpleasant associations of burial- 
 grounds and carrion. Soon tlie tall, formal, semi- 
 Batavian houses of Berbice, and its yet taller 
 market-tower or look-out (for CA^ery town here- 
 abouts has within its circuit one of these, at least, 
 to serve for a beacon to the seafarer, and a 
 watch-place, whence notice can be given in case 
 of fire or any other sudden danger tlireatening 
 the townsmen themselves), had disapjoeared from 
 our view behind river-bend and forest^ and b}^ 
 noon we were afloat on the open sea. 
 
 The open but '' not the blue," much less the 
 typical " black water," of the deep Atlantic. 
 From the Orinoco to the Amazon, tlie aqueous 
 fringe of the South American coast is a shallow, 
 muddy, brackish, oclirey sort of composition, 
 which overspreads an almost imperceptible 
 
THE C0A8T. 9 
 
 downward slope of alluvial deposit, that reaches 
 out seaward for ten, fifteen, t^vent3^, or even more 
 miles, and bears witness to the prodigious volumes 
 of water poured miceasingly, with little difference 
 of month or season, by the countless rivers of the 
 great southern continent into the ocean beyond. 
 As we slowly made our way up along the coast, 
 tacking and retacking against the unvarying 
 trade-breeze, broad gaps in the monotonous line 
 of low brown forest, the shore-horizon on our left, 
 successively indicated the mouth of one or other 
 of these great streams, many among Avhich, nor 
 those by any means the largest, equal or exceed 
 the Severn and the Garonne in length of course 
 and copiousness of flow. Of the latter in par- 
 ticular a further intimation was given Ijy the toss- 
 ing of our shij) where the strong river-current, 
 felt far out to sea, crossed and thwarted the 
 regular succession of waves as they rolled slowly 
 on from the open Atlantic, and roughened them 
 into whitening breakers. 
 
 From the outlet of the Corentyn, that acts as 
 boundary between British and Dutch Gruiaua, to 
 the mouth of the Surinam river itself, hardly 
 anything beside these wide gaj)s in the forest 
 
10 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 margin, imd the corresponding breaker-patches 
 out at sea, occurs to vary the monotony of yellow 
 waves and level forest-line, that by its utter same- 
 ness wearies the eye and depresses the spirits of 
 the voyager. 
 
 "What a contrast," may that same voyager 
 not improbably say to himself, " is the Dutch 
 shore to the coast of British Guiana ! " There 
 the view by sea or land is not particularly pic- 
 turesque, to be sure ; but to make up for the Avant 
 of beauty, we have the prospect scarcely less 
 pleasurable to the mind, if not to the eye, of a 
 close succession of tall chimneys, each Avith its 
 flaunting smoke-pennon, along the whole length 
 of the southern horizon, from Berbice to the 
 Pomeroon, or near it, proclaiming an almost con- 
 tinuous cultivation, and the triumphs of the 
 industry that has transformed a " lonely mud- 
 bank, once productive of nothing but alligators, 
 snakes, and mosquitoes," into a thriving, populous, 
 wealth-coining colony. Here, on the contrary, 
 not a chimney, not a construction of any sort, 
 overtops the impenetrable mangrove-growth of 
 the shore. Scarcely, and at distant intervals, does 
 an irregular wreath of l)lue vaj^our, curling above 
 
THE COAST. 11 
 
 tlic forest, tell it« talc of clearing- and habitation ; 
 whence the traveller may, if so minded, deduce 
 the further conclusion of the inferiority of the 
 Batavian race to the British, of Dutch colonization 
 to English, &c. 
 
 But this conclusion, like many others drawn at 
 first sight, would break down on closer inspection 
 of the premises ; and first of all because the two 
 coasts, however much alike each other when seen 
 from five or six miles distance out to sea, are, in 
 reality, very unlike, — so much so, indeed, that 
 neither for praise nor blame can any correct com- 
 parison be made between them. For throughout 
 the whole, or very nearly the Avholc, breadth of 
 British Guiana a wide swamp district, lower itself 
 than the average sea level, and, in consequence, 
 very difficult, if not impossible, to drain, cuts off 
 the available land-strip of the coast itself from the 
 firm but distant highlands of the interior, and by 
 so doing confines the choicest sugar-producing 
 tracts of the colony to the immediate vicinity of 
 the shore, where they are all arranged side by 
 side in a long but narrow strip, hemmed in 
 between the ocean to the north and the almost 
 equally unmanageable morass on the south. lu 
 
12 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Diiteli Cluiaiui, on the contrary, a rise, slight l)ut 
 -sufficient, of tlie continental level has thrust for- 
 ward the swamp-region froni the interior clown to 
 the very shore, where it forms a barrier, behind 
 wliich the sugar lands and estates ensconce them- 
 selves, with no })articular background, until, per- 
 luips, the worthy Brazilians condescend to define 
 their frontier, which, as yet, they seem in no 
 hurry to do, and thus remain, for the most part, 
 out of sight of the seafarer, though not out of 
 easy reach by river communication. 
 
 This invisibility from the sea, and those who 
 go down to their business in the great Avaters, 
 Avas once by no means an adverse circumstance. 
 On the contrary, it was a very desirable one to the 
 old Dutch settlers throughout the seventeenth and 
 even during the eighteentli century. For tliose 
 were days when many a gallant Captain Morgan, 
 Captain Trench, or Captain Cutthroat whoever 
 would hail his men on the look-out, as their pira- 
 tical barque hugged the coast on her Avay to the 
 golden plunder of the Spanish main, ready enough 
 to shorten sail and let down the l)oats, had any 
 tempting indication of lioarded Batavian wealth, 
 whether in produce or in coin, appeared within 
 
THE COAST. 13 
 
 tlio limit.s of a loii(2,-.sliorc raid. But the case was 
 different so long as the dense busli-barrier de- 
 feuded what it conccaledj and the river estuaries, 
 liowever frequent and wide, afforded no 1)etter 
 prospect to the woukl-be plunderers than that of a 
 difficult and perhaps distant navigation up stream, 
 far from their comrades in the ships at sea^ with 
 the additional prol3abilities of meeting with a fort 
 or two on the way to bar their passage. And 
 thus, throughout the Avorst days of piratic menace, 
 the hoards of Dutch Guiana remained, with one 
 exception, to be mentioned hereafter, unpillaged, 
 chiefly l^ecause unseen ; while the more patent 
 treasures of the Frenchman and the Spaniard 
 were harried to enrich the coffers or decorate the 
 Follies and Betsies of those lawless heroes of the 
 Caribbean deeps. 
 
 I said with one exception — a memorable one, 
 from the injury it caused. This was when the 
 more formidable, because the 1)etter organized 
 and better supported, buccaneers, — for buccaneers 
 they also were, both in principle and practice, 
 however much they might screen themselves be- 
 hind royal usage and international law, — Jacques 
 Cassard and I)e Monans, commanders of the 
 
14 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Frencli squadron, issued from tlic all too neigh- 
 bouring ports of Cayenne, to liarrj^ the Batavian 
 settlements within their reach. Had the estates 
 and factories, the warehouses and stores, of the in- 
 land, far up the Surinam, the CommoAveyne, and 
 the Saramacca, been as easy of access to a marine 
 invader as was the town of Paramaribo itself, (the 
 more its misfortune), the losses inflicted on Dutch 
 Guiana by French rapacity in the years 1712, 
 1718, and 1714 would have been multiplied ten 
 and twenty fold. Nor was the British flag, so 
 often a signal of terror and dismay in the Carib- 
 bean Archipelago, always a desirable or a friendly 
 visitant to Dutch shores. 
 
 The age of pirates and buccaneers is j^^^^t, and 
 even from regular naval invasion a West Indian 
 cohmy, under the present circumstances of war- 
 fare, has little to fear. But, independently of the 
 mischief-makers whom of old times it brought on 
 its waves, the sea of this coast is itself a trouble- 
 some and occasionally a dangerous neighbour to 
 the planter and his labours. Whether it is that 
 the north-eastern side of this great continent is, 
 in very truth, slowly sinking, sinking, as runs the 
 ominous verdict of not a few grave, scientific 
 
THE COAST. 15 
 
 judgcSj or whether, as I found it to be the preva- 
 lent ojDinion among the long-shore men them- 
 selves, some secular deflection of winds and 
 currents yearly brings a heavier volume of water 
 to war against the unprotected low-lying land, I 
 know not. But this much is certain, that the sea 
 encroaches more and more, and that every cqui- 
 noxial spring-tide, in particular, is signalled by a 
 mder and more perilous invasion of the watery 
 enemy, and l^ears his usurpations ever farther 
 over forest and plain. 
 
 Whatever the cause, aqueous or terrene, its 
 efl'ects are only too certain ; and a woeful example 
 was soon before our eyes, when, after not many 
 hours' cruise, we anchored off the little town, or, 
 to speak more truly, remnant of a town, called 
 Nikarie. The name is, I believe, like most of the 
 names hereabouts, Indian, the meaning, of course, 
 unknown. The district, which is also denomi- 
 nated Nikarie, lies immediately to the east of the 
 Corentyn river, and is thus the nearest of all to 
 the British territory. It contains at the present 
 day, as official returns tell us, nine estates, com- 
 prising between them 2,832 acres of cultivated soil ; 
 the number was formerly greater, but no portion 
 
l6 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 of tlie colony suffered so niucli from the emancipa- 
 tion crisis, and the other causes of discouragement 
 and depression, from which wealthier and more 
 favoured colonies arc only now heginning to re- 
 cover, and that slowly. 
 
 The estates, mostly cane or cocoa, are all situ- 
 ated at some distance inland up the river, safely 
 sheltered behind the tangled mangrove fringe. 
 Where goods have to be shipped, remoteness from 
 the sea-coast is, of course, an inconvenience ; yet 
 with tl]is the colonists long preferred to put up, 
 rather than deviate from their traditionary rule.- 
 But when, at the opening of the present century, 
 tlie British lion, jealous lest so choice a morsel as 
 Dutch Guiana should fall into the jaws of the 
 ravenous French Republic and still more ravenous 
 Empire, temporarily extended a protective j^^w 
 over these regions, a new order of things pre- 
 vailed for a time, and an unwonted self-confidence 
 took, in more than one instance, the place of 
 prudential caution. Under these novel ausjjices 
 the seemingly eligible site of the Nikarie river- 
 mouth was not likely to be ^^asscd over, and soon 
 a flourishing little town, witli streets, shops, 
 stores, churches, public buildings, and the rest, 
 
THE COAST. 17 
 
 arose and dilated itself on the western point, to 
 tlie great advantage of connnerce, and for a wliilc 
 bravely held its own. 
 
 But wisdom was, before long, justified of her 
 Batavian children, and the failure of the foreign 
 exj)eriment — a woeful failure — is now almost 
 complete. It was afternoon when we made the 
 port. As we cautiously threaded our way between 
 sandbank and shoal before coming to anchor, wc 
 passed a broad, triangular space of shallow water, 
 lashed into seething waves l^y wind and current, 
 where, a few feet under the surface, lies what was 
 once the l^usy area of populous streets. Mean- 
 while, the breakers, not content with the mischief 
 already done, continue ceaselessly tearing away 
 the adjoining land, Int by bit. Right in front, a 
 large house, left an empty shell, without doors or 
 window-frames, by its fugitive inhabitants, is on 
 the point of sinking and disappearing among the 
 waters that, unopposed, wash to and fro through 
 the ground floor. Close by, the victorious sea has 
 invaded the gardens of the neighbouring dwell- 
 ings, and will evidently soon take possession of 
 the liuildings themselves ; their basement work is 
 rotten with the salt spray. Further on, a few 
 
18 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 isolated fragments of what was once a carefully 
 constructed sea-dam rise like black specks among 
 tlic yeasty waters, and the new earth wall, built 
 to protect what yet remains of Nikarie, has a 
 desponding, make-shift look, as if aware that it will 
 not have long to wait for its turn of demolition. 
 Within its circuit a large, handsome, and solidly 
 built church, now perilously near the water's 
 edge, a commodious com^t-house, where the magis- 
 trate of the district presides, a few private dwell- 
 ing-houses, and three or four grog-shops stand 
 ranged, like the Maclachlans and Wilsons of the 
 famous Solway martyr-roll, resignedly awaiting 
 the steady advance of the tide. The wind was 
 Iiigh, and the roar of the waves, as they burst im- 
 patiently on the dwindling remnant of what was 
 once the Nikarie promontory, sounded in tlie 
 dusky evening air like a knell of doom. 
 
 There are many sad sights in this sad world, 
 but few ffive the beholder so dreary a feeling- of 
 helpless melancholy as does a town in the act and 
 process of being washed away by the sea, — the 
 forces are so unequal, the destruction so wasteful 
 and so complete. Fortunately, at Nikarie, how- 
 ever, except for the loss, such as it is, of some acres 
 
THE COAST. 19 
 
 of sanclbankj and as mucli building- material as 
 the inhabitants do not think it worth their while 
 to carry away, no great harm is ]3cing done. 
 Already the situation of a new emporium for the 
 sugar and other produce of the estate has been 
 marked out further up the river, and the rise of 
 the level ground, which is here more rapid than 
 to the Avest, along the Demerara coast, will ensure 
 it, with the adjoining cultivated lands, from any 
 serious risk of Nej^tunian invasion for several 
 years to come. Meanwhile, the spectacle now 
 presented by Nikarie is undoubtedly a depressing 
 one to the imagination, if not to the mind, and I 
 was glad to learn that it was the only one of its 
 kind on the Surinam coast. 
 
 Here first I heard negroes speaking Dutch, and 
 I have no doubt that they murdered it as ruth- 
 lessly as they do the Queen's English or the Re- 
 public's French elsewhere. But I will not detain 
 my readers with a minute account of the ways and 
 fashions of the inhabitants in this Nikarie district, 
 as we shall have the opportunity of studying 
 Dutch Guiana life in all its aspects, black, white, 
 or coloured, to better advantage further on. This, 
 
 however, need not hinder our availing ourselves 
 
 c 2 
 
20 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 in the mean time, wliere convenient, of the infor- 
 mation copiously supplied by his Excellency Van 
 Sy2:)esteyn, who was, in youth, the talented his- 
 torian, as now, in middle age, he is the active 
 and intelligent Governor of Dutch Guiana. 
 
 From official documents, it appears that the 
 number of sugar factories in the district of Nikarie 
 is five, all of them worked by steam, and giving 
 an annual result of five or six thousand hogsheads 
 of sugar, besides 60,000 gallons of molasses 
 and about as many puncheons of rum ; to 
 which must be added nearly 14,000 pounds 
 weight of coffee and 300,000 of cocoa, from 
 all which data we may safely conclude that 
 the 2,832 acres of its reclaimed land are neither 
 unfruitful nor badly cultivated. Yet the total 
 number of inhabitants only reaches 2,346, more 
 than 600 of whom are Coolie or Chinese emi- 
 grants ; the remainder are negroes. Here, as 
 elsewhere, under-population is the great stumbling- 
 block in the way of progress. 
 
 It is pitiful to think that, out of the 10,000 
 and more acres, all excellent land, conceded by 
 the Dutch Government to the occupation of the 
 Nikarie proprietors, hardly more than a fourth 
 
THE COAST. 21 
 
 has been, as the prceeding numbers sliow, broug-ht 
 into actual use. Yet it is neither the climate nor 
 tlie soil that is here in fault. How often, not in 
 Nikarie and the districts of Surinam, but in St. 
 Vincent, St. Lucia, Trinidad, in almost all these 
 Western Edens, nay, even in flourishing Deme- 
 rara itself, has the image of little unpicturesque 
 Barbados, unpromising in show, unfavoured by 
 nature, yet thriving, prosperous, over-stocked, 
 and, therefore, only prosperous because over- 
 stocked, recurred to my mind. Improved ma- 
 chinery. Coolies, Chinese, are all of them excellent 
 things, each in their way, but they cannot make 
 up for the absence of that one great requisite of 
 all progress, material or social, a superabundant 
 native population. But how is it to be obtained 
 for our own three-quarters-empty islands ? How 
 for Guiana ? How for Surinam ? Many answers 
 have been given, and more may be given yet ; 
 but a wholly satisfactory one is yet to seek. We 
 will try our luck at the solution of this ]3roblem 
 further on. 
 
 And now our trim little craft is once more on 
 the open sea, bounding from wave to wave, as 
 she cleaves her onward way to the east. Sand- 
 
22 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 banks and mud-banks, covered Avith scarcely mure 
 than a fathom depth of water, kept us out at a con- 
 siderable distance from the coast; but had we 
 been nearer we should have had little to study, 
 except a dull uniform growth of mangrove and 
 pariva trees, the latter not unlike our own 
 j)oplars in shape and foliage. Behind this woody 
 screen lies the district of Coronie, almost the 
 only quarter of Dutch Guiana where cotton, once 
 a favourite speculation, especially about the time 
 of the late American war, is now grown. So far 
 as soil and climate are concerned, there is no 
 assignable reason why it should not be more 
 widely planted ; but agriculture and commerce 
 have their vagaries, often not less capricious than 
 those of fashion and dress. 
 
 Coronie left behind us, a rougher sea than any 
 we have yet encountered gives us notice that we 
 are passing the joint estuary of the Coj^pename 
 and Saramacca rivers, each the main artery of 
 fertile and, comparatively speaking, populous 
 regions to the south. 
 
 Not far inland, by the banks of the Coppename, 
 though shut out from our sight by the forest 
 screen, is a settlement bearing the name of 
 
THE COAST. 
 
 Batavia ; and composed exclusively — exception 
 made, I trust, of the Government inspector and 
 the doctor— of lepers. A liundred and fifty in 
 niunber, they employ themselves in field labour ; 
 have cottages and gardens of their own ; and as 
 the disease is painless, or nearly so, they live on 
 not unhappily their death in life. The motive 
 for keeping them thus apart from every one else 
 is, of com'se, the idea tliat their malady is con- 
 tagious — an idea "svide-spread, it is true, but 
 unsupported by scientific testimony, and probably 
 due to the horror and disgust excited by the sight 
 of so loathsome a disorder. Salt fish — the old- 
 established slave diet throughout the ^Yest Indies 
 — is not improbably responsible in many cases, if 
 not mos:^, for the disease : though not contagious 
 and hardly even infectious, it is certainly 
 hereditary. Improved diet and, above all, fresh 
 articles of food put a limit to its ravages, and 
 give hopes that, with proper precautions, it may 
 ultimately disappear. 
 
 For my part, I am not sorry to miss seeing 
 '' Batavia," but I must regret the invisibilit}^ of 
 '' Grroningen," where, near the moutli of the 
 Saramacca, a colony of Em-opean labourers has 
 
34 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 been establislied for .several years past. It is 
 one of the many attempts made at various times 
 to supplement negro by European field work, and 
 liaSj like tlic German and Irish colonies of 
 Jamaica and the Portuguese St. Kitts, proved a 
 failure in the main ; though its inevitable non- 
 success as a farm has to a certain extent been 
 compensated by the gardeners and artisans whom 
 it has supplied to the capital. Something of the 
 same kind has, I believe, taken place elsewhere. 
 Field labom^ and out- door life are things, early or 
 late, irreconcilable with European vigour, health, 
 and even existence in the tropical New World. 
 Nor are they needed there. Of all which, also, 
 more anon. 
 
 A night and a day have passed since we quitted 
 the melanclioly relics of Nikarie ; and we are yet 
 tossing on the turbid waves, several miles from 
 land. This grows monotonous, and great was 
 my delight wlien, on the second evening of our 
 voyage, just as the brief twilight deepened into 
 night, we at last sighted, though still at some 
 distance, the dull gleam of the light-ship, 
 anchored several miles out to sea, off the mouth 
 of the Surinam river. Cautiously, for the shoals 
 
THE COAST. 25 
 
 arc many and the current strong, we made for 
 the signs of harbour, known even through the 
 general gloom to our pilot and crew, till, about 
 midnight, we anchored in smooth water just 
 "within the entry of the mighty stream, here over 
 three miles in width, and took shelter behind a 
 long, low, mangrove-covered land-spit running 
 out from the east. 
 
 A wan crescent moon hung dimly over the 
 black forest-line, and gleamed on the smooth sea- 
 ward-flowing water, where we lay at anchor, 
 waiting the rise of the tide, that would not take 
 place till after daybreak. Not a sign of human 
 habitation, not a sound of beast or bird ; only the 
 low roar of the breakers outside the bar, and the 
 ceaseless flapping of the idle rudder against the 
 sternpost. The air was mild, and no fear of 
 marsh miasma deterred the crew from taking 
 their rest where they lay, each prone on his face 
 along the deck. That negroes always sleep face 
 downwards is a fact long since observed by Tom 
 Cringle, or rather Michel Scott, of Jamaican 
 celebrity; whether his further conjecture, that 
 this accounts for the flatness of their noses, be 
 correct, let Darwin decide. Night dews, so much 
 
26 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 and so justly dreaded in many parts of the East 
 Indies, seem to be of little account in these Indies 
 of the West. This, to venture a guess of my 
 own in turn, may, perhaps, be owing to the much 
 lesser degree of variation here occurring between 
 the diurnal and nocturnal temperature. So we 
 waited, while our boat's prow pointed steadily 
 up stream, in a weird solitude, that looked as if 
 it were the world's outer frontier land, and the 
 gvesct river the portal to some mysterious and 
 unexplored regions beyond. 
 
 Morning broke at last ; the tide turned, and 
 flowed in, while a fresh breeze, with a sprinkling 
 of light showers on its wings, blew from the east, 
 as Ave hoisted sail for the port of our destination. 
 Very soon it became evident, from the objects 
 around us, that the drear loneliness we had just 
 left behind extended no further than the immediate 
 margin of the shore, and that we were entering on 
 a region of industry, prosperity, and life. 
 
 What a relief was the change after two days' uni- 
 formity of tm^bid water, with nothing but man- 
 grove-grown mudbanks for a horizon ! With breeze 
 and tide in our favour we now went briskly on, 
 while, bend after bend, the river unfolded to our 
 
THE COAST. 27 
 
 gaze the treasures that lined its banks, more 
 varied and more abmidant at every turn. Joy- 
 fully I welcomed first one, then two, then several 
 tall factory chinnieys, each flaunting on the air 
 its long grey smoke-wreath, silvered in the level 
 sunbeams ; then a^Dpeared glimpses of clustered 
 roofs and brick walls, through the tall trees 
 planted beside them, boiling -houses, megass- 
 sheds, distilleries, overseers' dwellings ; and not 
 far removed from each grouj), rose the tall 
 gabled roof of the Dutch-built residence for 
 manager or proprietor, half screened amid the 
 shades of its garden grove. Factory-chimnej^s 
 and distillery -roofs ! picturesque objects, indeed ! 
 you say. Yes, my dear Galwegian friend ; or if 
 you hail from the Black Country rather, factory 
 chimneys and distillery roofs are, I am quite ready 
 to admit, no very lovely objects when they are 
 seen grimed with coal smoke, and amid even 
 grimier surroundings, against the background of 
 a heavy sepia-coloured sky. But under a bright 
 sun, mixed up with glittering foliage, overtopj)ed 
 by graceful palms, and canopied by the most 
 dazzling of skies, even roofs and chimneys com- 
 bine ^Yitb. the beauty around them, and become 
 
28 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 2)art of it, in their turn. Or cl«c it was a long 
 row of cottages, evidently pattern-built, that 
 announced the presence of Coolies, Indian or 
 Chinese, and im2:)lied the j^rosperity of those Avlio 
 could afford to em^^loy such; while the less 
 regular roof -lines, scattered amid the thick 
 garden bushes, told of creole or Surinam-born 
 negro labour. Or roofs and sheds, but Avithout 
 the accompaniment of factory and cliimney, just 
 visible among the boughs of what the inexperienced 
 eye might take for a natural-grown forest, mark 
 tlio cocoa estate, scarce less lucrative in Surinam 
 than the cane-field ; or perhaps it is a wide green 
 expanse of plantain leaves — colossal plantains 
 these — or the belfry of a Moravian school-house 
 that shows over the bank ; canoes, too, some mere 
 hollowed tree-trunks, some of larger construction, 
 covered barges, six-oar pleasure boats, sloops 
 with shoulder-of-muttou sails, become more and 
 more frequent. 
 
 So we sailed on, and before long came on one 
 of the grandest sights that nature affords, the 
 junction of two mighty rivers. For here, at a 
 distance of some eight or nine miles from the sea, 
 the Surinam and the Commeweyne rivers meet 
 
THE COAST. 29 
 
 togetlier, tlic former from the south, the latter 
 from the east. It was on their united waters 
 that we liacl sailed thus far. Tlie Surinam, which 
 has, like the Demerara, given its name to an 
 entire region, is navigable by vessels drawing 
 ten feet of water for a distance of about one 
 hundred miles up stream ; higher yet, rocks and 
 rapids permit only canoes to pass. Its sources 
 lie hid among the forests of the equatorial 
 mountain-land that forms the watershed of the 
 valley of the Amazon, four or five degrees 
 further still to the south ; its breadth for the last 
 forty miles, before junction with the Commeweyne, 
 averages above half a mile, its depth from thirty 
 to sixty feet. It is the main artery of the colony, 
 which, indeed, was for many years limited to the 
 immediate neighbourhood of its banks. The 
 Commeweyne of shorter course, but here, at the 
 junction point, little, if at all, inferior in breadth 
 and depth to the Surinam itself, runs on an inland 
 parallel with the eastern coast for a distance of 
 some forty miles ; further up, a number of smaller 
 rivers, the Cottica, the Perica, the Coermoeribo, 
 and others, deep though narrow streams, unite 
 their waters to form the main trunk. 
 
30 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 On tlic point wlileli divides the two great 
 rivers^ a Hindoo ruler of the good old times, and 
 before the unkind interference of a low-caste 
 Government had, Paul-like, commanded widows 
 rather to marry tlian to l:)urn, would doubtless 
 have erected a graceful temple, and consecrated 
 the spot to the decorous performance of suttee ; 
 Dutch Governors, a more practical style of men, 
 utilized the spot by erecting on it the fortress of 
 ''New Amsterdam." Its first stone was laid in 
 1734, shortly after the plundering exploits of 
 Cassard and the French squadron ; its object Avas 
 evidently the protection of the capital from any 
 repetitions of the like visits in future. But 
 though Paramaribo and New Amsterdam, too, 
 have since that date twice received French, twice 
 English masters within their walls, it has so 
 happened that the fort guns have never had 
 occasion to pour forth any more deadly fire than 
 that of a signal or a salute, treaties having in 
 later times subjected the colony to tho^e changes 
 that hard fighting brought about in former days. 
 However, the position of New Amsterdam is well 
 chosen, the works strong, and should any future 
 age raise up against the Dutch colonies a new 
 
THE COAST. 81 
 
 Cassard, he Avould find in tlio batteries enough 
 and more than enough to render a buccaneering 
 excursion up to Paramaribo by no means so easy 
 a business as of yore. 
 
 We saluted the national flag, and, passing close 
 under a very respectable battery, exchanged a few 
 ■words of amicable Dutch with a subaltern, who, 
 at the sight of our Government pennon, had 
 hastened down for inquiry to the water's edge. 
 ! Exempted by his courtesy — a courtesy I have 
 never found wanting in any of his Batavian 
 comrades — from the delays of an inspectorial 
 visit, we continued our course due south, up the 
 Sminam river; but the breeze had died away, and 
 it was near noon when, after about eight miles of 
 slow progress l^etween banks and scenes much 
 like those already described, but with a con- 
 tinually increasing denseness of estates and culti- 
 vation on either side, we approached the capital. 
 Gardens too, small dwelling-houses, and crowded 
 cottages^'ose thicker and thicker into view ; a tall 
 Flemish -looking tower glittered in the sun, and, at 
 last, rounding an abrupt fort-crowned promontory 
 on the left river bank, v/e cast anchor opjiosite 
 the river quay and townhall of Paramaribo. 
 
32 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CAPITAL. 
 
 In the afternoon tliey came unto a land 
 In which it seemed always afternoon. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 It was not afternoon, in fact it was forenoon, 
 and the sun, tliougli mounted liigli, liad not yet 
 throned himself in his meridian tower, Avhcii, 
 accompanied by those who had come to meet aiid 
 welcome my arrival, I mounted a red brick flight 
 of steps, leading from the water's edge up to the 
 raised quay, and found myself on the threshold 
 of the capital of Dutch Surinam. Yet there was 
 something in the atmosphere that can oidy be 
 described as post-meridian — an influence extend- 
 ing over everything around, town and people 
 alike ; nor post-meridian only, but distinctly 
 lotophagous, befitting the lotus-eating capital of 
 a lotus-eating land, very calm and still, yet very 
 comfortable and desirable withal. 
 
THE CAPITAL. 33 
 
 For what regards the material atmosphere, its 
 heavy warmth, even at so early an hour as ten or 
 eleven of the morning, need excite no surprise. 
 Paramaribo stands on the South American map at 
 little more than five and a half degrees nortli of 
 tlie equator, and the equator here crosses the 
 immense breadth of the moist plains, brimming 
 river-meshes, and dense forests that constitute 
 nine-tenths of the Guianas and Brazil. Fifteen 
 miles, at least, in a straight line, removed from 
 the nearest coast, and cut off from the very 
 limited sea-breeze of the tropics by intervening 
 belts of plantation and thick wood, the air of 
 Paramaribo is not that of wind-swept Barbados 
 or dry Antigua, but that of the nioistest among 
 all equatorial continents, and may best be 
 likened to the air of an orchid-house at Kew and 
 that of a Turkish batli combined. Not, be it 
 well understood, a dry-heated, pseudo-Turkish 
 bath of the European kind, but a genuine ham- 
 mam of Damascus or Constantinople. In such 
 an atmosphere, Ulysses himself and his crew must 
 after a very short stay have betaken themselves 
 in company with the natives to lotus-eating 5 it is 
 a. dut}' imposed b}' the climate, and there are 
 
 D 
 
34 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 many less agreeable duties in the world else- 
 where. 
 
 Not that the climate is unhealthy; quite the 
 reverse. That tall, large-made, elderly European 
 gentleman in a light grey suit, who, parasol in 
 hand, grandly saunters by, evidently does so 
 not from any want of vigour, either in mind or 
 limb, but because a sauntering step is more con- 
 genial to the place than a brisk one ; those sleek, 
 stout, comfortable, glossy negroes, loitering in 
 sun or shade, appear, and are, in fact, equal, did 
 the occasion require it, to any exertion of which 
 human muscle is capable ; they are doing nothing 
 in particular, because nothing in particular is just 
 now the proper thing to do. The town itself, its 
 tall houses, its wide streets, its gardens, its 
 squares, its shady avenues, its lofty watch-tower, 
 its tree-embosomed jjalace, its shrub-embosomed 
 . cottages, each and every particular of the scene, 
 animate or inanimate, is stamped with the same 
 character. '' Take it easy," seems the lesson they 
 all alike inculcate ; and the lesson is a jDopular 
 one, soon learnt, and steadily practised on every 
 hand. 
 
 But appearances, hoAvever real for what regards 
 
THE CAPITAL. 35 
 
 the surface of wliicli tliey are part^ ^^^7 y^t be 
 very deceptive, if reasoned from unconditionally 
 to what exists beneath them ; and a town that 
 numbers more than 22,000 inhabitants, itself the 
 capital of a colony that yearly exports to the 
 average value of a third of a million sterling, cannot 
 be wholly peopled by dreamy lotus-eaters, delicious 
 lotus-eaters only ; nor can the sole occupation of 
 tlio dwellers in city or field be lotus-eating, either 
 physical or moral. 
 
 The solid and underlying fact of Paramaribo 
 is that, amid this atmosphere and on this segment 
 of the great Guiana delta, have planted them- 
 selves and taken root, no longer exotic but 
 indigenous, the same Dutch industry, Dutch 
 perseverance, and Dutch good sense that of old 
 turned the sandy swamps of tliQ Batavian delta 
 into a flower-garden, and erected the Venice of 
 the North on the storm-swept shores of the 
 Ziiider Zee. Surinam, rightly miderstood, is 
 only Holland under another sky ; Paramaribo is 
 Amsterdam by other waters : the colouring and 
 toning of the picture may indeed be equatorial 
 Creole, but the lines and grouping are those of the 
 
 Netherlands school, and no other. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 This it is that gives to Paramaribo its twofold 
 character, at once European and tropical, Dutch 
 and Creole — a blendino- of op2")osites, a dual uni- 
 formity — an aspect that, when first beheld, leaves 
 on the mind an impression bordering on unreality, 
 as if place and people were imaged in a hot, pic- 
 turesque dream. Yet Paramaribo is no dream, 
 nor its inhabitants dream-shapes ; very much the 
 contrary. In fact, no capital town throughout 
 the West Indies, no offspring of European stem, 
 French, English, Danish, or even Spanish, so 
 genuinely, so truthfully, represents the colony to 
 which it belongs as Dutch Paramaribo. Con- 
 trary examples are easily adduced. Thus, for 
 instance, Jamaica is pre-eminently tlie land of 
 English country gentlemen, of magistrates, land- 
 lords, farmers, and, in tone, ways, and life, an 
 English country district ; while Demerara is in no 
 small measure an English, or, rather, I should 
 say, a Scotch manufacturing district ; Barbados, 
 an English parish (Little Pedlington its satirists, of 
 whom I beg to state that I am not one, Avould call 
 it) magnified into an island. But neither Jamaica 
 nor Demerara nor Barbados possesses a correct 
 epitome of itself in Kingston, Georgetown, or 
 
THE CAPITAL. 37 
 
 even Briclgcto^\^i : each of these three seaports 
 has a character of its own, distinct from, and in 
 some respects opposed to, the colony at large. 
 This is due to many causes, and, most of all, to 
 the "mixed multitude" of trade, the camp-fol- 
 lowers of enterprise, who, under whatever banner 
 they congregate, acknowledge in heart and life 
 no flag but that of individual self-interest. These 
 are they who muster strongest in the generality 
 of colonial towns, especially seaports, and tinge, 
 if they do not absolutely colour, the places of their 
 resort. And thus from the merest j)ort of call 
 along these shores, where the " condottiere " 
 element is at its maximum, to Georgetown, where 
 it is decidedly at its minimum, a something of a 
 restless, make-shift, egotistic, '' cheap- Jack" ad- 
 mixture obscures, or at least jars with, the public- 
 spirited nationality, unsettles the jjopulation, 
 debases the buildings, ungroups the unity, and 
 deforms the beauty of place and site. 
 
 With Paramaribo it is otherwise. The broad, 
 straight streets, flanked with spacious and lofty 
 houses, shaded by carefully planted avenues, 
 adorned with public buildings that Scheveningen 
 or the Hague need not blush to own, and trun 
 
38 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 almost as the waysides of Brock ; the Governor's 
 residence, a mini«;tm'e palace for elegance of 
 style and stately appearance ; the spacious Ma- 
 sonic lodge, "Concordia," Avhere a Grand Orient 
 himself — I speak as a profane, and, if the term 
 be incorrect, apologize — might hold his assembly ; 
 the seemly synagogues — Dutch the one, Portu- 
 guese the other ; the decorous if somewhat heavy- 
 built churches, reformed and Lutheran; the 
 lighter constructed but more spacious establish- 
 ments, Moravian and Catholic; the lofty Town 
 Hall, with its loftier tower, that from a hundred 
 and twenty feet of height looks down over fort 
 and riA^er; the Court-house hard by; the noble 
 MiUtary Hospital, witli its wide verandahs, open 
 staircases, and cool halls; the strong-built Fort 
 and Barracks; the Theatre, the Club-house, the 
 many other buildings of public use and ornament, 
 — all these are Dutch in appearance and character 
 — all expressive of the Eleven Provinces, though 
 chiefly of Zeeland and the steady purpose of her 
 sons. The well-planned and carefully kej^t 
 canals that intersect the town in every direction, 
 the neat bridges, the broad river-side quays, tlie 
 trim gardens, the decent cemeteries, the entire 
 
THE CAPITAL. 39 
 
 order and disposition of the place, tell the same 
 tale, witness to the same founders, reflect the 
 same image, true to its original on the North 
 Sea coast: all tell of settled order and tasteful 
 method. 
 
 Is there in Dutch — for there certainly exists 
 not in English— a guide-book of the town of 
 Paramaribo, capital of Dutch Surinam ? Perhaps 
 there is ; but I have not had the fortune to see it. 
 However that may be, I must run the risk im- 
 plied in writing as if of things familiar to every 
 one, though, in fact, Paramaribo and Surinam 
 may very possibly be not much better known 
 to the good folks of Amsterdam and Rotterdam 
 in general, let alone those of London or Norwich, 
 than are the districts of Timboo and the town of 
 Timbuctoo. Bearing this in mind, I think that 
 a brief historical notice and an equally brief 
 topographical description of the Surinam capital, 
 and incidentally of the colony at large, will, 
 under circumstances like these, hardly stand in 
 need of an apology. There is little profit in 
 reading of travels, or in making them, unless 
 they be prefaced by some knowledge of the 
 countries and their inhabitants : the former may 
 
40 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 best be studied in their maps ; the latter in their 
 histories. 
 
 Eevealed to Europe in 1499 by the great disco- 
 verer who gave his name to the American continent, 
 Surinam, like the rest of the North-Guiana delta, 
 though visited by adventurers of almost every na- 
 tionality, remained for more than a century un- 
 claimed, because uncolonized by any. Gradually, 
 however, the future trij^le division of this part of the 
 coast-region began to foreshadow itself in the 
 marked persistency of English, French, and Dutch 
 enterprise, all of which together contributed to the 
 foundation of the Surinam settlement, though the 
 honour of having first introduced regular land- 
 cultivation, and erected a fort, belongs not to a 
 Dutch but an English captain, whose name is 
 borne by the little watercourse called Marshall's 
 creek, a tributary stream of the Surinam river, 
 or, as it was then called, the Greater Coma, some 
 sixty or seventy miles' distance from the sea. 
 But Thoracica, the spot selected by Marshall in 
 1603, was not destined long to enjoy its metro- 
 politan honours ; and the Indian village of Para- 
 maribo, Avhere a settlement had already been 
 made by French emigrants as early, some say, as 
 
THE CAPITAL. 41 
 
 1G40, was by Lord Willoiigliby of Parham raised 
 to the dignity of capital, in 1G50 — a dignity 
 wliich it retained wlien, a few years later, it 
 passed definitively under the Dutch flag. The 
 name itself, '' Paramaribo," is of Indian origin, 
 not a derivative of ''Parham,'' as some have 
 erroneously stated. 
 
 The site was well chosen. The Surinam, here 
 a tidal river of nearly a mile broad, flows past 
 a slightly raised plateau of sand and gravel 
 mixed with '' caddy," a compound of finely 
 broken fragments of shell and coral, extending 
 for some distance along the left or west bank. 
 The general elevation of the ground is about six- 
 teen feet above low-water level, enough to insure 
 it from being overflowed in the rainy seasons or by 
 the highest tides. Several streams, improved by 
 Dutch industry into canals, intersect this level ; 
 one of them connects the waters of the Surinam 
 with those of the Saramacca further west : all are 
 tidal in their ebb and flow. Drainage is thus 
 rendered easy; and, now that the low bush and 
 scrub, the natural growth of every South 
 American soil, however light, lias been cleared 
 away, the citizens of Paramaribo may securely 
 
42 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 boast tliat tlirougliout the entire extent of Guiana, 
 from the Oronoco to the Amazon, no healthier 
 town than theirs is to be fomid. 
 
 This healthiness is, however, in great measure 
 due to their OAvn exertions ; and above all to tlie 
 good sense that presided over the construction of 
 the town. When the true founder of town and 
 colony alike, Cornelius van Aerssen, Lord of 
 Sommelsdyk, and the fifth Governor of Dutch 
 Guiana, landed on these shores in 1683, Para- 
 maribo — so he wrote — consisted of only ^'twenty- 
 seven dwellings, more than half of wdiich were 
 grog-shops," and close to it the Fort of Zeelandia, 
 so named after its builders, the intrepid Zeelanders, 
 wdio had already repelled more than one Indian 
 or English assault from its walls. But under the 
 vigorous administration of Sommelsdyk the 
 rapidly rising prosperity of the colony w^as 
 reflected in the tow^n itself, tlmt lienceforth grew 
 and prospered year by year. Its records describe 
 it in 1750 as already covering one-half of its 
 present extent ; and, in 1790, the number of 
 houses within its circuit exceeded a thousand; till, 
 about the beginning of the present century, the 
 addition of the extensive suburb of " Combe/' 
 
THE CAPITAL. 43 
 
 Oil the north sidcj brought it up to its actual 
 limits. Then followed a long and dreary period 
 of colonial depression, general, indeed, throughout 
 the West Indies, but nowhere (Jamaica perhaps 
 excepted) greater than in Surinam, where the 
 uncertainty consequent on a reiterated change of 
 masters, French, English, and Dutch, helped to 
 depreciate the already declining value of estates 
 and produce in this part of the world. Mis- 
 fortunes never come singly ; and, while the colony 
 at large suffered, Paramaribo in particular, 
 ravaged by two severe conflagrations, the one in 
 1821 and the other in 1832, presented a me- 
 lancholy spectacle of unrepaired ruins and 
 abandoned suburbs. Between 1840 and 1860 
 things were at their worst, both for colony and 
 capital. Then came the turn : tlie shock of 
 emancipation passed, its benefits remained; town 
 and country alike revived together ; houses Avere 
 rebuilt, suburbs repopulatcd ; and of her past 
 wounds the Paramaribo of our day now scarcely 
 shows a scar. The number of her inhabitants, 
 reckoned at barely 16,000 in 1854, at present 
 exceeds 22,000, thus showing an increase of 
 6,000 in the course of the last twenty years only. 
 
44 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 '' A goodly city is this Antimn ;" but during 
 the hot hours of the day, that is, from eight or at 
 latest nine in the morning till pretty near sunset, 
 I would not willingly incur the responsibility of 
 sending a friend, or even an enemy, unless he 
 happened to be a mortal one, on a sight-seeing 
 stroll through the streets of Paramaribo, Car- 
 riages or riding-horses there are few to be found 
 in the town, and none at all for hire. Negro 
 carts are plenty, to be sure, and negro mules, too; 
 but the former, independently of other consider- 
 ations, are jolting conveyances ; the latter a hard- 
 mouthed, stiff-necked generation ; and neither 
 adapted to the furtherance of European loco- 
 motion, whether on pleasure or business. As to 
 walking exercise under this equatorial sun, it 
 might possibly be an agreeable recreation for a 
 salamander, but hardly for any other creature. 
 
 It is true that shade may be found even in the 
 hottest hours of perpendicular noon ; and when 
 the sun has fairly beaten you (as he will in less 
 than five minutes) from the field, you may take 
 refuge, if you choose, under the broad-leaved, 
 glistering, umbrella-like almond-trees — so called 
 from a superficial resemblance between the 
 
THE CAPITAL. 45 
 
 kernels of their fruit and those of the ahuond, 
 Ijiit neither in foliage nor growtli having the most 
 distant likeness to the European tree of that 
 name — which Dutch forethought has kindly 
 planted all along the river-qua}". There, in 
 compan}^ with au}^ number of ragged black 
 loungers, you may improve your leisure by 
 watching the great barges as they float leisurely 
 along the tide, bearing their neatly protected 
 loads of sugar, cocoa, or other plantation produce 
 for the cargo-ships that wait off the town- 
 " stellings " or wharfs, patiently moored day 
 by day, with so little bustle or movement of life 
 about them, that you wonder whether their 
 crews have not all by common consent abandoned 
 them and gone off to join a lotus-eating majority 
 on shore. Or, if you are driven to seek refuge 
 while wandering through the interior of the 
 town, the great broad streets, all mathematically 
 straight, will offer you the shelter of their noble 
 avenues, Aviiere tamarind, mahogany, sand box, 
 or other leafy trees, planted with Batavian regu- 
 larity, cast down a long black streak of shade on 
 the glaring whiteness of the highway. Or }ou 
 may rest, if so inclined, beside some well in one 
 
16 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 of the many rectangular spaces left open, for the 
 sake of air or ornament, here and there in the 
 very heart of the town, like squares in London, 
 but without the soot. 
 
 One such green oasis contains, half hidden 
 amid its trees, the handsome Portuguese Syna- 
 gogue of recent construction ; another, the Dutch, 
 less showy, but more substantial, as befits the 
 old standing and wealth of the worshippers 
 within its walls, and the memory of Samuel 
 Cohen Nassy, its talented founder — the Surinam 
 Joshua of his tribe, when they camped, two 
 centuries ago, on the banks of their newly 
 acquired Jordan. A third '^square" (I use the 
 inappropriate word for want of a better in our 
 own language, but the French ''place" or 
 Arab ''meidan" would more correctly exj^ress 
 the thing) boasts the presence of the Dutch 
 Reformed Church — the building, I mean — a model 
 of heavy propriety, suggestive of pew-openers 
 and the Hundredth Psalm, Old Tune; while a 
 fourth has in its enclosure the flimsy, all-for-show 
 construction that does aj^propriate duty for the 
 gaudy rites of Rome. A fifth has for its centre- 
 piece the Lutheran place of worship ; a sixth, the 
 
THE CAPITAL. 47 
 
 Moravian ; and so forth. But, wliatever 1)e the 
 gods within, the surroundings of every temple 
 are of a kind in wliich Mr. Tyh)r couki legiti- 
 mately discern something of a ''survival" of 
 tree-worship and the ''^groves" of old — a sensible 
 survival in these sun-lorded equatorial regions. 
 Select, then, your city of refuge where you will ; 
 but excej^t it be by chance some stray black 
 policeman, whom an unusual and utterly heroic 
 sense of duty keeps awake and on his beat, or a 
 few dust-sprinkled ebony children, too young as 
 yet to appreciate the impropriety of being up 
 and alive at this hour, you yourself and tlie un- 
 gainly Johnny-crows that here, as at Kingston, 
 do an acknowledged share of the street-cleaning 
 business, will he the only animal specimens dis- 
 cernible among this profusion of vegetable life. 
 For these shade-spots, with all their cool, are 
 delusive in their promise. They are mere islets 
 plunged amid an overwhelming ocean of light 
 and lieat ; and flesh, however solid, though pro- 
 tected by them from actual combustion in the 
 furnace around, must soon thaw and resolve 
 itself into a dew under the influence of the 
 reflected glare. 
 
48 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Better take example, as indeed it is the tra- 
 veller's wisdom to do in any latitude, whether 
 trojjical or arctic, from the natives of the land, 
 and like them retire, after a substantial one 
 o'clock breakfast, luncheon, or dinner, — since 
 any of these three designations may be fairly 
 applied to the meal in question, — to an easy 
 imdress and quiet slumber till four, or later, 
 have " chappit" in the afternoon. In- doors 
 you will find it cool enough. The house walls, 
 though of wood, at least throughout the upper 
 stories, are solidly constructed, and are further 
 protected from the heat by any amount of 
 verandahs outside, which in true Dutch taste arc 
 not rarely dissembled under the architectural 
 appearance of porticos; the house-roofs are highly 
 pitched, and an airy attic intervenes between 
 them and the habitation Ijelow ; the windows too 
 are w^ell furnished with jalousies and shutters; 
 and the bedrooms are most often up two flights 
 of stairs — occasionally three. If, under circum- 
 stances like these, you cannot keep cool, especially 
 when you have .nothing else on earth to do, 
 you have only yourself, not the climate, to 
 blame. Such at any rate is the opinion, con- 
 
THE CAPITAL. 49 
 
 firmed by practice, of tlie colonists universally, 
 EurojDean or croolc, white or coloured ; and as 
 they have in fact been up and at work, each in his 
 jDarticular line of business, ever since earliest 
 dawn, it would be hard to grudge them their 
 stated and, for the matter of that, well-earned 
 afternoon nap. Merchants, tradesmen, account- 
 ants, proprietors, bankers, and the like, thus dis- 
 posed of, his Dutch Majesty's officials, civil, 
 military, or naval (for a small frigate is ahvays 
 stationed at Paramaribo, ready at the Colonial 
 Governor's behests), may, I think, sleep securely 
 calm when all around are sleeping ; nay, even the 
 watchmen — and they are many in these gates 
 of keen energetic Israel — have retired to their 
 tents in the universal post-meridian trance. As 
 to the 18,000 or 19,000 negroes of the town, it 
 would bo superfluous to say that no special 
 persuasion or inducement of local custom is 
 needed to induce them to sleep, either at this 
 or any other hour of the day. 
 
 Follow, then, the leader or rather the whole 
 band. If, hoAvever, you still prefer to prove 
 yourself a stranger by using your eyes for sight- 
 seeing at a time when every genuine Para- 
 
 E 
 
50 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 mariban lias closed his for sloop, tlic open parade- 
 ground will afford you, while crossing it, an 
 excellent opportunity for experimental apprecia- 
 tion of the intensity of the solar rays, lat. 5° 40" 
 north. This done you may, or rather you 
 certainly will, take speedy refuge under the noble 
 overarching tamarind alley that leads up from 
 the parade-ground to the front of Government 
 House ; and passing through the cool and lofty 
 hall of the building, left 02:)en, AVest India 
 fashion, to every comer, make your way into the 
 garden, or rather park, that lies behind. It is 
 probable that the peccaries, tapirs, monkeys, 
 deer, and the other animal beauties or monstro- 
 sities, collected the most of them by his Excel- 
 lency the present Governor, and domiciled in 
 ample w^ire inclosures between the flower-beds, 
 will, in their quality of natives, be fast asleep ; 
 and if the quaint, noisy, screaming birds, the 
 tamed representatives of Guiana ornithology, 
 collected here are asleejD also, you may admire 
 their plumage without needing to regret the 
 muteness of their " most sweet voices." But the 
 humming-birds and butterflies are wide awake, 
 and, unalarmed by your approach, will continue 
 
THE CAPITAL. 51 
 
 to busy themselves among flowers, such as Van 
 Elst himself never painted, nor Spenser sung : 
 here is a crimson passion-flower, there a pink- 
 streaked lily ; golden clusters hang from one 
 plant, spikes of dazzling blue rise from another ; 
 the humming-birds themselves are only dis- 
 tinguishable from them as they dart through 
 by tlie metallic lustre, not by the vividness or 
 variety, of their colours. As to the butterflies, 
 who is the greatest admirer of the race ? 
 Mr. Wallace, I think : let him see the butterflies 
 of Surinam, and die. Beyond this, the flower- 
 garden merges in the park — a Guiana park of 
 Guiana trees : their names and qualities it is easy 
 to look out in books, or recapitulate from 
 memory. But how to describe them as they are? 
 Mr. Ruskin says, that the tree-designer begins 
 by finding his work diflicult, and ends by finding 
 it impossible ; and I say the same of the tree- 
 describer, at any rate here. And yet luxuriant as 
 is the Government House garden, I am not sure 
 if any of its beauties charmed me so much as the 
 exquisite betel-nut avenue, each palm averaging 
 fifty feet in height, and each equally perfect in 
 
 form and colour, that adorns the central space 
 
 E 2 
 
52 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 enclosed by tlio spacious buildings of the public 
 hospital at the furtlier end of the town. Leave 
 all these if you can, and, which will be better 
 still, enter instead the cool vaulted brick hall 
 of genuine Dutch burgher build, that serves 
 partly as an entry to the public law offices and 
 courts, partly as a depository for whatever 
 colonial records have escaped the destructive fires 
 of '21 and '32. 
 
 Hence you may mount, but leisurely, in com- 
 passion for your guide if not for yourself, the 
 central tower, till you reach the lantern-like con- 
 struction, that at a height of 100 feet crowns 
 the summit of the Town Hall. There stand and 
 look down far and wide over the most fertile 
 plain that ever alluvial dejDOsit formed in the 
 New World or the Old either. On every side 
 extends a green tree-grown level as far as the eye 
 can reach ; its surface just high enough raised 
 above water-mark to escape becoming a swamp, 
 yet nowhere too high for easy irrigation ; 
 capriciously marked at frequent intervals by 
 shining silver dashes, that indicate sometimes the 
 winding of rivers broad and deep, sometimes the 
 more regular lines of canals, of creeks, and of all 
 
THE CAPITAL. 53 
 
 the iunumeralble waterways wliicli in this region 
 , supply the want of roads, and give access to 
 every district that lies between the northern 
 sea and the equatorial watershed, far beyond the 
 limits of European enterprise, all too narrow as 
 yet. Long years must pass before the children of 
 Surinam have cause to complain that the " place 
 is too strait for them" ; long before the cultiva- 
 tion that now forms an emerald ring of excep- 
 tional brightness round the city, and reaches out 
 in radiating lines and interrupted patches along 
 the courses of the giant rivers, has filled up 
 the entire land circle visible from the Tower of 
 Paramaribo alone. 
 
 The day has declined from heat to heat, and 
 at last the tall trees begin to intercept the slant 
 sun-rays ; when, behold ! with one consent Para- 
 maribo, high and low, awakes, shakes itself, puts 
 on its clothes, ragged or gay, and comes out to 
 open air and life. The chief place of resort is, of 
 course, the parade-ground, where, according to 
 established custom, a Dutch or Creole military 
 band performs twice a week, and where, in the 
 absence of musical attractions, cool air, pleasant 
 walks, free views, and the neighbourhood of the 
 
54 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 river draw crowds of loungers, especially of the 
 middle and even upper classes. But, in trutli, 
 for a couple of hours, or near it, every road, every 
 street, is full of comers and goers, and loud with 
 talk and laughter. For the negro element, a 
 noisy one, predominates over all, even within the 
 capital itself; the Dutch, though rulers of the 
 land, are few, and other Europeans fewer still. 
 Indeed, a late census gave the total number of 
 whites in the town, the soldiers of the fort included, 
 but little over a thousand. As to Indians, the 
 pure-blooded ones of their kind have long since 
 abandoned the neighbourhood of Paramaribo, 
 and now seldom revisit the locality to which two 
 centuries past they gave a name : a few half- 
 breeds, with broad oval faces and straight black 
 hair, alone represent the race. Bush negroes, in 
 genuine African nudity, may be seen in plenty 
 from the river-wharves ; but tliey seldom leave 
 their floating houses and barges to venture on 
 shore, though common sense has for some time 
 past relaxed the prudish regulations of former 
 times, according to which no unbreeched male 
 or unpetticoated female was permitted to shock 
 the decorum of Paramaribo promenades. Coolies 
 
THE CAPITAL. 55 
 
 aiitl Cliinese, too, tlioiigli now tolerably numerous 
 on the estates, where, indeed, about 5,000 of 
 them are employed, are rarely to be met with in 
 the streets of the capital ; which in this respect 
 offers a remarkable contrast to Georgetown and 
 Port of Spain, where the mild Hindoo meets you 
 at every turning- with that ineffable air of mixed 
 self-importance and servility that a Hindoo alone 
 can assume, and China men and women make day 
 hideous with the preternatural ugliness of what 
 flattery alone can term their features. The absence 
 of these beauties here may be explained partly by 
 the recentness of their introduction into the 
 Dutch colony, where they are still bound by their 
 first indentures to field-work, and consequently 
 unable as yet to display their shopkeeping talents ; 
 partly by the number and activity of the negro 
 Creole population, which has preoccupied every 
 city berth. Of all strangers, only the irrepress- 
 ible Barbadian, with the insular characteristics of 
 his kind fresh about him, has made good his 
 footing among the Surinam grog-shops and 
 wharfs, where he asserts the position due to 
 his ready-handed energy, and keeps it too. But 
 the diversity between the Barbados negro and 
 
56 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 his kinsmen of the neighbouring islands or of 
 •the Main is one rather of expression and voice 
 than of clothes and general bearing, and hence 
 may readily pass unnoticed in the general aspect 
 of a crowd. 
 
 " Aim at consistency," has said one of the fore- 
 most ethical teachers of our own or indeed of 
 any time. Were John Henry Newman by the 
 strangest of all strange chances ever to ^^sit 
 'Paramaribo, he would, I think, allow that both 
 town and its inhabitants do not come far short in 
 this respect of his standard of excellence. He 
 might wander at night when the snow-like dazzle 
 of the pure moonbeams lights up the tall house- 
 fronts and rectilinear streets in ghostly loneliness, 
 or at the scarcely less lonely hour of noon, when 
 the shrunk shadows disappear in the perpendicular 
 blaze, and in either scene ^ admire the uniform 
 consistency of idea which has impressed on every 
 dwelling, from the tiniest Creole cottage up to the 
 princely residence of Government, the same 
 general character of comfort, good taste, and a 
 certain decorous refinement, content with what it 
 has attained, and expressive, if not of progress, of 
 stability, order, and calm. The architectural 
 
THE CAPITAL. 57 
 
 jumble, indicative of restless and incongruous 
 tendencies, that lias in so many other colonial 
 towns erected Gothic, or quasi- Grothic, churches 
 and church towers amid the flat lines of low- 
 roofed bungalows, or thrust a Venetian-palace 
 front into the midst of palms and mango-trees, 
 offends not here, Cliurches, houses, buildings, 
 bridges, quays, streets, squares, all are the same 
 in kind, though differing in scale ; all in accord 
 with each other, and with the climate too. 
 
 But if, during the busy morning hours, or in 
 the idle eventide, our Littlemore cthicist were to 
 survey the same streets crowded with passers-by 
 of every class and colour, he would, so soon as 
 his eye had learnt to penetrate beneath the motley 
 surface of seeming incongruities, acknowledge the 
 praise of consistency as due to the inhabitants of 
 Paramaribo not less than to the material town 
 itself. However diversified the species, the 
 genus is one. Watch the throng as it passes — • 
 the kerchief-turbaned, loose-garmented market- 
 women — the ragged porter, and jet more ragged 
 boatman — the gardener, with his cartful of yams, 
 bananas, sweet potatoes, and so forth — the white- 
 clad shop-clerk and writer, the straw-hatted 
 
58 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 salesman, the uinbrclla-ljcaring merchant — sailors, 
 soldiers, policemen, quaintly dressed as policemen 
 are by prescri2:)tive right everywhere, except in 
 sensible, practical Demerara — officials, aides-de- 
 camp, high and low, rich and poor, one with 
 another — and you will see that, through and above 
 this Miriety of dress, occupation, rank, colour 
 even, there runs a certain uniformity of character, 
 a something in which all ^participate, from first to 
 last. 
 
 A few exceptions indeed there are, but they 
 are confined almost exclusively to the white 
 colonists, and among them even the anomalies 
 are few. In general, one pattern comprehends the 
 ■ entire category of white colonists, men and 
 women, gentle and simple; and it is an eminently 
 self-contained, self-consistent pattern — the Dutch. 
 Steady in business, methodical in habit, econo- 
 mical in expenditure, liberal in outlay, hospitable 
 in entertainment, cheerful without flightiness, 
 kindly Avithout a:ffectation, serious without dul- 
 ness, no one acquainted, even moderately, with 
 the mother countr}^ can fail to recognize the 
 genuine type of the Hague in the colonial official, 
 and that of Maestricht or Amsterdam in the busi- 
 
THE CAPITAL. 59 
 
 ness population of Paramaribo. This, indeed, 
 might have been fairly anticipated, the steady, 
 unimpressionable Dutchman being le>ss subject to 
 — what shall we call it ? — equatorization than the 
 soon-demoralized Spaniard or lighter Portuguese. 
 It is a matter of more surprise, an agreeable sur- 
 prise, wdien we find much that recalls to mind the 
 Dutch peasantry and labouring classes distinctly 
 traceable among the corresponding classes of 
 Creole negroes throughout the delta of Surinam. 
 By what influence is it — attraction, sympathy, 
 or mastership ? — that some nations so eminently 
 succeed in transforming the acquired subjects of 
 whatever race into copies and, occasionally, cari- 
 catures of themselves, while other nations not less 
 signally fail in doing so ? That Frenchmen, 
 how^ever much they may annoy those they annex 
 by their incurable habit of administrative over- 
 meddling, yet make, not always, indeed, 
 obedient subjects of France, but, anyhow, 
 Frenclimen and Frenchwomen out of those they 
 rule, is a fact attested everywhere, and one that 
 will long remain to show German eyes and grieve 
 German hearts in Alsace and Lorraine. How 
 long ago is it since the Tricolor has been hauled 
 
CO DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 down to make place for the Union Jack at St. 
 Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Trinidad ? 
 Yet in each of these and their kindred isles, the 
 French impress still survives, uneffaced, as yet, 
 by change and time. Much in the same way, to 
 run through the list of other national annexations 
 or conquests, Brazil is not merely ruled by a 
 Portuguese emperor, but is Portuguese itself ; 
 and even the revolted Spanish colonies are Spanish 
 in almost everything but official allegiance, to this 
 day. On the contrary, who ever heard of a land 
 Germanized by the Grermans, however influential 
 their settlers, and absolute their rule ? And is there 
 the remotest prospect that the Hindoo, though 
 reconciled by sheer self-interest to toleration of 
 the most equitable rule that ever race exercised 
 over race, will ever become, not merely an English 
 subject, but an Englishman in ways and heart ? 
 Still more complete has been the failure of Danish 
 attempts at extra-national assimilation in what- 
 ever land or age, from the days of ^thelred to 
 our O'^^m. But, indeed, where there is diversity 
 of blood, mistrust and antipathy are more easily 
 accounted for than sympathy and unison. To 
 return to our Dutch friends : how it may be 
 
THE CAPITAL. 01 
 
 with them elsewhere — in Java, for instance — I 
 know not ; here, on the Guiana coast, they have 
 ahnost outdone the French in assimilative results — 
 a problem of which tlic sohition must bo souglit, 
 partly in history, partly in actual observation. 
 Our best opportunity for the latter will be when 
 visiting the country districts further up the river, 
 among the estates. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us linger yet a little in Para- 
 maribo itself; and here among the Eurojoean 
 townsmen their visitor will find everywhere, so 
 he be one that deserve to find, a pleasant uni- 
 formity of unostentatious but cordial welcome, of 
 liberal entertainment, of thoughtful and rational 
 hospitality, attentive to the physical and not neg- 
 lectful of the mental requirements of the guest 
 — whatever, in a word, he would meet with, 
 though under a different aspect, on the shores of 
 the Yssel or the Waal. Indeed, he might even 
 have some difficulty in remembering, when en- 
 deavouring to recall to mind the events of his 
 stay in the Surinam capital, at which citizen's 
 house in particular he passed that pleasant 
 evening ; at whose table he shared that copious 
 meal, breakfast, dinner, or suj^per ; where it was 
 
62 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 that lie admired the fine old cliina and massive 
 plate ; midcr which roof the hostess smiled most 
 courteously, the host conversed with most good 
 nature and good sense. After all, " si vis ut reda- 
 meris ama^^ holds good in every age and land; 
 and if the Dutch colonists and Creoles of Surinam 
 are universally popular, it is because they have 
 been at the pains of earning popularity, which, 
 like other good things, has its price, and is worth 
 it too. 
 
 Much the same, proportion and circumstances 
 taken into account, may be said of the black 
 Creoles of Dutch Guiana. The evils and degra- 
 dation inseparable from slavery were not, it is 
 true, wanting here ; but, in spite of these unfa- 
 vourable antecedents, the Surinam negro has 
 amply proved by his conduct, both before and 
 during emancipation, that he had learnt from his 
 white masters lessons of steadiness, of order, of 
 self-respect, of quiet industry, of kindliness even, 
 not indeed alien from his own native character, 
 but too often unpractised elsewhere. And thus 
 the ex-slave has, Avitli a rapidity of change to 
 which, I believe, no parallel can be found in the 
 history of any other AVest Indian colony, l^lended 
 
THE CAPITAL. 63 
 
 into national and evcnj ^yitllm certain limits, 
 into social unison with his masters — a imison so 
 little imjDaired by the inevitablcj however invo- 
 luntary, rivalry consequent on differences, some 
 artificial, indeed, but some immanent, of caste 
 and race, as to afford tlie best hopes for the 
 future of the entire colony. It is remarkable 
 tliat even the terrible servile Avars, which lasted 
 with hardly an interruption for sixty entire years 
 — that is, from 1715 to 1775 — and not only 
 checked the prosperity, but even more than once 
 menaced tlie very existence of the colony, should 
 have passed and left behind them no trace, liow- 
 ever slight, of hostile feeling or memor}- among 
 the negro population, wliether slave or free ; that 
 no outbreak, like those of Jamaica, Sainte Croix, 
 and so many other neighbouring colonies, here 
 followed or anticipated emancipation, though de- 
 layed in Surinam till 1863 ; and, more remark- 
 able yet, that no discontent interfered Avitli 
 the compulsory though paid labour of the ten 
 years following. Slavery quietly faded into 
 apprenticeship ; apprenticeship into freedom ; and 
 in a land where riot and revolt would have a 
 better chance than anywhere else of success, that 
 
64 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 chance was never embodied in act. Facts like 
 these speak certainly well for the crcole blacks ; 
 but, if attentively considered, they speak even 
 better in favour of their white masters. Our 
 jDresent business is, however, not with these last, 
 but with the negro Creoles as they show them- 
 selves in the capital, where they muster five or 
 six to one among the entire population. Cheer- 
 ful contentment is the prevailing expression of 
 every dusky face, whether turned towards you in 
 friendly morning greeting, as the busy swarm 
 presses on, talking, laughing, jesting, along the 
 highways to the market and quay, or in tlic 
 afternoon gatherings on the parade-ground, 
 under the avenues, and alongside of the river 
 banks. You watch and soon cease to wonder 
 that the official statistics of Paramaribo, while 
 enumerating and classifjdng its twenty-two 
 thousand inhabitants, make no distinctive head- 
 ings of colour or race. I wish many other a 
 West Indian town could with equally good reason 
 permit themselves a like omission. 
 
 Glossy, however, as the surface may be, there 
 is a wrong side of tlic stuff, and to this we must 
 now turn our attention. Though a comfortable 
 
THE CAPITAL. 65 
 
 and, so far at least as tlio majority of its in- 
 clwellers arc concerned, a contented town, Para- 
 maribo cannot, if compared, say, with George- 
 town or Bridgetown, Kingston or even Port 
 d'EsjDagne, take rank as exactly prosperous or 
 progressive. True, the streets of the Creole 
 quarters of the city arc constantly extending 
 themselves ; there, new rows of small, neat dwell- 
 ings, each with its gay garden and well- stocked 
 provision-ground, spring up year by year; but 
 in the commercial and what may, in a general 
 way, be termed the European quarter of the 
 town, large, half-empty stores, tall, neglected- 
 looking houses, a prevailing want of fresh repair 
 — here deficient paint, there broken woodwork — 
 besides a certain general air of listlessness, verging 
 on discouragement, and an evident insufficiency of 
 occupation, not from want of will, but of means, 
 all combine to give an a2:)peaTance of stagna- 
 tion suggestive of ^'better days," for the Euro- 
 pean colonists at least, in the past, and contrast- 
 ing almost painfully with the more thriving back 
 streets and suburbs beyond. If any of my 
 readers have visited Italy in the sad, bygone 
 years when Italy was a geographical name only, 
 
66 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 and there compared, as tliey may well have 
 done, the trim ''Borghi" of Grand-Ducal Flo- 
 rence with her stately but dilapidated Lungarno, 
 or have, at Genoa, seen the contrast of those 
 times between the palatial loneliness of Strada 
 Balbi and tlie pretty, grove-embosomed villas of 
 recent conniiercial date, they might, under all 
 local differences of circumstance and colouring, 
 recognize something not dissimilar, both in the 
 meaning implied and effect produced, in this 
 Transatlantic capital of Dutch Guiana. 
 
 The actual and immediate cause of decadence 
 is a very common one, by no means peculiar to 
 Paramariljo or Surinam — want of capital. Here, 
 liowever, .that want is, in a certain sense, 
 doubled by the circumstance that not only are 
 the means of the colony itself insufficient to its 
 needs, but that there is no satisfactory ^^rosj^ect 
 of an adequate supply from without. It is, I 
 might almost say, the condition of a man indigent 
 at home and friendless out of doors. The home- 
 poverty is readily accounted for. It began with 
 invasions, resistances, foreign occupations, treaty- 
 embarrassments, and the other war-begotten ills 
 of the troublous years that closed the last and 
 
THE CAPITAL. 67 
 
 o]3enecl the present century. Followed next the 
 evil days already alluded to — evil for Trans- 
 atlantic colonies everywhere ; and, in sequence 
 of the hostilities of 1833 between France and 
 Holland, doubly evil for Surinam. Then came 
 emancIj)ation, long and unwisely deferred , till 
 financial exhaustion had reached its lowest 
 depths ; and, with all these, the appalling con- 
 flagration of 1821, followed by one scarcely less 
 destructive in 1832 ; commercial difficulties of 
 every kind; the fatal yellow-fever epidemic of 
 1851," — in a word, a whole Pandora's box of 
 adversities, opened for Dutch Guiana in a scarcely 
 less disastrous profusion than for Jamaica herself. 
 And tlius, to revert to the more special topic of 
 this chapter, Paramaribo was brought low indeed 
 — almost to the very gates of death ; and her con- 
 dition, as we this day see her, is that of a patient 
 recovering from a long and dangerous illness, 
 and weak, not indeed with the weakness of 
 actual disease, but the weakness of convalescence. 
 Nor is that convalescence likely to be a rapid 
 one. With Jamaica, we know, it has been otlicr- 
 Avise ; but then Jamaica is the child of a parent 
 alike vigorous and wealthy, able to chastise, able 
 
 F 2 
 
08 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 also to assist. Not so with Dutcli Guiana. In 
 more than one respect the good will of Holland 
 exceeds her power, and her comparatively recent 
 severance from Belgimn, a political gain, was 
 yet a financial loss. Besides, Java is a more 
 popular name by far in the liomc mart of Dutcli 
 enterprise than Surinam ; and the Eastern colony 
 is indisputably the more attractive, the larger, 
 the wealthier, and, more, I believe, owing to ex- 
 ternal and accidental circumstances than to its 
 own intrinsic qualities as contrasted with those 
 of its rival, ^proportionally the more remunerative 
 of the two. Hence, while the invigorating 
 cordial, to continue our former metaphor, or, 
 rather, the true and certain panacea for the 
 patient's lingering ills, is poured out freely in the 
 direction of the Pacific, a fcel)le and interrupted 
 dribble is all that finds its way to the Atlantic 
 coast. Nor, again, can the annual subsidy with 
 which, for years past, the maternal Government 
 of the States has striven to uphold, and still up- 
 holds, the drooping vigour of her Western oft'- 
 spring, be regarded as a remedy adapted for the 
 case ; it is, at best, a palliative, nor, I think — and 
 in this the wisest heads of the colony agree — one 
 
THE CAPITAL , 69 
 
 conducive to genuine recovery and liealtli. iState 
 support, after this fashion, tends rather in its 
 results to cramp the energies of the recipient than 
 to develop them ; it has something of the prop in 
 it, but more of the fetter. Compare, for example, 
 the French colonies, w^here it is most lavishly 
 bestowed, -with the English, where the opposite 
 and almost niggardly extreme is the rule ; the 
 conclusion is self-apparent, and the corollary, too. 
 Periodical subsidy, in particular, is an error — less 
 injurious, it may be, than the opposite conduct of 
 ungenerous Denmark, exacting for herself a yearly 
 tribute from her overtaxed and exhausted colonies, 
 but an error, nevertheless; it is the injudicious con- 
 duct of an over-indulgent parent, as the other is 
 that of a step-mother at best. Private enter- 
 prise, private capital, these are what Surinam 
 requires ; and on the part of the mother country, 
 not a supplement to her coffers, but a guarantee. 
 Lastly, emancipation and its immediate and 
 inevitable consequences, the multiplication of 
 small freeholds, both of them events of yesterday 
 in Surinam, have not yet allowed time for the 
 balance of hired and independent labour to redress 
 itself ; nor has the increase of Creole well-being 
 
70 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 yet reacted, as react it ultimately must, in a cor- 
 responding increase of prosperity among the 
 Em'opoan townsmen and cstate-OAvnerstlicmselyes. 
 The present moment is one of transition, and 
 transition implies that something has been left 
 behind ; a temporary loss even Avliere more has 
 been attained, or is in process of attainment. 
 
 While, seated in an upper balcony of Govern- 
 ment House, we speculate on these things, the 
 sun has set ; twilight — at its very shortest in these 
 latitudes — has brightened on into white moonlight ; 
 but the Militia town band, summoned by his 
 Excellency to bear part in the hospitable enter- 
 tainment of the evening, still gathers round it a 
 motley and by no means silent crowd, assembled, 
 some under the great tamarind- trees close by, and 
 not a few within the Residential gardens them- 
 selves, throwTi liberally open, on occasions like 
 these, to public enjoyment. 
 
THE KIVEK. 71 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EIVEK. 
 
 The river nobly foams and flows, 
 
 The charm of this enclianted ground ; 
 
 And all its thousand turns disclose 
 Some fresher beauty varying round. 
 
 Byeon. 
 
 With a subdued silvciy gleam, the surest promise 
 in these latitudes of a clear day to follow, the 
 sun peeped through the network of the forest 
 that here does duty for horizon on every side, 
 when our party mustered under the neat Avooden 
 pavilion of the landing-place, between the parade- 
 ground and the river, — I might have not less 
 correctly said the highway. For the true high- 
 ways of this land are its rivers, traced right and 
 left with matchless profusion by Nature lierself, 
 and more commodious could scarcely be found any- 
 where. Broad and deep, tidal, too, for miles up, 
 theu" course, but with scarcely any variation in 
 the fulness of their miglity flow, summer or 
 winter, rainy season or dry, so constant is the 
 
72 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 water-supply from its common origin, tlic equa- 
 torial mountain cliain. They give easy access to 
 the innermost recesses of the vast regions beyond — 
 east, west, and south; and where their tortuous 
 Avindings and multiplied side-canals fail to reach, 
 Batavian industry and skill have made good the 
 want by canals, straightcr in course, and often 
 hardly inferior in navigable capacity to the 
 mother rivers themselves. On the skeleton plan, 
 so to speak, of this mighty system of water com- 
 munication the entire cultivation of the inland 
 has been naturally adjusted ; and the estates of 
 Surinam are ranged one after another along the 
 margins of rivers and canals, just as farms might 
 be along highways and byways in German}^ or 
 Hungary. Subservient to the w^ater-ways, narrow 
 land-paths follow the river or trench, by which 
 not every estate alone, but its every subdivision 
 of an estate, every acre almost, is defined and 
 bordered, while the smaller dykes and canals are 
 again crossed by wooden bridges, maintained in 
 careful repair ; but paths and bridges alike are of 
 a width and solidity adapted to footmen only, or 
 at best horsemen. The projjer carriage road is 
 the river or canal. 
 
THE KIVEK. 73 
 
 In a climate like that of Surinam^ bodily exer- 
 tion is a thing to be economized as much as pos- 
 sible ; and accordingly everybody keeps his car- 
 riage — I beg pardon — his boat. That of the wealthy 
 estate-owner, of the vicarious '' attorney" (not 
 a professional one, I may as well remark, for the 
 benefit of those unused to West Indian nomen- 
 clatures, but the holder of a power of attorney 
 on the proprietor's behalf), of the merchant, of 
 the higher official, and generally of every one 
 belojiging to this or the otlier of what are con- 
 veniently called the " upper classes," is a comfort- 
 able barge, painted white for coolness' sake, and 
 propelled by oars varying in number from four 
 to eight. Towards the stern rises a deck cabin, 
 three, four, or even five ' curtained windows in 
 length, and capable of containing from six to ten 
 passengers at need, though more often occupied 
 only by the owner of the craft himself, stretched 
 out luxuriously at length, and secluded by closed 
 doors at either end of the apartment from the 
 toiling boatmen in front, and from the steersman, 
 who may be seen in the small space left open for 
 his duties at the stern of the vessel. 
 
 A fresh-painted, well-kept eight-oar, with a 
 
74 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 ciibiii of the kiuil thus described, hut of the very 
 largest dimensions, the sides, ceiling-, hangings, 
 cushions, all white, Avitli a dash of gilding here 
 and there; eight rowers dressed in loose white 
 suits, with broad red sashes round their waists, 
 and on their heads blue caps, to complete the 
 triple colours of tlie national flag, make a pretty 
 slioAV on the sun-lit river. And the GoA^ernor's 
 barge might, for picturesque appearance, match 
 the caique of a Stamboul dignitary, besides being 
 as much superior to the Eastern conveyance 
 in comfort as inferior in speed. The Avliite- 
 painted six-oar, four-oar, or even two-oar barges, 
 too, that abound for ordinary voyaging, though, 
 of course, smaller in their dimensions and less 
 gay in their accessories, are pleasant objects to 
 look at, and may bring to mind the gondolas of 
 Venetian waters ; with this difference, that 
 whereas the Adriatic crews arc white, or Avhat 
 sliould be white, and the boats black, here the 
 colours are, and not disadvantageously for pic- 
 torial effect, exactly reversed. 
 
 So much for the ''genteelcr sort." Larger 
 yet, and more solidly built, are the great lighter- 
 like barges, whetlier open or partly covered, that 
 
THE RIVEK. 75 
 
 convey down tlic stream, from the river-side estates, 
 casks of sugar or molasses, barrels of rmn, sacks 
 of cocoa, lieaped-iip yams, plantains, sweet- 
 potatoes, cocoa-nuts, cassava, and tlic hundred 
 other w^ell-known but too little cultivated pro- 
 ducts of this teeming land. Alongside of these 
 may be often seen the floating cottages of the 
 so-called ^' Bush negroes," well thatched and 
 snug, each occupying half or more of a wide 
 flat-bottomed boat, where two stalwart blacks in 
 genuine African garb — that is, next to no garb 
 (vide the woodcuts in Winwood Reade's amusing 
 narratives, passim) — paddle rather than row ; 
 and any number of black ladies, hardly more 
 encumbered l)y their costume than their lords, 
 with an appropriate complement of ebony chil- 
 dren, these last in no costume at all, look out 
 from the cabin-doors. In their wake follows a 
 raft of cut timber, green-heart, probably, or 
 brown-heart, or purple-heart, or balata, or letter- 
 wood, or locust-wood, or whatever other forest- 
 growth finds its market in town ; and, standing 
 on it, one or more statuesque figures, that look 
 as if they had been cut out of dark porphyry by 
 no unskilful hand, and well polished afterwards, 
 
76 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 guide its downward course. Most numerous of 
 all, light corials, that have retained the Indian 
 name as well as build, each one holloAyed out of a 
 single tree-trunk, with sometimes a couple of 
 extra planks roughly tacked on to the sides by way 
 of bulwarks, paddle past, under the guidance of 
 one or two ragged negro labourers, or husband- 
 men, who exchange shouts, sometimes of jest, 
 sometimes of quarrel, with their fellows in other 
 boats or on the shore. These little skiffs, drawing 
 scarcely a foot of water when deepest laden,- pass 
 through the narrowest ditches that divide almost 
 every acre of cultivated land on the estates from 
 the other, and are the chief means of passage for 
 the working-folks on their way to and fro between 
 country and town. When not in actual use, they 
 are kept sunk in water just deep enough to cover 
 them, and thus preserved from the sun-heat, 
 which would otherwise soon split the unseasoned 
 wood. Lastly, a few clumsy boats of the 
 ordinary long-shore type, in the service of trade 
 with the ships that lie anchored, giving out or 
 taking in cargo, off the town- wharf, mix up with 
 the rest, and add their quota of variety to the 
 river craft of Surinam. 
 
THE RIVER. 77 
 
 However, on the present occasion, it is neither 
 barge, plain or gay, nor a boat, nor even a 
 corial, that is waiting to receive our party. A 
 flat -bottomed river steamer, one of the three tliat 
 belong to the service of the colony, lies off the 
 wharf : she draws about ten feet of water, and 
 her duty is just now to convey us up the Connne- 
 weyne river, and its main tributary, the Cottica, 
 where lies the district which his Excellency has 
 selected for our inspection, because affording the 
 greatest variety of scenery and cultivation within 
 easy reach of Paramaribo. I have said that the 
 colony possesses three of these boats ; the largest 
 of them makes a voyage along the sea-coast as 
 far as Georgetown twice every month ; the two 
 smaller confine their excursions within the limits 
 of river navigation. 
 
 In a few minutes we were all on board, a 
 merry party, Dutch and English, official and 
 non-official, military, naval, civilian, and burgher, 
 but all of us bent alike on pleasing and being 
 pleased, to the best of our opportunities. Our 
 boat was well supplied, too, with whatever Dutch 
 hospitality — no un substanti al virtue — could furnish 
 for convivial need, and was commanded T)y a 
 
78 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 paragon of boat-captains, a briglit-eyed, Lrown- 
 faccd little man, Scotch by his father's side, 
 Indian by his mother's, himself miiting in 
 physiognomy, as in character, the shrewdness 
 and practical good sense of the former parentage 
 with the imperturbable calm and habitual good 
 humour of the latter. Under such ausj)ices we 
 started on our way. 
 
 To enter the Commeweyne river we were first 
 obliged to retrace a portion of the route by wdiich 
 I had arrived three days before, and to follow 
 the downward course of the Surinam river for 
 about eight miles, passing the same objects no 
 longer wholly new, but now more interesting 
 than before, because nearer seen and better under- 
 stood. Here is a plantation, caught by glimpses 
 throuo^h the mano-rovc-scrub that borders the 
 river's bank ; a narrow creek, at the mouth of 
 which several moored barges and half-submerged 
 corials are gathered, gives admittance to the 
 heart of the estate. It is a vast cocoa-grove, 
 where you may wander at will, under 350 con- 
 tinuous acres of green canopy ; that is, if you arc 
 ready to jump over any number of small brim- 
 ming ditches, and to cross the wider irrigation- 
 
THE KIVER. 79 
 
 trenches on bridges, the best of whicli is simply 
 a round and sli^^pery tree trunk, excellently 
 adapted, no doubt, to the naked foot of a negro 
 labourer, but on Avhicli no European boot or shoe 
 can hope to maintain an instant's hold. Huge 
 23ods, some yellow, some red, — the former colour 
 is, I am told, indicative of better quality, — ■ 
 dangle in your face, and dispel the illusion by 
 which you might, at first sight of the growth and 
 foliage around you, have fancied yourself to be 
 in the midst of a remarkably fine alder-tree 
 thicket ; Avhile, from distance to distance, broad- 
 boughed trees, of the kind called by the negroes 
 ^' cofFee-mamma," from the shelter they afford to 
 the plantations of that bush, spread their thick 
 shade high aloft and protect the cocoa-bushes and 
 their fruit from the direct action of the burnintr 
 sun. Moisture, warmth, and shade, these arc the 
 primary and most essential conditions for the 
 well-doing of a cocoa estate. Innumerable 
 trenches, dug with mathematical exactitude of 
 alternate line and intersj^ace, supply the first 
 requisite ; a temperature that, in a wind-fenced 
 situation like this, bears a close resemblance for 
 humid warmth to that of an accurately shut hot- 
 
80 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 lioiise, assures the second; and the ^'cofFee- 
 mamma," a dense-leaved tree not unlike our own 
 beech, guarantees the third. Thus favoured, a 
 Surinam cocoa crop is pretty sure to Ije an 
 abundant one. Ever and anon, wliorc tlie 
 green labyrinth is at its thickest, you come 
 suddenly across a burly creolc negro, busily 
 engaged in plucking the large pods from the 
 boughs with his left hand, while with a sharp 
 cutlass held in his right he dexterously cuts 
 off the upper part of the thick outer covering, 
 and shakes the slimy agglomeration of seed 
 and white burr clinging to it into a basket set 
 close by him on the ground. A single labourer 
 will in this fashion collect nearly 400 pounds 
 weight of seeds in the course of a day. AVlien 
 full the baskets are carried off on the heads of the 
 assistant field- women, or, if taken from the remoter 
 parts of the plantation, are floated dowai in boats 
 or corials to the brick-paved courtyard adjoining 
 the planter's dwelling-house, where the nuts are 
 cleansed and dried by simple and unexpensive pro- 
 cesses, not unlike those in use for the coffee berry ; 
 after which nothing remains but to fill the sacks 
 and send them off to their market across the seas. 
 
TilE 1,'IVEK. 81 
 
 A Guiana cocoa-plantation is an excellent 
 investment. The first outlay is not heavy ; nor 
 is the maintenance of the plantation expensive, 
 the number of labourers bearing an average pro- 
 portion of one to nine to that of the acres under 
 cultivation. The work required is of a kind that 
 negroes, avIio are even now not unfrequently pre- 
 judiced by the memory of slave days against the 
 cane-field and sugar-factory, undertake willingly 
 enough ; and, to judge by their stout limbs and / 
 evident good condition, they find it not unsuited 
 to their capabilities. More than 4,000,000 
 pounds weight of cocoa are yearly produced in 
 Surinam, " v/hicli is a consideration," as a negro 
 remarked to me, laboriously attempting to put his 
 ideas into English instead of the Creole mixture 
 of every known language that they use among 
 themselves. Neither coolies nor Chinese are 
 cmjiloyed on these cocoa estates, much to the 
 satisfaction of the Creoles, who, though tolerant 
 of, or rather clinging to, European mastership, 
 have little sympathy with other coloured or semi- 
 civilized races. Some authors have indeed con- 
 jectured that the West Indian labom-er ''of the 
 future" will be a cross mixture of the African 
 
82 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 and tlic Asiatic, but to this conclusion, desirable 
 or not, tlicre is, for the present, no apparent 
 tendency cither in feWinam or, to the best of my 
 knowledge, elsewhere. As to the Indians of 
 these regions, they kcej^ to themselves ; and their 
 incapacity of improvement, combined with here- 
 ditary laziness and acquired drunkenness, v/ill, it 
 seems, soon render them a mere memory, poetical 
 or otherwise, of the past. 
 
 Soil, climate, and the conditions of labour, all 
 here combine to favour the cocoa-plant; and, 
 accordingly, out of the 30,000 acres actually 
 under cultivation in Dutch Gruiana, we find that 
 a sixth part is dedicated to its production. More 
 would be, but for the time required before a fresh 
 plantation can bear a rcmimerative crop : five or six 
 years must, in fact, elapse, during which no return 
 at all is made, ''which is a consideration" also, 
 though in an opposite sense to that quoted above. 
 
 Cocoa prospers; but, after all said and done, 
 sugar — the one thing that for two centuries and 
 more has been to the West Indies, Dutch, 
 French, Spanish, or English, what cloth is to 
 Manchester, cutlery to Sheffield, or beer to 
 Bavaria — is even now, despite of emancipation, 
 
THE RIVER. R3 
 
 free-trade, bcet-rootj prohibitive regulations, 
 American tariffs, and the whole array of adver- 
 sities mustered against it for the last fifty years, 
 the ''favourite" of the agricultural race-course, 
 and holds, with regard to other products, how- 
 ever valuable, the same position as the queen of 
 the chess-board does when compared Avitli the 
 remaining pieces. Indeed in some, Demerara 
 for instance, sugar reigns, like Alexander Selkirk 
 on his island, not only supreme, but alone ; while 
 in Surinam, where, more than in the generality 
 of West Indian regions, she has many and, to a 
 certain extent, successful riA^als to contend with, 
 she vindicates a full half of the reclaimed soil for 
 her exclusiA^e domain. Previous to emancipation, 
 four-fifths at least were her allotted share. No 
 fuller evidence of her former sway need bo 
 sought than that which is even yet everywhere 
 supplied by the aspect of the great houses, 
 gardens, and all the belongings of the old sugar 
 plantations, once the wealth and mainstay of 
 the Dutch colony. The garb is now too often, 
 alas! "a world too wide for the shrunk shanks" 
 of the present, but it witnesses to the time when 
 it was cut to fitness and measure. 
 
 o 2 
 
84 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 And licro on our way, almost opposite the 
 cocoa plantation with its modern and modest 
 demesnes tliat wo have just visited, appears the 
 large sugar estate of Voorburg, close behind 
 Fort Amsterdam, at the junction-point of the 
 rivers. Let us land and glad the heart of the 
 manager — the owner is, like too many others 
 (and the more the pity), an absentee — by a visit. 
 Happy indeed would he be, in his own estima- 
 tion at least, were we to comply with his well- 
 meant request of riding round every acre and 
 inspecting every cane on the grounds. But as 
 these cover 360 acres of actual cultivation, be- 
 sides about a thousand more of yet unreclaimed 
 concession, as the sun, too, is now high enough 
 to be very hot, and we have other places to 
 visit and sights to see, we will excuse ourselves 
 as best we can, though by so doing we mark an 
 indifference on our part to the beauties of the 
 cane-field that he may forgive but cannot com- 
 prehend. 
 
 I may remark, by the Avay, that in this respect 
 every planter, every manager, Dutch, English, 
 Scotch, or Irish, in the Yfcst Indies is exactly 
 the same. None of them, in the intense and per- 
 
THE RIVEH. 85 
 
 sonal interest they take iu every furrow, every 
 cane, can understand liow any one else can feel 
 less, or how, to the uninitiated eye, one acre of 
 reed is very like another, one ditch resembles 
 another ditch — just as the slicep in a flock are 
 mere repetitions, the one of tlie other, to all 
 but the shepherd, or as one baby resembles 
 any baby to every apprehension except to that 
 of the mother or, occasionally, the nurse. Let 
 us, however, respect what we are not Avorthy 
 to share ; and do thou decline regretfully, my 
 friend, but firmly — if thou desirest not lieadache 
 and twelve hours' subsequent stupefaction at the 
 least — the friendly invitation to ''ride round" 
 the estates, in a sun-heat, say, of 140'^ Fahr., for 
 two whole hours — it cannot be less — v/hile a super- 
 copious breakfast and all kinds of cheerful but 
 ''seductive" drinks are awaiting thee on thy 
 return. Accompany us rather on the quiet cir- 
 cuit Ave now will make about the house, the 
 labourers' cottages, the outbuildings, and two, 
 at most three, acres of cane ; and when in future 
 visiting on thy own account, "go and do like- 
 wise." 
 
 Nor is even the following picture of Voorburg 
 
S6 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 to bo taken as a photographic likeness: rather 
 an idealized view, combining details taken from 
 other subjects with those of tlie above-named 
 locality, and true to many — indeed most — sugar 
 estates of this region, because limited to the exact 
 facts, statistical or pictorial, of none. 
 
 Wood or brick — more often the former — tlic 
 landing-place or ^'stolling" receives us, and on 
 traversing it we are at once welcomed by the 
 cool shelter — half a minute's exposure to the sun 
 will have made you desire it — of a cool, well- 
 swept, well-trimmed avenue, most often, as it 
 happens to be at Voorburg itself, of mahogany- 
 trees, dark and clustering, sometimes of llglit- 
 green almond-trees or locust-trees, or it may be 
 of palms, especially betel — this last selected 
 rather for the perfect beauty of symmetry, in 
 Avhich it excels all other palms, than for shade. 
 To this avenue, which may be from fifty to a 
 hundred yards long, succeeds an open garden, 
 laid out in walks, where '' caddie" does duty for 
 gravel, and flower-beds, in which roses, • gera- 
 niums, verbenas, jessamines, and other well- 
 known Europeanizcd flowers and plants mix 
 with their tropical rival, of equal or greater 
 
THE KIVEK. 87 
 
 beauty and sweetness ; their names — ali, me ! I 
 am no botanist — enough if wonderful passion- 
 flowers, noble scarlet lilies, and gorgeous cactus- 
 blossoms be mentioned here : Canon Kingsley's 
 chapter on the Botanical Gardens of Trinidad 
 may be safely consulted for the rest. Amid 
 these are a few flowerino; trees also — the 
 golden Pui (pronounced Poo'ce), the purple Bois 
 immortel^ and the scarlet masses, entwined with 
 emerald-green, of the towering Spathodia, the 
 queen of the tropical forest. Among the beds and 
 garden-walks keep sentinel, in true Batavian 
 fashion, quaint, white-painted wooden statues, 
 mostly classical, after Lempricre, " all heathen 
 goddesses most rare " — Venuses, Dianas, Apollos, 
 Terpsichores, Fortunes on wheels, Bacchuses, 
 Fauns, occasionally a William, a Van Tromp, 
 or some other hero of Dutch land or main — ■ 
 these last recognizable by the yestiges of cocked 
 hats and tail-coats, as the former by the absence 
 of those or any other articles of raiment, and all 
 with their due proportion of mutilated noses, 
 lopped hands, and the many injuries of sun, rain, 
 and envious time. 
 
 But stay, I had almost forgot to mention the 
 
§8 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 two iron popguns that command tlie landing- 
 place, and flank on cither side the entry of the 
 avenue — imitation cannon, that, in everything, 
 except their greater size, are the very counter- 
 parts of those "devilish engines" that our early 
 clnldhood thought it a great achievement to load 
 and fire off. Here the children's part is played 
 not unsuccessfully by the negroes themselves, 
 v/ho, at seventy years of age, have no less plea- 
 sure than we ourselves might have felt at seven, 
 in banning: off their artillery in and out of all 
 
 DO J 
 
 possible seasons, but especially on the approach 
 of distinguished and popular visitors like our- 
 selves ; I mean, of course, his Excellency the 
 Governor, with whom I am happily identified, 
 so to speak, during this trip. But this is not all; 
 for within the garden, close under the house- 
 windows, are ranged two, four, or even six more 
 pieces, some shaped like cannon, others like 
 mortars ; and these too arc crammed up to their 
 very mouths Avitli powder and improvized wad- 
 ding, and exploded on festive occasions, when, 
 as ill hap will have it, their over-rej)letion often 
 results in bursting, and their bursting in the 
 extemporized amputation of some negro arm, 
 
THE ravER. 89 
 
 leg, or head, as tlie case may be. But, tiioiigli 
 I heard of many a heart-rending or limb-rending 
 event of the kind, I am thankful to say that 
 I v/itnessed none during our tour, though of 
 explosions many. 
 
 Next a flight of steps, stone or brick, guarded 
 by a liandsome parapet in the Dutch style, and 
 surmounted by a platform, with more or less of 
 architectural pretension, leads up to the wide 
 front door, by which ^ve pass, and find ourselves 
 at once in the large entrance-hall, that here, as 
 formerly in European dwellings, serves for 
 dining-room and reception-room generally. The 
 solid furniture, of wood dark with age, gives it a 
 quasi old-English look, and the gloom — for the 
 liglit is allowed but a scanty entrance, lest lier 
 sister, heat, should enter too — is quasi English also. 
 But the stiff portraits on the wall, ancestors, 
 relatives, Netherland celebrities, royal person- 
 ages, governors, &c., &c., are entirely Dutch, 
 and belong to the " wooden " school of art. The 
 central table is of any given size and strength, 
 and has been evidently calculated for any amount 
 of guests and viands. We shall partake of the 
 latter before leaving, and bestow well-merited 
 
90 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 praise on cook and cellar. Besides the hall are 
 other apartments, coiuiting-roomSj and so forth ; 
 above it is a second story; above it a third; for 
 the brick walls are strong, and hurricanes are 
 here, as in Demerara, by Miss Martineau's leave, 
 unknown ; over all rises a high-pitched roof ; 
 the wolf, or griffin, or lion, or whatever crest the 
 original proj)rietor may have boasted, figures 
 atop as gable ornament or vane. The whole 
 forms a manor-house that might have been trans- 
 j)orted, by substantial Dutch cherubs of course, 
 as the Loretto bauble was by slim Italian an- 
 giolets, from amid the poplars of Arnheim or 
 Bredevoort, and set down on the banks of 
 Commeweyne. Only the not unfrequent adjuncts 
 of a trellised verandah and a cool outside 
 gallery are manifestly not of extra-tropical 
 growth. 
 
 We have received our welcome, and drunk 
 our prelusory " schnapps." And now for the 
 sight-seeing. The factory, where the canes are 
 crushed into mere fibre, as fast as the negroes 
 can lift them from the canal-barge alongside on 
 to the insatiable rollers close by, give out their 
 continuous green frothy stream, to be clarified, 
 
THE rJVER. 91 
 
 heated, boiled, reboiled, tormented fifty ways, 
 till it finds refuge in the hogsheads or rum-barrels, 
 resembling in every stage of its course its counter- 
 part in Demerara, or Jamaica, minus however, 
 except in one solitary instance, the expensive 
 refinements of the centrifugal cylinder and vacuum 
 pan. But for mere delectation, unless heat, 
 vapour, noise, and an annihilation of everything 
 in general to a sugar thought in a sugar shade — 
 forgive me, Marvell ! — be delectation, which I 
 hardly think, no man need linger in a factory, 
 nor, unless he desires prematm-e intoxication on 
 vapour, in a rum-distillery either. Worth atten- 
 tion, however, and admiration too, is the solidity 
 of construction by which the huge mass of build- 
 ing, doubly heavy from the ponderous machinery 
 it contains, l^esides its clustering group of out- 
 houses, megass-sheds, tall chimneys, , store-places, 
 and the rest, is enabled to support itself upright 
 and un}aelding on a soil so marshy and unstable. 
 The foundations in many instances, I am told, 
 exceed by double in surface - dimension the 
 buildings above. 
 
 Ingenious bees, these sugar-making ones. Let 
 us next look at the hives of the workers. These 
 
92 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 workcrS; or, metaplior apart, labourers, are here 
 — at Voorburg", I mean — and on not a few other 
 estates, of three kinds, coolie, Chinese, and 
 Creole. And should any one, smitten with a 
 desire for accuracy and statistics, wish to know 
 their exact numbers in this particular instance, 
 the coolies at Voorburg are ninety all told, 
 the Chinese 181, the Creoles or colonial-born 
 negroes, 200. 
 
 First to the coolies. Their introduction into 
 Surinam is of recent date — little over two 
 years, in fact ; but everything has been or- 
 ganized for them on exactly the same footing 
 as in Demerara or Trinidad. They have 
 their agents, here and in India their official 
 protector — a very efficient one, in the person of 
 
 Mr. A. C , her Majesty's Consul. Their 
 
 labour and pay regulations are textually identical 
 with those of Demerara. They are duly -pvo- 
 vided with a medical staff and hospitals ; in a 
 word, they are, if anything, more fenced in here 
 from every shadow of a grievance than even in 
 an English colony : Mr. Jenkins himself could 
 not ask more for his p'^vtcgcs. The eye recog- 
 nizes at once the regulation cottages, all, like 
 
THE RIVEK. 93 
 
 pretty maids — but liere the similarity ceases — of 
 a row, with garden spaces attached. Lack yards, 
 verandahs, and every attention joaid by the con- 
 structors to dryness, ventilation, and whatever 
 else a Parliamentary Insj)ector of the most 
 practical typo could desire. Thus much is done 
 for the immigrants ; but except to amass money, 
 with an occasional whiff at the hooka between 
 times, from morning to night, the "mild 
 Hindoo " is not inclined to do much for himself. 
 His garden, ill j^lfi-uted, and ill cared for, is a 
 sorry sight ; his dwelling, for what concerns the 
 interior, is a cross between a gipsy hut and a rag- 
 shop, and a pinched, stingy meanness charac- 
 terizes his every belonging, no less than himself. 
 That he may also excel in '' grace, ease, 
 courtesy, self-restraint, dignity, sweetness, and 
 light " I am ready, of course, with all believers 
 in ''At last," to admit. But I do it on faith, 
 "the evidence of things not seen," either in the 
 West Indies or the East. Lovv'-caste Hindoos in 
 their own land are, to all ordinary apprehension, 
 slovenly, dirty, ungraceful, generally unaccept- 
 able in person and surroundings ; and the coolies 
 of Yoorburg; may have been low caste, very 
 
94 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 likely. Yet, offensive as is tlie low-caste Incliaiij 
 were I estate-owner or colonial governor^ I had 
 rather see the lowest Parlas of the low than a 
 single trim, smooth-facedj smooth-wayed, clever, 
 high-caste Hindoo on my lands or in my colony. 
 
 But for the imtidiness, I might say shiftless- 
 nesSj of the Surinam-planted coolies some allow- 
 ance must be made. They are new-comers in a 
 new land, among v/hat arc to them new races ; 
 and if it takes some time even for the European 
 under such like circumstances to pluck up heart 
 and be a-doing, the process of adaj^tation is yet 
 slower for the Asiatic. In Demerara, where 
 they have now dwelt for years, with Europeans 
 to stimulate and direct them, and negroes to 
 teach them gardening without doors and tidiness 
 within, the coolies certainly make a better show, 
 and so do their dwellings. But they have much 
 as yet to learn in Surinam. 
 
 Passing a dyke or two, we come next on the 
 Chinese cottages, in construction and outward 
 arrangement identical with those of the coolies, 
 or nearly so. The gardens here show a decided 
 improvement, not indeed in the shape of flowers, 
 or of any of the pretty, graceful things of the 
 
THE RIVER. 95 
 
 soil, for of siicli arc none here, but in 
 useful yegctablos and pot-lierbs in plenty. 
 Spade and hoe, manure and water, care and 
 forethought, have done their work, and are 
 receiving their reward. But, the inside of a 
 Chinese dwelling; ''giiarda e j'^^ssci'^^ Well, 
 Chinamen are fond of pigs ; and if they have a 
 fancy themselves to live in pigsties, it is all in 
 character. 
 
 A dyke or two more has to be crossed, and we 
 enter the Creole village. Here regulation has 
 done less, and individual will and fancy more. 
 But the negroes are Dutch trained, and have an 
 idea of straight lines and orderly rows by no 
 means African ; though in the English-like pre- 
 ference given to isolated dwellings, in which each 
 household can live apart, over conjoint ones, they 
 do but follow the custom of their ancestral birth- 
 place. Their gardens are well stocked, not with 
 fruit and vegetables only, with plantains, mangoes, 
 bananas, yams, sweet potatoes, peas, and such 
 like things good for food, but also with whatever 
 is pleasant to the eye; with gay flowers, twining 
 creepers, bright berries, scarlet and black ; in 
 iine, with the brilliant colours and strong con- 
 
96 DUTCH GUIAXA. 
 
 trasts that befit African taste. Inside their 
 dwellings are comfortable, and in most instances 
 clean, neatly arranged too, though the space is 
 very often overcrowded with furniture, the tables 
 covered v/ith cheap glass and crockery, more for 
 show than use, and the walls hung round w^ith a 
 confused medley Of gaudy prints. These Creoles 
 evidently know how" to enjoy life, and have 
 resolved to make the best of it — the wisest 
 resolution, it may be, for us mortals in our little 
 day. 
 
 Enough of Creoles, Chinese, and coolies for 
 this once ; wc are yet at the outset of our voyage. 
 Keturning towards the factor}^, we j)ay a ^dsit to 
 the airy and well-constructed hospital. Sore feet, 
 the result of neglected chigoes, seem the principal 
 complaint. For the climate is, in itself, a healthy 
 one; epidemics are rare, marsh fever scarcely 
 heard of, and yellow-fever, like cholera, a his- 
 torical event of years past. Hence disease, when 
 it occurs, is mostly traceable to some distinct 
 cause of individual folly, unreasonable custom, 
 or, as is frequently the case with the self-stinting 
 coolie, insuflicient diet. Nor is there any doubt that 
 here, as in almost every other West Indian colony 
 
THE RIVEE. 97 
 
 — Demerara is one of the fcAv honourable excep- 
 tions — sanitary regulations and medical service 
 are far from their best. Let them be reformed, 
 as they easily may, and the inhabitant, European 
 or other, of the Guiana coast, will have no reason 
 to com2:)lain of his lot, so far as climate is con- 
 cerned, even when contrasted with the bracing 
 atmosphere and invigorating breezes of the 
 northern sea-shore. 
 
 A look at the truly regal king-palm, an African 
 importation, and said to be the only specimen in 
 the colony, tliat waves its crown of dense fronds, 
 each thirty and forty feet long, in front of tlie 
 Voorburg Residence, and we re-embark; not 
 sorry, after the hot sunshine we have endured, to 
 find ourselves once more under the boat-awning 
 in the temperate river breeze. 
 
 In a few minutes more we have rounded the 
 point of Fort Amsterdam, where of course flags 
 are flying, and officers and soldiers, in all tlie 
 glory of uniform, are hastily marshalling them- 
 selves alongside of the l^attery at tlie water's 
 edge, to greet his Excellency, who, liat in hand, 
 acknowdedges their salutations from tlie deck. 
 And now, with the tide to help, we are steaming 
 
 H 
 
98 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 up the giant Commeweyne, and enter straight 
 on a scene of singular beauty, and a character 
 all its own. For l:>readth of stream, indeed, and 
 colour, or discolour, of water, the river here- 
 abouts — tliat is, for about twenty miles of its 
 lower course — might fairly pass for the Danube 
 anywhere between Orsova and Widdin, or per- 
 haps for a main branch of the Nile above Benha, 
 with the sole discrepancy that whereas the Com- 
 meweyne, thanks to the neighbouring Atlantic, 
 is tidal, the two last-named tributaries of the 
 tideless Mediterranean and Black Seas are not 
 so. But that large, reddish water-snake, that 
 writhes its ugly way up the current, that timber- 
 raft of rough-hewm but costly materials, bearing 
 on its planks the tall, naked African figui'es that 
 guide its way ; that light Indian corial, balanced 
 as venturesomely as any Oxford skiff, and 
 managed by a boatman as skilful, however 
 ragged his clothes and reckless his seeming, as 
 the precisest Oxford undergraduate ; that gleam- 
 ing, gondola-like barge, with its covered cal)in — 
 is the reclining form within dark or fair ? — and 
 its cheery, singing crew, — all tliese are objects 
 not of Bulgarian nor even, though not absolutely 
 
THE EIVER. 99 
 
 dissimilar, of Egyptian river-life. The hot light 
 mirrored on the turbid water, the moist, hot 
 breeze, the intense, hot stillness of earth and sky^ 
 between which the very river seems as if motion- 
 less and sleeping in the monotony of its tepid 
 flow, — these also are unknown to the Nile of the 
 Cairene Delta or the Turko-Wallachian Danube \ 
 they belong to a more central zone. Details of 
 the sort might, however, be every one of them — 
 the ''Bush negroes" and the covered Dutch 
 barges excepted — equally well found, as I myself 
 can bear witness, on the Essequibo, the Demerara, 
 or any other of the neighbouring Guiana coast 
 rivers. But not so the scarcely interrupted succes- 
 sion of estates, sugar, cocoa, and plantain, to the 
 right and left, each ^4th its quaint name, most 
 often Dutch, telling some tale of the hopes, cares, 
 expectations, anxieties, affections, joys, sorrows, 
 of former owners long ago. Thus the mental 
 phases of a John, a Peter, an Anna, an Eliza- 
 beth, are each duly commemorated in the names 
 of " Pieterszorg," '' Johannishoop," '' Anna's 
 Lust," and ''Elizabeth-hoop"; self-confidence 
 speaks in " Vlugi-en-Trow " ("Duty and Trust") ; 
 
 philosophy, practical at any rate, in "Pust-en- 
 
 11 2 
 
100 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Werk " ('^ Rest and Labour "). The liappy owners 
 of ''Pleasm-o and Rest," ^' Peace," ''Union," 
 ''Gratitude," and "Satisfaction" ("Lust tot 
 Rust," " Vriede," " Eendraclit," " Dankbaar- 
 lieid," and "Lustrijk") deserved, we may hope, 
 the congratulations they still seem to claim ; 
 while "Incomplete," with "Profit and Loss" 
 ("Nuit Volmacht," " Nuit en Schadelijk"), leave 
 us in doubt. Gloomier yet, " Labour and Sorrow," 
 " Discord," and, worst of all, " Envy and Sj^ite " 
 (" Moed en Kommer," "Discordia," "Nijd en 
 Sjnjt") remain as recollections of recollections 
 long since faded, a sorry score long since, we 
 may reasonably trust, wiped out, and, but for 
 these now unmeaning names, forgotten. Good 
 deeds and pleasurable things have short-lived 
 memories, it is true; but sorrows and wrongs have, 
 in the majority of instances, shorter still. 
 
 Various as were, to judge by the catalogue of 
 which I have just given a random samj^le, the 
 early fortunes of the " Estates," their later times 
 have been to the full as varied, or, perhaps, more. 
 Some have, by good management, backed witli 
 the requisite capital, retained throilgh all vicissi- 
 tudes of trade and strife, of slavery, apprentice- 
 
THE KIVEK. 101 
 
 .ship, and eiiiaucipation, a sufficiency of Creole 
 labour to retain all, or tlic greater part of their 
 old West-Indian prosperity, and announce them- 
 selves accordingly, as we sail 23ast, by smoking 
 chimneys, roofs and walls in good repair, and 
 clustering cottages, amid the dense green of cocoa 
 groves, or the verdant monotony of sugar-canes, 
 only interrupted at regular distances by canal and 
 dyke, or by some long palm row, planted more 
 for beauty than for profit, a huge cotton-tree, 
 magnificent to look at, but useless else, and chiefly 
 spared to humour negro superstition, that yet 
 brings offerings of food and drink to the invisible 
 power, rather maleficent than otherwise, sup- 
 posed to reside imder its boughs. Or, again, 
 signs of recent additions and improvements, with 
 long white rovv'^s of regulation-built cottages, the 
 tenements of coolies or Chinese, attest fortunes, 
 not only maintained, but imj^roved, by the in- 
 fusion of ''new blood" from the Indian or the 
 Celestial Empire. Or a reverse process has taken 
 place : the cane has abdicated in favour of less 
 costly, l}ut also less remunerative, rivals; and. 
 the white proprietor has made place for a black 
 land-owner, or, more commonly, for several, who 
 
102 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 HOW cultivate the land in accordance with tlicir 
 narrow means. Here the emerald monotony of 
 the land in broken; patches of cassava-growth, 
 like an infinity of soft green cupolas crowded one 
 on the other, and undulating to every breath of 
 air, show chequerwise between acres where the me- 
 tallic glitter of vigorous plantain leaves or tall, hop- 
 like rows of climbing yam tell of an unexliausted 
 and seemingly inexhaustible soil. Jotted freely 
 amid the lesser growths, fruit-trees of every kind 
 spread unpruned with a luxuriance that says more 
 for the quantity than the quality of their crop ; 
 but this is the tropical rule, and even Dutch 
 gardening skill is unavailing against the exube- 
 rance of growth in climates like these. Mean- 
 while, the stately residence of the former pro- 
 prietor — who, by the way, had, in all probability, 
 been for many years an absentee, before, by a 
 natural result, he became a banki-upt (the transi- 
 tion is a stereotyped one, and recurs every day) — 
 has at last been totally abandoned as out of keep- 
 ing with the simpler requirements of Cudjoe and 
 his fellows, who content themselves with small 
 cottages half buried in a medley of flower-bushes 
 and kitchen-growth close hj ; though in more 
 
THE RIVEK. 103 
 
 tliaii one instance our dusky Creole, reverting to 
 tlie hereditary Oriental instinct of ease and how to 
 take it, has built himself, on the green margin of 
 some creek or river inlet, a pretty painted kiosk, 
 worthy of finding place among its likenesses on 
 the shores of the Bosphorus or Nile, and answer- 
 ing the same ends. An unroofed factory and 
 ruined chimney close by combine to mark the 
 present phase, a necessary though a transient one, 
 of land-ownership, through which Surinam is 
 passing, a more hopeful one, though less brilliant, 
 than that of exclusively large estates and costly 
 factories owned by few. 
 
 As the river shores, so is the country behind, 
 for miles away on either side, a chequer-board 
 of field and plantation, intersected by straight 
 ditches and canals, sluices, water-gates, locks, and 
 dams, with an occasional patch of unreclaimed 
 bush or towering forest, and studded with little 
 cottage clusters, where any quantity of negro 
 children play in the dust before the doors, and 
 curs innumerable lie in wait to rush out and yelp 
 at the passing stranger. 
 
 The ditches are crossed, at frequent intervals, 
 by wooden bridges, and over these run well-kept 
 
104 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 liorse-patlis, that skirt the canals, and go from 
 estate to estate through the entire district. Often, 
 too, they pass under noble avenues of locust or ma- 
 hogany-trees, or between tall palm rows, where the 
 turf on cither side allows a pleasant canter off the 
 beaten track. Friendly greetings from labourer 
 and peasant meet me everywhere ''as I ride, as I 
 ride," and salutations, not so gracefully subser- 
 \dent, perhaps, as those of the Hindoo, but much 
 more cheerful and sincere. 
 
 I am again,— -for this is not a diary where 
 everything is put down according to the order in 
 which it occurred, but rather a landscape pictm*e, 
 where I take the liberty of arranging accessories as 
 best may suit convenience or effect, — I am again 
 on board om- steamer, onward bound with the rest. 
 Sometimes our course lies along the centre of the 
 river, and then we have a general view of either 
 side, far off, but seen in that calmness of atmo- 
 sphere unknown to the northern climes, which, 
 while it abolishes the effects of distance, creates a 
 curious illusion, making the smallness of the 
 remoter objects appear, not relative, but absolute. 
 Sharp-edged and bright-coloured in the sun, 
 houses and cottages stand out in an apparent 
 
THE KIVER. 105 
 
 foreground of tree and field ; miniature dwellings 
 among a miniature vegetation, with Lilliputian 
 likenesses of men and women between. Then 
 again Ave ap^^roach one or the other baids:, and 
 see! the little palm-model is sixty feet high at 
 least, and the gabled toy-house a large mansion 
 three or four stories high. And now the fields 
 and gardens reach down to the very brink of the 
 stream, and our approach has been Avatched by 
 the labourers from far ; so that, by the time Ave 
 are gliding alongside, troops of blacks, men and 
 Avomen, — the former having hastily slipped on 
 their white shirts, the latter re-arranged 
 their picturesque headkerchiefs, of every device 
 and colour, gala fashion, — hurry doAvn to the 
 landing-place for a welcome. Some bear with 
 them little Dutch or fancy flags ; others, the 
 children especially, have Avild-floAvers in their 
 hands : tAvo or three instruments of music, or 
 Avliat does duty for such, are heard in the croAvd ; 
 and a dense group forms, Avitli the eager serious- 
 ness Ijefitting the occasion, about the tAVO dwarf 
 cannon by the wharf -side, which are now banged 
 off amid the triumphant shouts of the one sex 
 and the screams of the other. We, on the deck 
 
106 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 and paddle-boxes, return the greetings as best we 
 may ; tlie Governor waves his hat, fresh shouts 
 follow, till the popular excitement, on shore Ije it 
 understood, takes the form of a dance, begun for 
 our delectation, and continued for that of the 
 dancers themselves long after we have glided 
 away. White dresses, dashed here and there by 
 a sprinkling of gay colours ; behind them a glow- 
 ing screen of garden flowers, further back and 
 all around the emerald green of cane-ficlds; over- 
 head tall palms, not half seared and scant of 
 foliage, as we too frequently see them in the 
 wind-swept islands of the Caribbean Archipelago, 
 but luxuriant with their heavy crowns, or giant 
 flowering trees, crimson and yellow, the whole 
 flooded, penetrated everywhere, by the steady 
 brightness of the tropical day — 
 
 " Till all things seem only one 
 In the universal sun," — 
 
 a gay sight, and harmonizing well with the 
 sounds of welcome, haj)piness, and mirth. These 
 tell, not indeed perhaps of all-absorbing industry, 
 of ventursome speculation, and colossal success, 
 but of sufficiency, contentment, and well-doing — 
 good things too in their way. 
 
THE KIVER. 107 
 
 Salutations duly acknowleclgcd — tins may bo 
 the tenth estate where the ceremony has been 
 repeated, during about a decade of miles up the 
 river, — we retreat under the cool of the awning for 
 quiet talk ; and now the brown-complexioned, 
 bright-eyed, demure little semi-Indian caj^tain, 
 courteously coming up, suggests a glass of Hol- 
 lands, tempered with grateful ingredients, and 
 prepared in one or other of the many ways known 
 to West Indian convivality. The jn^oposal meets 
 with universal acceptance, and we all join in 
 pledging the health and happiness of the colony 
 of Surinam, and of its excellent and deservedly 
 popular Grovernor. 
 
108 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 COTTICA. 
 
 — A leaf on tlie one great tree, that, up from old time 
 
 Growing, contains in itself the whole of the virtue and life of 
 
 Eygone days, drawiiig now to itself all kindreds and nations, 
 
 And must have for itself the whole world for its root and 
 
 branches. 
 
 Clougk. 
 
 PopuLAEiTY is rarely denied to merit; but, for one 
 cause or another, it is sometimes deferred till it 
 takes the form of a post-mortem tribute. And 
 thus it has fared with Cornelis van Aersson, more 
 generally known by his territorial style of Som- 
 melsdyk, who erected the fort now in view as we 
 approach the junction of the Commeweyne and 
 Cottica rivers. Van Sommelsdyk, who, in the 
 month of November, 1683, arrived to govern the 
 Guiana territory, a third part of which he already 
 owned as proprietor, had been a page in the 
 Court of William II., of Orange, an intimate 
 friend of our own "William HI., and had held 
 such high office in his own country as befitted his 
 
COTTICA. 109 
 
 noble and ancient birth and great administrative 
 talents. To these advantages he added, if his 
 portraits be correct, a more than ordinar}^ beauty 
 of featm^e and great dignity of bearing. 
 
 The colony, when Van Sonnnelsdyk took charge 
 of it, was in a wretched state, disorganized, or 
 rather never yet properly organized at all within, 
 and harassed by continual attacks on the part of 
 the native Indians, then formidable by their 
 numbers, from without. To repress these, and 
 thus secure tlie leisure necessary for internal 
 reforms, was the new Governor's first object; and 
 with such vigour and skill did he address himself 
 to the task, that within a year's time the Indians, 
 repulsed on every side, were glad to ask for 
 peace. It was granted them on equitable terms, 
 and the princij^al tribes, Caribs, Warrows, and 
 Arrowoks, received the rights of freedom and 
 land ; henceforth no longer enemies, but fellow- 
 citizens and allies. This done. Van Sommelsdyk 
 hastened to extend the now-unharassed frontier 
 by founding, in the second year of his rule, with 
 the co-operation of Samuel Cohen Nassy — a 
 modern Joshua in Israel — the important Hebrew 
 settlement, far up the valley of the Surinam 
 
110 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 riverj afterwards known as the '' Joden Savannah/' 
 or Jews' Savannah, and which, during the follow- 
 ing century, was, for quality and extent of cul- 
 tivation, the wealthiest district of Dutch Guiana. 
 Less noted at the time, but more important in its 
 results, because more lasting, was the benefit he 
 conferred on the colony at large b}' the cocoa- 
 plant, first brought by his foresight into cultiva- 
 tion the following year. 
 
 It was, however, by the repression of crime 
 and the enforcement of law and order among the 
 colonists themselves, and especially among the 
 garrison soldiers, whose undisciplined conduct 
 and frequent excesses had rendered them hitherto 
 the standing disgrace and terror of the settlement, 
 that he established his best claim to the gratitude 
 of his subjects, bond or free. The soldiers, no 
 longer indulged in the idleness of garrison 
 quarters, were kept constantly occupied on expe- 
 ditions of war or discovery inland, or employed 
 in digging the great canal that, starting from 
 Paramaribo, joins the Surinam to the Saramacca, 
 and still bears the name of Sommelsdyk ; while 
 others constructed the two forts, one of which 
 is now before us on the Commeweyne, the 
 
COTTICA. Ill 
 
 other stands at tlic junction of tlio Para and 
 Surinam rivers. At the same time a High Court 
 of Justice, the first known in the colony, was, by 
 his care, erected, before which offenders of all 
 descriptions, and not rarely masters guilty of 
 cruelty to their slaves, were brought for sentence ; 
 and the Governor himself, by public proclama- 
 tion three times renewed, announced himself 
 amenable, like any otlier individual in the colony, 
 to legal summons and jurisdiction, disclaiming 
 tlie protection of any personal privilege soever, 
 and declaring his readiness to make any repara- 
 tion, should the sentence of the court require it. 
 
 For since, as Van Sommelsdyk had officially 
 declared in a dispatch dated the 16th January, 
 1G84, '' the misfortunes of tlie colony had l)een 
 mainly due to tlie unworthy conduct of its 
 Governors, who had only sought their own profit 
 to the ruin of the connnon weal," he rightly 
 thought that the example of better things should 
 first be set by himself as Governor and head. 
 This, for the five years of his administration, he 
 did nobly and steadily. Meanwhile the colony, as 
 was natural under such a rule, grew and prosj^ered, 
 till its limits, formerly restricted to the immediate 
 
112 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 nelglibourhood of Paramaribo, included the 
 courses of tlic great rivers, Saramacca and 
 Commewcyne, west and east ; while up the 
 Surinam itself they reached to a distance of sixty 
 miles or more from the coast ; and the total 
 number of estates, only fifty at the time of 
 Van Sommelsdyk's arrival, had increased to two 
 full hundred. 
 
 But while Van Sommelsdyk, by his energetic 
 integrity, earned the thanks and admiration of 
 the colony at large, he drew down on himself, l)y 
 a necessary consequence, the ])itter hatred of 
 those who had been accustomed to find their 
 advantage or gratify their passions under a 
 different system of administration, and, foremost 
 among such, of the soldiery, who chafed under a 
 discipline alike needful and severe. A mutiny 
 that broke out cm the 17th Jul}-, 1688, soon 
 became general ; and the Governor, hastening to 
 quell it in person, fell its first victim, j^ierced with 
 six-and-forty wounds, inflicted by the mutineers, 
 who at the same time murdered the commander 
 of the garrison, and took possession of the fort 
 and town, which for four days endured all the 
 horrors of military anarchy. But the spirit of 
 
COTTICA. 113 
 
 tlie late Governor had passed into the magistracy 
 he had created ; and in a few days order was 
 re-established, and confirmed by the execution of 
 eleven of the ringleaders and the expulsion of 
 the rest. Van Sommelsdyk's grave was dug near 
 the orange-grove where he died, close by the 
 walls of the fort : but his work remained ; and on 
 the foundations of order and discipline, cemented 
 by his blood, the colony reared its after-super- 
 structure of lasting prosperity. His son, Francis 
 van Aerssen, Lord of Chatillon, declined, at his 
 mother's prayer, the offered Governorship of the 
 colony ; but accompanied the newly aj^pointed 
 Governor thither in a jDrivate capacity next year, 
 and upheld the family reputation by the courage 
 and skill with which he headed the repulse of a 
 piratical attempt made by the French, who, with 
 nine men-of-war and a whole flotilla of gun-boats, 
 commanded by Admiral De Casse, attempted to 
 profit by the temporary confusion of Dutch affairs. 
 Under the joint leadershij^ of Francis of Chatillon 
 and the gallant Hebrew chief, Nassy, mentioned 
 before, the colonists obtained a complete victory 
 over their invaders, and for several years after 
 
 enjoyed the advantages of j^eace abroad and 
 
 I 
 
114 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 good government at home, won for tliem by Van 
 Sommelsdyk and liis son. The States of Holland 
 and William the Third of England testified liy 
 their conduct towards the widowed mother the 
 respect felt for the memory of the great Smunam 
 Governor in his native land. 
 
 During the whole of the eighteenth century, 
 Fort Sommelsdyk continued to be a position of 
 the greatest importance, covering the bulk of the 
 colonial estates and the capital itself from the 
 frequent inroads of Cayenne depredators, and 
 their allies, the French maroons. With the final 
 repression of these marauders, the military duties 
 of the post may be said to have ceased ; and 
 it has now for several years served only as a 
 police-station. No spot could have been better 
 chosen ; no truer centre found anywhere. Not 
 only does the Commeweyne river, with its double 
 fringe of estates and cultivation reaching far to 
 the south, here unite with its main tributary, the 
 Cottica, the eastern artery of a wide and populous 
 district, but the same way gives direct access to 
 the Perica river, another important afHuent from 
 the south-east ; while at a little distance the Matap- 
 pica watercourse branches off in a northerly 
 
COTTICA. 115 
 
 direction, and, winding amid a populous region of 
 plantations and cane-fields, finds an opening to 
 the sea beyond. Half the cultivation and, owing 
 to the character of the estates, more than half 
 the rural population of Dutch Guiana are within 
 the range of these districts; and the selection 
 of this post will ever remain a proof of the 
 administrative no less than of the military 
 talents of Van Sommelsdyk. 
 
 The small fort, a pentagon, erected on a grass- 
 grown promontory at the meeting of the two great 
 waters, has a very pretty appearance. On every 
 side the further view is shut off by the dense 
 forest, through which the rivers make their wind- 
 ing way by channels from thirty to forty feet in 
 depth ; no other habitation is in sight ; and the 
 cleared space around the fort buildings has an out- 
 of-the-world look, befitting a scene of weird- 
 ad ventui'e in '' Mabensgion " or the ''Fairie 
 Queene." But the poetry of the New World is 
 in itself, not in the eyes of those who behold it ; 
 and if fairies exist west of the Atlantic, they are 
 invisible the most. Above its junction, the Com- 
 meweyne changes character, and, instead of being 
 
 a broad slow-flowing volume of brackish water, 
 
 I 2 
 
116 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 becomes a comparatively narrow but deep and 
 rapid stream ; while its former muddy colour is 
 exchanged for pure black, not unlike the ap- 
 2^earance of the mid-Atlantic depths in its inky 
 glassiness. If taken up, however, in small quan- 
 tity, the black colour, which is due chiefly to the 
 depth, gives place to a liglit yellow ; otherwise 
 the water is clear, free from any admixture of 
 mud, and perfectly healthy, with a slightly as- 
 tringent taste. These peculiarities are j^opularly 
 ascribed to some vegetable extract of the nature 
 of tannin, derived from the decomposing sub- 
 stances of the equatorial forest underneath which 
 these rivers take their rise. 
 
 We, for our part, no longer pursue our voyage 
 on the Commeweyne, but diverging follow its 
 tributary, or, rather, equal stream, the Cottica, 
 and our course is henceforth east, almost parallel 
 wdth the sea line, though at some distance from 
 it. From Fort Sommelsdyk onwards the view on 
 either bank gains in beauty what it loses in 
 extent. The bendings and turnings of the river 
 are innumerable ; indeed it not rarely coils 
 on itself in an almost circular loop, the nearest 
 points of which have been in many instances 
 
COTTICA. 117 
 
 artificially connected by a short but deep and 
 navigable canal, the work of Dutch industry. 
 Several little islands, each an impenetrable 
 mass of tangled vegetation, have thus been 
 formed ; on two larger ones, far up the river, 
 coffee is still growT^i. It was for many years one 
 of the main articles of cultivation in these 
 districts, though now it has fallen into unmerited 
 neglect ; whence it will doubtless be rescued 
 whenever a better-proportioned labour supply 
 shall allow the colonist to re- occupy and extend 
 the narrow limits within which their activity 
 is at present restricted. Several creeks, as all 
 lesser watercourses are here called, fall into the 
 main stream, or from distance to distance connect 
 it by the aid of canals with the sea. On the 
 banks of one of these flourished in days gone by 
 the still-famous Helena, a mulatto syren, whose 
 dusky charms are said to have rivalled in their 
 mischievous e:ffects, if not in other respects, those 
 of her Grecian namesake. These creeks, Avith 
 the canals and ditches dependent on them, com- 
 plete the water system, alike of irrigation and 
 traffic, throughout this wonderful land, w^here 
 nature has done so much and art and skill yet 
 
118 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 more. But, whatever the sea-communication 
 through these occasional openings, no brackish 
 taint ever finds its way to the higlier level 
 through which the Cottica flows ; and the fresh- 
 ness of the water is betokened by the ever- 
 increasing loveliness and variety of the river-side 
 vegetation. Lowest down hangs the broad fringe 
 of the large-leaved " moco-moco," a plant that 
 has, I suppose, some authentic Latin name, oidy 
 I know it not ; nor would it, however aj^propriate, 
 give thee, perhaps, gentle reader, any clearer 
 idea of the plant than may its Indian one, 
 dipping its glossy green clusters into the very 
 stream. Above tower all the giants of West 
 Indian and South American forests, knit together 
 by endless meshes of convolvulus, liane, creeper, 
 and wild vine, — the woorali, I am told, among the 
 rest ; and surcharged with parasitic orchises, till 
 the burden of a single tree seems sufficient to 
 replenish all the hot-houses of England and Wales 
 from stove to roof. Piercing through these, the 
 Eta palm — it resembles in growth the toddy palm 
 of the East Indies, and, for aught my ignorance 
 can object to the contrary, may be the very same — 
 waves its graceful fans high against the steady 
 
COTTICA. 119 
 
 blue ; and birds iunuiiierable, black, white, 
 mottled, plain, blue, yellow, crimson, long-billed, 
 parrot-billed, a Avliole aviary let loose, fly among 
 the boughs, or strut fearless between the tree- 
 trunks, or stand mid-leg deep meditative in the 
 water. Large lizards abound on the banks ; and 
 snakes too, it may be, but they have the grace to 
 keep out of sight, along with the jaguars and 
 other un23leasant occupants of the Guiana jungle. 
 In their stead light corials, sometimes with only 
 a woman to paddle, sometimes a man or l^oy, 
 dart out of the harbom'-like shelter of the creeks; 
 Bush-negro families peer curiously from the doors 
 of their floating cottages, or guide their timber- 
 rafts down the stream. Ever and anon a white 
 painted barge, conveying an overseer, a book- 
 keeper, or some other of the white or semi-white 
 gentry, rows quickly by ; for the river is the high- 
 way, and the wayfarers along it many ; so that 
 even where its banks are at the loneliest, the 
 stream itself has life and activity enough to show. 
 More often, however, it passes between cultivated 
 lands ; for while the factories and sugar estates 
 diminish in number as we go further up, the 
 small Creole properties increase, and comfortable 
 
120 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 little dwellings, plaee.s, cottages, sheds, aud out- 
 houses, amid every variety of " provision-ground " 
 cultivation, multiply along the bank. 
 
 Here, too, even more than along the Comme- 
 weyne, men in every variety of costume, from 
 the raggedest half -nakedness that in this climate 
 betokens not exactly want, but rather hard out- 
 door work, to the white trousers and black coat, 
 the badges of the upper-class negro Creole, and a 
 yet greater number of Avomen, who have for- 
 tunately not learned to exchange the becoming 
 and practical turban of their race for the ridiculous 
 hat and bonnet of European fashion, come down 
 to honour the Governor's passage ; nor does the 
 blazing afternoon sun, now at his hottest, seem to 
 have the least effect on the energy of their 
 welcome. And I may add that not here only, 
 and in the more secluded districts of the colony, 
 but throughout its entire extent I neither saw 
 nor heard of anything indicating, however 
 remotely, the duality of feeling that in so 
 many other West Indian settlements — the 
 Danish most — draws a line of separation, if not 
 hostility, between the black and the white 
 inhabitants of the land. The Creoles of Surinam 
 
COTTICA. 121 
 
 are not less loyal to the Dutch tricolor than the 
 burghers of Leyden, and King William himself 
 could hardly expect a more affectionately enthu- 
 siastic greeting, were he to make a tour through 
 the Seven Provinces, than his representative 
 receives when visiting his Transatlantic subjects 
 of the same rule. And, in this matter, observa- 
 tion is contirmed by history ; nor, since the con- 
 clusion, in 1777, of the long and bloody maroon 
 wars, has a single outbreak or show of insubordi- 
 nation disturbed the interior harmony of Dutch 
 Guiana. 
 
 For this happy state of things, ' contrasting so 
 advantageously with the records of too many 
 other neighbouring colonies, the wise and kindly 
 rule of an enlightened Grovernment has been, of 
 course, the principal promoter and cause. But 
 no small share of the praise is also due to the 
 truest friends and best guides Europe has ever 
 supplied to the African race — the Moravian 
 Brothers. 
 
 That Christianity was in the " good old times," 
 a century back, never taught to slaves, that its 
 introduction among them was vehemently opposed, 
 if not positively prohibited by actual law, or 
 
122 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 custom .stronger than law itself, may nowadays 
 shock, but should not surprise us. Slavery is in 
 itself too absolute an inequality, too marked an 
 injustice of man towards man, to allow of com- 
 munity, that is, of an association on equal terms 
 in other respects, least of all in religion. And so 
 long as slavery was intended to be perpetual, it 
 was necessary that the distinctions behind which 
 it entrenched itself should be perpetual also. It 
 might be objected that in matters professedly 
 regarding the other world such severe demarca- 
 tion was less necessary than in the more tangible 
 condition of this ; but a little attention will show 
 the opposite to be the fact. What is incapable of 
 proof is also incapable of refutation ; a boundary 
 line that cannot be defined cannot be disputed ; 
 and dogmatic or so-called spiritual distinctions, 
 however indefensible by right reason, have also 
 the more than counterbalancing advantage of 
 being inassailable from the same quarter. They 
 arc like the assertion, should any one choose to 
 make it, that Mars or Venus are inferior planets to 
 our own, because Mars, forsooth, is inhabited by 
 bears, and Venus by monkeys. Nation after nation, 
 following this happy line of argument, has boldly 
 
COTTICA. 123 
 
 denied the common riglits of this world to rivals 
 or strangers, on the plea that the rights of another 
 world were not theirs. Examples would be 
 invidious ; they will readily occur to every mind 
 conversant, even superficially, with histor}', pro- 
 fane or other. Nor, indeed, does that ' ' foulest 
 birth of time," sectarian persecution, rest on any 
 other basis ; though here it is not a mere pretext, 
 but a direct cause. And thus it follows conversely 
 that intercommunity of religion, from whichever 
 side, upper or lower, conqueror or conquered, 
 ruler or ruled, the exchange proceeds, has always 
 been the first step to intercommunity of social 
 and, ultimately, of civil rights. 
 
 In fact, the impossibility of long denying 
 class-equality to the worshippers in the same 
 temple, the partakers of the same rites, is not 
 less certain than is, unfortunately, the extreme 
 difficulty — I would fain hope not impossibility — 
 of maintaining that same equality where the 
 rites are diverse and the temples apart. Did I 
 hear any one say something that sounded like 
 " Ireland" ? — if so, it was you that said it, my 
 dear sir, not I. Let us look for our illustrations 
 in the East ; it is safer ground. 
 
124c DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 That no Mahometan can be rightfully made a 
 slave of, that an enslaved " unbeliever " becomes, 
 if he embraces Mahometanism, entitled to free- 
 dom after the lapse of seven years, are axioms of 
 Mahometan law, acknowledged, in theory, as 
 binding by every Islamitic nation, though too 
 often violated in practice. And indeed they 
 have been generally, if not exactly, observed for 
 many centuries ; and hence throughout Turkey, 
 Egypt, Arabia, and the Levant we see the 
 liberated negro, in spite of all prejudices of 
 colour and race, occupying precisely the same 
 social position as the whites around him, with no 
 drawback except such as his own mental or 
 moral shortcomings may individually impose. 
 
 Our Surinam colonists of two hundred years 
 since had jDrobably little knowledge of the 
 Mahometan world, and the results of Asiatic 
 experience ; but they instinctively felt that to 
 admit their slaves, even nominally, to a fellow- 
 ship of creed would only be the first step 
 towards ulterior 'levelling up"; that equality 
 in the Courts of the Temple would soon be 
 followed by equality in the Court of Justice, and, 
 finally, in the Court of Policy itself ; in a word. 
 
COTTICA. 125 
 
 that the one existing ideal barrier being removed, 
 no matter-of-fact fence could be erected strong 
 enough to supply its wants. Certainly^ no one 
 acquainted with those whom our ancestors termed 
 "churchmen" would suppose that the stipendiary 
 ministers of a state religion were likely to com- 
 promise their own position by making themselves 
 the champions of negro souls versus planters' 
 interest, whatever might be the possible advan- 
 tages, according to their own theory, to the 
 negro souls aforesaid ; and accordingly, for more 
 than a century, the negroes on the banks of 
 Surinam, Commeweyne, Cottica, Perica, and the 
 rest, remained, for belief and worship, in the pre- 
 cise condition of their fathers on the African 
 West Coast. Of this state of things a sample 
 yet remains in the maroons, or Bush negroes, of 
 the interior, the majority of whom are even now 
 Nature-worshippers after the old African form. 
 But, towards the middle of the last century, the 
 modification of public feeling, which was in due 
 time to render first the slave-trade, and then 
 slave-holding itself, an impossibility and an 
 abhorrence, had begun to make its appearance, 
 not only in England, but among the more civil- 
 
126 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 ized nations of Europe generally, and tliroiigli 
 them penetrated across the seas to the slaye- 
 owning- colonies of the West. And here the first 
 link to be undone in the chain of bondage was, 
 of course, that of religious disparity. But Avho 
 should loosen it ? Clearly not the ministers of 
 any national and established Church, Dutch or 
 English ; themselves the thralls of interest and 
 society, their own hands were too closely tied for 
 untying the hands of others. The work was one 
 for the irregular, not the uniform-wearing, soldiers 
 of Christianity ; and they were not long in enter- 
 ing on the field. 
 
 More fortunate than their compeers of Jamaica 
 and its sister islands, the Surinam slaves fell to 
 the share of the Moravian teachers, who had 
 already, as far back as 1735, organized settle- 
 ments among the Indians of the interior with 
 much labour and little result. It is remarkable 
 that almost the only teachers who have met Avitli 
 any success — and, indeed, their success, so to call 
 it, lias been considerable — among the Indians of 
 the two continents, south and north, are Roman 
 Catholic priests. A sensuous idolatry best fits a 
 sensuous good-for-nothing race. Whereas, when a 
 
COTTICA. 127 
 
 Catholic missionary suggested to a Busli negro, 
 the other day, the propriety of exchanging his 
 hereditary worship of tlie Cotton-tree for that of 
 an imaged Virgin Mary or some other saintly 
 doll, the Hack is reported to have answered, 
 "God made our idol; man made yours; and, 
 besides, ours is the finer of tlie two '' ; and 
 accordingly declined the exchange. ^^ Se non e 
 vero, e hen trovato." 
 
 But to return to the Moravians. When, after 
 some difficulty, though less than might have been 
 anticipated from the nature of things, on the 
 masters' part, they were allowed to turn their 
 attention to the slaves, their success was as rapid 
 as it was well deserved. In 1776 the first negro 
 was baptized, and admitted as a member of the 
 congregation ; and the countenance publicly and 
 generously given on the occasion by the Governor 
 of the colony marked this step with the import- 
 ance of an historical event. The very same year 
 a Moravian teaching-establishment was opened 
 on one of the Commeweync estates; others 
 followed, and, long before the emancij)ation of 
 1863, three-fourths of the working negroes had 
 been numbered in the Moravian ranks. The 
 
128 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 latest census gives nineteen Moravian scliools, 
 attended by more tlian 2,200 children, while over 
 24,000 names, all Creole, are inscribed in the 
 register of the Herrnlmt Brotherhood. 
 
 With the intrinsic merits or defects of discipline 
 or dogma in the Moravian system, which may be 
 concisely described as the exactest reproduction 
 known to our times of primitive Christianity, 
 taken in its better phases, I have nothing here to 
 do. These are matters of opinion, and every 
 man has his OAvn. It is not the theory, but the 
 practical result that claims our attention ; and, 
 allowances duly made for circumstances and the 
 inevitable defects and errors of every human 
 institution, whatever its range, this result is 
 eminently satisfactory, iDoth to the people and 
 the colony at large. 
 
 That the emancipation, too long deferred, of 
 1863 was neither preceded, accompanied, nor 
 followed in Dutch Guiana by any disturbances 
 like those which agitated Jamaica, Demerara, 
 and other settlements thirty years before; that 
 apprenticeship, so signal a failure elsewhere, here 
 proved a success ; that when this, too, came to 
 its appointed end in 1878, scarcely one among the 
 
COTTK-A. . 129 
 
 tliousand of crcolc labourers on the estates struck 
 workj or took advantage of his new completeness 
 of freedom to give himself up to idleness and vaga- 
 bond life, — these things are mainly due, so the 
 colonists acknowledge, to the S2:)irit of subordina- 
 tion, industry, and order inspired into their 
 pupils by the Moravian teachers. Alike un- 
 tinctured by Baptist restlessness and Methodist 
 fanaticism, their loyalty and good sense had 
 j^repared a people worthy of tlie rights, into 
 the enjoyment of Avhicli tliey at last entered; 
 they had made of the slaves under their tutorial 
 care, not only, as the phrase goes, good Clnis- 
 tians, but they had also made of them what the 
 majority of other teachers had failed to do, good 
 citizens and good subjects, loyal to their govern- 
 ment, respectful to their su^^eriors, orderly among 
 themselves. Obeali and poisoning, serious crimes, 
 indeed, in any form, are almost, unknown in 
 Dutch Guiana; camp-meetings, and the dis- 
 graceful extravagances of "native Baptist" 
 preachers, mountebanks, and demagogues, en- 
 tirely so. 
 
 Liberty of conscience, and the freedom of 
 every man to choose and follow whatever reli- 
 
 K 
 
130 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 gion lie will, arc very good things ; yet even 
 their warmest supporter would hardly hesitate 
 to bring up his children, hy preference, in that 
 form of religion to which he himself belongs. 
 Negroes, in their present phase, are children — 
 when newly emancipated tliey might have been 
 more proj^erly termed babies; and there would 
 certainly have been then no harm, nor even 
 much difficulty, in prescribing for them some 
 one of the many modes of Christianity best 
 adapted to their comprehension and capabilities. 
 And, of all modes, the Moravian, with its simple 
 creed, simple though emotional worship, strict 
 discipline, and absence of priestly casteship, 
 would, I venture to think, have been the best. 
 
 These reflections, which, so far as they are 
 merely reflections, the reader-companion of my 
 trip is free to adopt or reject as he pleases, have 
 in this, my narrative, derived their origin from 
 the sight of the barn-like buildings of the Mo- 
 ravian establishment called the Charlottenburg, 
 alongside of which we are now borne on the 
 clear black depths of the Cottica. The high- 
 roofed, conventual-looking mansion occupied by 
 the teachers themselves has a somewhat German 
 
COTTICA. 131 
 
 air; tlie cliapel scliool-lioiise and cattlc-shecls — 
 from which last, with garden- cultivation and 
 farming" work on a small scale, the "mission" is 
 chiefly supported — are all spacious and all plain 
 even to ugliness. If we enter the buildings, wo 
 shall see little more, or, in truth, nothing whatever, 
 to gratify the artistic sense. AVithin, as without, 
 any approach to ornamentation — not decorative 
 only, but architectural even — is strictly excluded, 
 though whether for reasons of economy or on 
 some abstract principle I do not know. Per- 
 haps it is a speculative '' craze ; " for why should 
 not the Moravians have crazes of their own, like 
 other denominations ? However, as this fancy — 
 if fancy it be — does not interfere with the prac- 
 tical utility of the constructions, which are cool, 
 roomy, well aired, and well kept, w^ant of beauty 
 may be pardoned, though deplored. The inte- 
 rior arrangements, too, offer nothing to make a 
 description interesting. A school-room — an ele- 
 mentary one esj^ecially — is much the same all the 
 world over, whether the scholars be black or 
 white ; and the same may be said of a meeting- 
 house and its contents. But, as I have already 
 said, they answer the purposes they were in- 
 
 K 2 
 
132 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 tended for, and, in addition, they really come up 
 to the popular idea. Private dwellings, by 
 African rule of taste, should be small — mere 
 sleeping-coverts, in fact — with an open verandah 
 or shed tacked on, it may be, but as little construc- 
 tion as possible. Public buildings, on the con- 
 trary, cannot be too large. For decoration, the 
 African eye has no great discernment ; it apj^re- 
 ciates bright colours and their combinations, but 
 that is nearly all. In form — imitative form 
 especially — they are at the very first letter of the 
 Art-alphabet ; nor were the most gifted of their 
 kind, the ancient Egyptians, much further ad- 
 vanced in either respect. What, then, can be 
 expected from the West Coast national type ? 
 But, like the princes of their brotherhood, the 
 light-coloured Africans of the Nile valley, the 
 Cono'o neffro and the naturalized South American 
 Creole, understand the value of size in archi- 
 tecture as well as Mr. Ferguson himself, though 
 not equally able perhaps to give the reason of 
 the value ; and the si)acious assemblj'-room and 
 wide enclosure of a Central African palace or a 
 Surinam negro meeting-place are the legitimate, 
 though somewhat feeble and degenerate, de- 
 
COTTICA. 183 
 
 scendants of the giant structures of Edfou and 
 Carnac. 
 
 Cottages and gardens extend far away to the right 
 and left of the open space where stands the central 
 establishment; while cocoa-nut trees form a con- 
 sj^icuous and a very agreeable figure in the general 
 landscape. Sir Charles Dilke asserts, correctly, I 
 take for granted, that 200,000 acres of Ceylon land 
 are shaded by cocoa palms yielding from seven to 
 eight hundred million cocoa-nuts a year, and worth 
 two millions sterling. Amen. There is no reason, 
 or, to put it better, no hindrance, cither of climate 
 or soil, to prevent the mainland Dutch settlement 
 of the west from rivalling or excelling, in this 
 respect, the once Dutch island of the east. Nor is 
 much labour, nor much expense, beyond the first 
 outlay of planting, required. Yet even for these 
 men and capital are alike wanting. Well, every- 
 thing has its day ; and Surinam, when her time 
 comes, may be the garden of Guiana : she is for 
 nineteen-twentieths of her extent more like the 
 shrubbery now. 
 
 Meanwhile the current and the boat are bear- 
 ing us on round another curve of the bank ; the 
 glittering plantain screen and the infinite inter- 
 
134 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 lacings of the cocoa-leaves have closed round the 
 green gap with its loiig-roofed buildings ; last of 
 all, the small painted belfry has, so to speak, been 
 swallowed up among the boughs, and ''all the 
 landscape is remade." Here is a remarkably 
 large and handsome residence, with an avenue 
 down to the water's edge, and landing-place to 
 match; the garden, too, and the statues amid 
 its flowers look more numerous and more fantastic 
 than common ; the factory is in good working 
 order, the sheds full of megass, the out-houses 
 stocked; everything betokens a prosperous condi- 
 tion. The negroes at the wharf salute us with flags, 
 popguns, and what they are pleased to call sing- 
 ing, as we approach. I inquire the name of the 
 place : it is Munnikendam, the Governor informs 
 me ; adding that the estate is remarkable for the 
 conservative tenacity with which, amid all the 
 changes that have from time to time come over 
 the spirit of the colonial dream, it has maintained 
 unchanged old customs, old feelings, old manners 
 and modes of life. Certainly we are now, in 
 what may be termed an out-of-the-way corner, 
 not far from the very extreme limits of European 
 habitation ; and central influences may have been 
 
COTTICA. 135 
 
 slow in diffusing tlieniselves by Dutch barges up 
 this sechided winding river. Nevertheless, to my 
 English eye the busiest districts of the colony and 
 the caj^ital itself had already appeared remark- 
 ably conservative. Not wholly stationary, for 
 progress there certainly is ; but it is progress by 
 line and rule, precept and measure — here a little, 
 and there a little, — not on the sweeping scale or 
 by the rapid transitions ordinary in the empirical 
 regions of the New World. So that, thought I, 
 if Paramaribo be comparatively not conservative, 
 the conservation of Munnikendam must be some- 
 thing worth the studying. The Governor assented ; 
 and by his order a message was shouted across 
 the stream that on our return we would pay the 
 good folks of the estate a visit ; and we continued 
 our way. 
 
 My readers will, I hope, accompany us on our 
 visit to Munnikendam in the following chapter, 
 and derive from it as much pleasure in idea as we 
 ourselves did in actual fact. Just now, however, the 
 immediate goal to which we were bound was the 
 estate entitled " La Paix," the remotest of all 
 Em-opean settlements or farms from the colonial 
 centre, bordering on what was once the military 
 
136 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 frontier, between which and the Maroweyne river 
 the land lies yet open and unreclaimed. East of 
 the Maroweyne commences Surinam's old rival 
 and plunderer, French Cayenne. The distance of 
 ^' La Paix " from the capital in a straight line is 
 about fifty miles ; following the river windings, 
 it cannot be much short of a hundred. 
 
 The Cottica, in this part of its course, and above 
 its junction with the Perica, which flows into it a 
 little below Munnikendam, is narrow, often not 
 exceeding eighty yards in width, but extremely 
 deep ; the banks, where they have not been 
 cleared for cultivation, or planted over with fruit 
 trees, are a tangled maze of forest, underwood, 
 creej^er, leaf, flower, thorn, through which a cat 
 or a snake could hardly find a way. Coffee- 
 bushes, the abandoned relics of plantation, mingle 
 freely with the native groAvth ; tall palms shoot . 
 up everywhere ; bamljoo tufts bend gracefully over 
 the stream ; water-lilies, pink, white, and yellow, 
 float on tlie ink-black waters. From space to 
 space, the opening of some small natural creek or 
 artificial creek enlarges the vista, green and 
 flower-starred to its furthest reach. Amid these 
 Creole cottages and gardens, cocoa-nut and banana 
 
COTTICA. 13T 
 
 plantations, abound and prosper ; there is no sign 
 of insecurity anywhere, still less of want. A 
 mile or so before we reach ''La Paix'' we pass 
 the large dwelling-house called "Groot Marseille." 
 It is inhabited by three Creole negroes, the joint 
 proprietors of the adjoining sugar estate ; and 
 these land-o\^Tiiing brethren, though thriving, live 
 together, strange to say, in unity. 
 
 La Paix itself, with its 1,760 acres of grant, 
 though not more than one-third of them are under 
 actual cultivation, is a fine sugar estate; the 
 fertility of the soil is evidently only limited by 
 the amount of labour bestowed on it ; and the 
 employment of coolies speaks well for the 
 corresponding amount of capital invested. Yet 
 the 2>lace has a half- wild frontier look ; and in the 
 struggle between the industry of man and the 
 excessive productiveness of nature, the latter 
 seems ever and anon almost on the point of gain- 
 ing the upper hand. Long grass and fantastic 
 undergrowth shoot up wherever the smallest 
 vacancy is left ; the cane-patch shows like a little 
 island surrounded by an encroaching tide of trees ; 
 and the tall branches, overshadowing cottage 
 and outhouse, give the habitations a backwood- 
 
138 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 settlement ajipearance, doubtful and undecided. 
 And here, on the twiliglit verge, where the ex- 
 tremest rays of civilization blend with the dark 
 margin of savage or, at any rate, non-civilized 
 existence beyond, let us pause awhile, before we 
 step on shore, and listen to the strange story of 
 those strange tribes on whose frontiers we now 
 are — the Bush negroes of Surinam. 
 
BUSH NEGROES. l39 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 BUSH NEGROES. 
 
 "We, boys, we 
 
 Will die fighting, or liye free. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 The groups that had gathered to greet us as we 
 landed at the large Avooden " stellmg " in front 
 of ''La Paix " had an aj^pearance not unbefittmg 
 the general character of the place itself. Mixed 
 together, yet distinct, the slender, ornament- 
 circled limbs and cringing gestures of the 
 turbaned coolies by the wharf contrasted strangely 
 with the sturdy forms and independent de- 
 meanour* of the Bush negroes, here present in 
 great force, mixed up with the more disciplined 
 Creoles, many of whom were, however, scarcely 
 more overburdened with apparel, or, rather, 
 sensible of the want of it, than their Maroon kins- 
 men around. There was no lack of that general 
 good feeling and willing subordination that cha- 
 racterize the more civilized population nearer the 
 
140 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 caj^ital. All were cheerful — the coolies, perhaps, 
 excepted, but cheerfulness is not a Hindoo virtue 
 either at home or abroad — and courteous after a 
 fashion, but somewhat wild. 
 
 A painted four-oar boat, Avitli its commodious 
 stern cabin, the overseer's conveyance, lay along- 
 side the wharf ; two broad, flat-bottomed barges 
 were moored some way up the main creek that 
 leads to the interior of the estate ; and, besides 
 these, were a dozen Maroon corials, mere hollow 
 tree-trunks, the simplest forms of barbaric inven- 
 tion, '^ survivals," to borrow Mr. Tylor's excellent 
 nomenclature, of a pre-civilized era in river 
 navigation. 
 
 The owners of the corials, tall, well-shaped 
 men of colour, varpng between dark bro^m and 
 inky black, with a rag, at most, bound turban- 
 fashion round their bullet heads, and another of 
 scarce ampler dimensions about theii' loins, 
 muster on the landing-place, and salute the 
 Governor with a courteous deference to which the 
 fullest uniform could add nothing. The women, 
 whose dress may best be described as a scanty 
 kilt, and the children, boys and girls, who have 
 none to describe, keep somewhat in tlie back- 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 141 
 
 ground, laugliing of course. All seem perfectly 
 at home, without strangeness or even shyness of 
 any kind. Nor, indeed, are they strangers from 
 far off ; their villages on the banks of the Upper 
 Cottica itself, and of its tributary stream, the 
 Coermotibo, are almost contiguous to the Euro- 
 23ean estates. The main body of the tribe is, 
 however, far away on the banks of the Saara 
 river, to the south, where their chief resides, and 
 along the west bank of the Maroweyne, the 
 ]30undary river between Dutch and French 
 Guiana. All this vast region, said, by the few 
 explorers who have visited it, to be in no respect 
 inferior for its fertility and the variety of its pro- 
 ducts to the best lands of Surinam, has been 
 made over, partly by express treaty, partly by 
 custom, to the maroons, commonly known as the 
 Aucan Bush negroes, the first who, in 1701, 
 obtained a formal recognition of freedom and 
 independence from their European masters. Of 
 the entire district they are now almost the sole 
 occupants, undisturbed even by dark-skinned 
 competitors; for the Indian aborigines, believed 
 to have been once numerous throughout these 
 wooded valleys, have wasted away and disap- 
 
142 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 pearecl, unable not merely to compete but even to 
 co-exist with their African, any better than with 
 their European neighbours. A small Dutch set- 
 tlement, that of Albina, on the banks of the 
 Maroweyne, alone varies the uniformity of negro 
 possession in these lands. 
 
 It was not till after a long struggle and much 
 bloodshed that the Aucan negroes established 
 themselves as the recognized lords of the soil. 
 Nor would they, it is more than probable, have 
 succeeded in doing so, but for the same causes 
 that first determined and gave importance to their 
 revolt — French hostilities and border- war. That 
 a strong rival feeling should, from the very first, 
 have existed between the Dutch and French 
 colonies was natural enough ; they were rivals, 
 and local rivalry could not but, in their case, be 
 embittered and intensified by the long-standing 
 hostility between the mother-countries themselves. 
 In the New World, however, as in the Old, it 
 is but justice to the Dutch to say that, not they, 
 but the French were the aggressors. 
 
 Border raids, sometimes in concert with the 
 action of the French fleet along the coast, Ijut 
 in general more harassing than dangerous, kept 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 143 
 
 the Dutch settlement, from the Maroweyne on the 
 east J as far as the central river of Surinam, in a 
 condition of constant disquietude for many years; 
 and while they weakened the planters, encouraged 
 the ever-growing sj)irit of insubordination among 
 the slaves. Runaways multiplied, and, joining 
 together in small robber-bands, helj)ed the French 
 plunderers in their work of devastation ; till, not 
 much after the commencement of the eighteenth 
 century, Cassard's terrible invasion, after nearly 
 involving the entire colony in immediate and 
 irretrievable ruin, only retired to leave behind it 
 a long train of social and financial evils, and, 
 worst of all, a servile war. 
 
 That such a war must, sooner or later, have 
 arisen, the normal circumstances of the colony, 
 even had it been absolutely free from outward 
 pressure or accidental difficulties, suffice to show. 
 The number of negroes, mostly stout, able-bodied, 
 and with every feeling of natural hatred against 
 their iniquitous captors yet fresh in their breasts, 
 already exceeded 20,000 ; while there is no reason 
 to suppose that the total of European residents in the 
 colony ever overpassed one-tenth of that amount. 
 So overwhelming a majority of blacks, how^ever 
 
144 PUTCII CJUIANA. 
 
 ignorant and unprovided with tlio artificial moans 
 of strength molded by their cniployers, could, of 
 course, be only retained in bondage by a per- 
 sistent system of extreme severity ; and severity 
 was sure to degenerate in many, if not most, 
 instances, into downright and wanton cruelty, 
 thus daily adding new motives of revenge to 
 wdiat might have already seemed more than 
 sufficient. True, the Dutch were not exceptionally 
 hard masters ; they might even, as a whole, con- 
 trast favourably with many other slave-owning 
 nationalities of the time. But the very tale, 
 briefly told a few pages back, of the lawlessness 
 that all the energy of Van Sommelsdyk for a time 
 failed to suppress, and the savage mutiny in which 
 he lost his life, gives evidence enough, that how- 
 ever temperate, orderly, and law-abiding may 
 have been the leaders of the brave Zeelanders 
 who founded Surinam, they could not but have 
 numbered among the ranks of their followers 
 many rough -handed, turbulent, lawless men, 
 impatient of power in the hands of others, and 
 sure to abuse it when holding it in their own. 
 Even with the better sort, it could hardly, sooner 
 or later, be otherwise. '' Never had man absolute 
 
BUSH NECaiOES. 145 
 
 jDOwer over luaii, but he misused it/' says tlie 
 Eastern proverb ; it might, for the truth of its 
 ajiplication, be a Western one too. There is no 
 need to examine further; the history of slavery 
 and slaves, no less than of slave-owners, is the 
 same everywhere — the worst blot on the pages of 
 time. Alike monotonous in horror is its only 
 episode, insurrection. 
 
 Within a small insular inclosure, like Barbados, 
 or even a larger one, such as Jamaica, a negro 
 outbreak, however vigorous and well concerted, 
 was sure to yield, most often speedily, at all 
 events surely, to regular troops and the supe- 
 riority of European skill. But in a territory of 
 undefined extent, backed on every side by an 
 untracked extent of river forest, insurgents had, 
 and were not long in perceiving that they had, a 
 very different and much better prospect of 
 success ; and the Surinam negroes might reason- 
 ably hope that the issues of a war in which all 
 tlie disadvantages were on the side of the regular 
 troops, the advantages on their own, would be 
 for them, if not in conquest, at least in freedom. 
 They wanted but the occasion to begin ; it came, 
 and it was Cassard who brought it. 
 
14G DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 When tlic French marauders of 1712-13 over- 
 spread the land, and clucfly the eastern Comme- 
 weync districts, many of the planters fled for 
 refuge to the ca})ital, leaving their negroes to 
 shift for themselves. That they did; and did it 
 after a fashion that common sense should have 
 told their owners to expect. Joining themselves 
 to the invaders, they helped to plunder the 
 abandoned estates ; took what they could, and 
 then, quitting for ever the hated scenes of their 
 j^ast miseries and w^rongs, retreated to freedom 
 and savage life in the bordering forests. Here 
 they became a nucleus of avowed revolt, daily 
 augmented by fresh arrivals from other estates ; 
 while, encouraged by their example, new bands of 
 runaways gathered and grew in all directions ; 
 till from east, west, and south, from the Saramacca 
 to the Maroweyne and the uplands far away, 
 land-owners and colony were girt in by a ring 
 of desj^erate freebooters, eager for plunder and 
 ruthless with revenge. Like whirlwind gusts 
 bursting all at once from a nnirky horizon, they 
 broke in when least looked for upon every planta- 
 tion within their range, lent their too efficient 
 aid to every uprising of their bondsmen-comrades, 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 147 
 
 and tlieir cutlasses to every massacre of their 
 terrified and outnumbered lords. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, than whom, when unblinded by 
 prejudice, no better hater of injustice and wrong 
 ever lived, once, at a public dinner, startled, we 
 are told, the assembled city worthies by the un- 
 expected toast, " To the next negro rising in 
 Jamaica ! " And stranger still, the toast, as it 
 appears, was responded to. For, in truth, it is 
 hard not to sympathize, from a distance especially, 
 with the slave against his master, the weak 
 against the strong, the victim against the tyrant. 
 "WHio has not read and, reading, approved 
 Cowper's spirited protest ? — 
 
 " Patience itself is meanness in a slave. 
 Or if tlie will and sovereignty of God 
 Bid suffer it awhile and kiss the rod, 
 Wait but the dawning of a brighter day, 
 And snap the chain the moment when you may." 
 
 But warfare of whatever kind, however glorious 
 
 as a whole, is sickening in its details ; and most 
 
 sickening of all are the details of servile war — 
 
 cruelty requited with cruelty, horror with horror. 
 
 The customary restraints imposed by common 
 
 humanity on the excited passions of the com 
 
 L 2 
 
148 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 batants, the mitigations of civilized forbearance, 
 have here no place ; in the struggle the wounded 
 finds no pity, the captive no mercy, the dead no 
 honour ; even the scientific interest that belongs 
 to the tactics and manoeuvres of ordinary warfare 
 is wanting here; till Cicero's cowardly, "Better 
 peace on the worst terms than war on the best," 
 almost finds an echo in the mind of the reader 
 who is compelled to wade through the weary 
 sameness of forays, ambushes, plunderings, 
 burnings, tortures, executions, reprisals, revenges, 
 that make up the hateful tale. 
 
 Enough, then, to say that the raids of the 
 self -emancipated marauders, after fifteen years of 
 ever-increasing frequency, were, in 1730, brought 
 to a climax by the first general rising on record 
 among the slaves themselves. It broke out on 
 the Government plantation of ''Berg-en-DaaP' 
 C Hill and Valley"), on the Upper Surinam river, 
 and thence extended to the neighbouring estates ; 
 and tliough, after three years of hard fighting, the 
 insurgents yielded at last to the regular troops, 
 the respite obtained by the colonists was only 
 a temporary one. Before long the war — for it 
 was now no less — between whites and blacks 
 
BUSH NEGEOES. 149 
 
 raged fiercer tlian ever, until a formal treaty, con- 
 cluded by Captain Creutz in the name of the 
 Dutch Government, with 1,600 armed rebels, 
 raised the latter in 1749 to the dignity of 
 recognized belligerents. It is worthy of record, 
 not only for the justification of Governor 
 Mauricius, the originator of this treaty, and who 
 was much blamed for it at the time, but more as 
 affording an instance of a marked and persistent 
 difference between the African and the Asiatic 
 character, that in the present and in every 
 following instance the negroes observed their 
 part of the engagements entered into with 
 scrupulous fidelity. It was well for Surinam they 
 did so. 
 
 But the 1,600 included in the treaty were a 
 mere handful compared with the ever-growing 
 multitudes of unpacified insurgents, who, under 
 the leadership of their dreaded chief, Samsam, 
 continued the struggle with varying results, till 
 the impolitic severity of the o^nier of an estate 
 on the Tempatic creek, a confluent of the Upper 
 Commeweyne, brought about in 1757 a general 
 rising of the slaves throughout the southern 
 districts, and gave a formidable accession of 
 
150 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 strength to the negro cause. The new insurgents, 
 sensible of the importance of combination, joined 
 them elves to those already in the field, and the 
 united army put itself under the command of a 
 competent leader. The name of this black Spartacus 
 was Arabee — an indication that he, like his pre- 
 decessor Samsam, belonged to one or other of 
 the Mahometanized African tribes, whose national 
 training, the result of contact with the higher 
 races of their continent, gives them a decided 
 suj^eriority over their pagan fellow-countrymen, 
 especially in war. 
 
 Had the negroes now made full use of their 
 advantages, a general massacre of all the whites 
 then within the colony, followed in due course by 
 the most terrible retaliation from the enraged 
 Dutch, might have been the result, alike dis- 
 astrous to both parties — colonists and slaves. 
 But, fortunately for Surinam, the insui'gents had 
 found in Arabee a leader whose moderation 
 equalled liis courage, and whose foresight inclined 
 liiai to prefer a permanent and honourable secu- 
 rity to the tempting but delusive gratifications of 
 revenge. Instead of pushing forward hostilities 
 to their utmost, he took the first offered oppor- 
 
BUSH NEGEOES. 151 
 
 tunlty to open negotiations of peace on equal 
 terms with the Colonial Government, and at last 
 succeeded in obtaining for himself and his fol- 
 lowers, not only liberty and independence, but 
 even an extensive grant of territory to bo held in 
 full right, on condition of an alliance offensive 
 and defensive with their former masters. This 
 treaty, of whicli no subsequent breach is recorded 
 on either side, was after some delay solemnly 
 concluded and sworn to at Auka, a plantation on 
 the shores of the Upper Surinam river, in the year 
 1761 ; and to this circumstance the associated 
 negroes owe the name of Aucans, which they 
 have ever since retained as a tribal denomi- 
 nation, distinguishing them from their fellows of 
 the bush. To these Aucans belonged our stal- 
 wart, unclad, but not uncourteous or even wholly 
 uncivilized friends, who, in company with their 
 more domesticated Creole brethren, now welcomed 
 us on the U23per Cottica, at the landing-place of 
 "LaPaix." 
 
 Masses, unlike individuals, are not less readily 
 influenced by good example than by bad ; and 
 hardly had the Aucans made their peace with 
 Grovernmentwhen a message arrived at Paramaribo 
 
152 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 from another considerable " body of insurgents, 
 those, namely, who occupied the uplands along 
 the Saramacca river to the east, intimating tlieir 
 desire for a like peaceful settlement of affairs. The 
 Dutch Government, with a wise leniency, at once 
 acceded to their wish; and Louis Nepveu, an 
 enterprising and talented official, who himself 
 some years later became Governor of the colony 
 in difficult times, was deputed to negotiate a 
 treaty, similar in all respects to that concluded 
 with the Aucans. Tliis he accomplished in 1762 ; 
 and the honours with which he was rewarded by 
 a grateful Administration did not exceed the 
 merit of his services. The pacification of the 
 two great rebel clans, and the repression of the 
 few remainining insurgents, whom the Aucans 
 and Saramaccan negroes, mindful of their recent 
 engagements, now joined with the European 
 soldiery in putting down, seemed to guarantee 
 long years of rest and prosperity to Dutch 
 Guiana. 
 
 But the calm was delusive. The very next 
 year a storm, more dangerous than any of the 
 preceding ones, burst on the much-tried colony 
 This time it was not with the negroes of the dis- 
 
BtJSH NEGilOES. 153 
 
 tant up-coimtiy districts, not witli tlie labourers 
 on tlie scattered and unimportant plantations, 
 but with the slaves who tilled the close-packed, 
 wealthy coast estates, the very mainstay and life 
 of the settlement, that the Dutch had to contend. 
 Along the entire sea-shore, from the mouth of the 
 Saramacca on the west, where the strong post of 
 Nassau Fort was abandoned and blown up by its 
 fugitive garrison, to the mouth of the Marowejme 
 east, one only estate, the Government plantation, 
 called Dageraad, resisted the insurgents, and by 
 its central position prevented a' junction of their 
 forces that might well have been fatal to Para- 
 maribo itself. Had Dageraad fallen, the colony, 
 cut off from the seabord and deprived of all hope 
 of succour from without, must liave perished. 
 Now it was that the treaties so lately concluded 
 with the Aucan and Saramacca negroes stood the 
 colony in good stead ; the inland region behind 
 the capital remained undisturbed and faitliful ; 
 and thus the garrison of Paramaribo found itself 
 sufficiently at leisure to detach a small body of 
 Em'opean troops to the help of their besieged 
 comrades in Dageraad. They arrived only just 
 in time ; but Dageraad was saved, and with it the 
 
154 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 colony. Saccoiu', first from St. Eustatius, then 
 in greater numbers from Holland, now came in ; 
 the insurgents lost heart ; and by the summer of 
 tliG following year the worst of the peril was 
 over. But it was not followed by peace. This, 
 for once, was neither sought nor granted; and 
 the blood poured forth in the numerous execu- 
 tions which signalled the first repression of the 
 revolt, though for a moment they damped, could 
 not quench the flame. Xow smouldering, now 
 bursting into open blaze, it continued to ravage 
 the easterly districts along the valleys of the 
 Commeweyne and its tributary rivers, where 
 property and Hfe were held on no securer tenure 
 than they had been, twenty years previously, on 
 the Upper Surinam and the frontiers of the south. 
 But the character of the revolt had changed from 
 purely servile to semi-political ; for foreign influ- 
 ences were really, though indirectly, at work, 
 circumscribing, while they embittered, the con- 
 test. The chiefs of the new freebooters, Bonni 
 and Baron, had established their head-quarters 
 near the Maroweyne river, on the French fi'ontier, 
 within which the connivance of the Cayenne 
 Government seemed to afibrd them, whenever 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 155 
 
 hard pressed, a secure place of refuge, and 
 whence they also drew fresh recruits and sujiplies 
 at need. 
 
 Eight years passed thus, during which time 
 many expeditions were undertaken by the Euro- 
 pean troops against the insurgents; but, owing 
 to the difficulties of the marshy coast-grounds 
 and the neighbourhood of the French territory, 
 vdth little effect. In 1770, Louis Nepveu 
 assumed the government, and, with the aid of a 
 distinguished officer. Colonel Stoelman by name, 
 organized a black corps, recruited from among 
 the negroes themselves — a measure productive of 
 the greatest advantages, and Avhich sufficiently 
 indicates the change that had come over the 
 spirit of the contest, and the altered relation;? of 
 the combatant parties. It was no longer a 
 struggle between black and white, but between 
 rebel and Dutch. Negroes though they were, 
 Bonni and Baron were regarded as enemies by 
 the Africans, no less than by the European sub- 
 jects of the State; and the blacks at large proved 
 themselves, then and ever after, loyal to the 
 Netherlands flag, nor less ready to fight under it 
 than the Zeelanders themselves. 
 
156 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Now was the time for putting tlie revolt, thus 
 localized and extra-national, completely down; 
 and at last, in 1773, the earnest and long-conti- 
 nued representations made by Governor Nepveu 
 to the States succeeded in obtaining a reinforce- 
 ment of 800 Dutch soldiers, commanded by 
 Colonel Fourgeoud, a Swiss by birth, and a man 
 of considerable military merit, though quarrel- 
 some and overbearing in temper. With him, and 
 under the same flag, arrived Captain Stedman, 
 an Englishman and a scholar, tlic destined his- 
 torian — and by no means an inelegant one — of 
 the campaign. With the arrival of Fourgeoud 
 and his troops, military operations commenced, 
 and were continued in a much more regular 
 manner than formerly, and with better result. 
 Guided and seconded by their black allies, the 
 Euro]oean soldiers made their way into the 
 furthest forest recesses. Every communication 
 was secured, every advance rendered permanent, 
 by the erection of a fort ; while fresh reinforce- 
 ments gradually raised the numbers of tlie negro 
 soldiery to about eight hundred, and those of the 
 Dutch troops to double the amount. An expe- 
 dition on so large a scale, and conducted by men 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 157 
 
 who understood their work, could not fail of 
 success. Outgeueralled and beaten in a succes- 
 sion of skirmishes, Bonni, who was at this time 
 sole rebel chief, gave up the game for lost, and, 
 with the more obstinate spirits of his band, 
 crossed the Maroweyne, to find permanent 
 shelter in the territory of Cayenne. But the 
 greater number of the insurgents, deprived of 
 their leader, preferred to seek, and by timely 
 submission to obtain, the same conditions of peace 
 that had, on former occasions, been granted to 
 the Aucan and Saramaccan tribes, with which, 
 under the name of Bonni negroes, they became 
 sj)eedily incorporated ; others joined the Moesinga 
 or Matrocane clan. By the spring of 1786 the 
 pacification was complete on all sides. And 
 thus, after fifty years of hard fighting, ended the 
 servile wars of Dutch Guiana. 
 
 They were never renewed. A strong military 
 cordon of numerous and well-appointed posts, 
 drawn round the cultivated lands, and including 
 all the Em^opean settlements and estates, sufficed 
 to keep at distance any chance marauding run- 
 aways, whether negroes or others, while the black 
 soldiers, who were called ''Guides^' from the 
 
158 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 nature of the services originally required of tliem, 
 satisfactorily supplied, for many years, tlie place 
 of regular troops, and spared tlie exhausted colony, 
 which had already incurred a debt amounting to 
 00,000,000 of florins for war cost alone, the heavy 
 expenses of a Euroj)ean garrison. Beyond this 
 cordon lay the territory definitely assigned to the 
 Bush negroes, and from them neither danger nor 
 disquiet had henceforth to be apprehended. 
 Liberty alone was what they had fought for, 
 and, having once secured that for themselves and 
 their children, they regarded all bygone scores 
 of slavery, ill-usage, and war as cancelled in full. 
 Indeed the oft-cited double precept, ''Forgive 
 and forget,'' the first half of which is difficult 
 enough to our European natures, and the latter 
 impossible, is a matter of every-day practice 
 amone: nej^rroes, with whom benefit obliterates 
 injury, or vice versa, more rapidly and more 
 completely than a Caucasian can even understand. 
 A phenomenon indicative of a good heart, say 
 some; of a weak head, say others. Of both 
 perhaps. But to return to our Bush negroes. 
 
 So thoroughly did they henceforth consider 
 their own interests identified with those of the 
 
BUSH NKGROES. 159 
 
 colony at largo, that when, towards the close of 
 the century, Dutch Guiana was being bandied 
 about, now by treaty, now by force of arms, while 
 to-day an English, to-morrow a French flag 
 floated over its forts, and the victors of one hour 
 were the vanquished of the next, the Aucans and 
 their kin, ignorant of European politics, and 
 averse to change, whatever its pretext, came 
 boldly forward of their own accord to the assist- 
 ance of their old masters against the foreign 
 intruders, and contributed as best they could to 
 the defence of Surinam in difficult times. 
 
 Since then more than seventy years have gone 
 by; and with them many of the institutions of 
 the colony have also passed from fact to history, 
 from history to oblivion. The military cordon, so 
 important in its day, exists no longer; and no terri- 
 torial demarcation now assigns special limits to 
 European denizenship in Surinam. From English 
 rule the colony has returned toDutch, hasprospered, 
 has dwindled, and prospered again; slavery has 
 given place to apprenticeship, and apprenticeship 
 to the equality of freedom. Coolie immigration, 
 produce-experiments, machinery, commerce, have 
 each in turn modified some things, created others, 
 
ICO ])UTC1I GUIANA. 
 
 obliterated not a few. But tlirough all these 
 changes the Bush negroes have remained, with 
 hardly any alteration, on their original footing, 
 true to their first engagements, at peace among 
 themselves, and by no means useless members of 
 the settlement into Avhicli they are incorporated, 
 half as subjects, half allies. Their mode of life is 
 agricultural ; their labour is partly bestowed on 
 the field-produce sufficient to their own personal 
 wants, partly on the growth and export of rice, 
 with which they supply the estates and the capital. 
 But their chief occupation is woodcutting; and 
 their skill in this department has secured them an 
 almost absolute monopoly of the timber sup^^ly 
 that forms a considerable item in the trade-list of 
 Surinam. They hew, trim, divide the planks, 
 and do whatever is requisite for preparing the 
 wood for shipment; then bring it down in the 
 form of rafts, or boat-loads, to Paramaribo, where 
 they exchange it most commonly for arms, powder, 
 cooking utensils, and other household necessaries. 
 Fortunately for themselves, strong drink is not 
 a favourite article of barter among these im- 
 registered and unbaptized disciples of Father 
 Mathew and Sir Wilfrid Lawson. Indeed, in 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 161 
 
 this, as ill many otlicr respects, tliey nreseiit an 
 advantageous contrast with the besotted Indians, 
 whose diminution and ahnost disappearance from 
 tlie land have been occasioned by intemperancOj 
 much more than by any of the numerous causes 
 assigned on philo-indigenous platforms. With 
 the negro, on the contrary, drunkenness is an 
 exotic vice, and even where it has been implanted 
 it does not flourish largely on his soil. 
 
 Their settlements far up among the rivers, 
 and in regions said to be admirably adapted for 
 cultivation, though as yet rarely favoured by 
 European visitors, are grouped together after the 
 fashion of small villages, resembling, I am told, 
 in their principal features, the more accessible 
 hamlet inhabited by emancipated Congo Africans, 
 and called " Bel Air," near Berbice. Their 
 dwellings are reported to be neat and comfortable 
 enough after a fashion. About fifty of these 
 villages are recorded by name; the average 
 number of souls in each equals 300, or there- 
 abouts. The census of the entire Bush negro 
 population is almost conjectural ; some bring 
 their numbers down to 8,000, others raise them 
 to 30,000. Of the two extremes, the latter is, I 
 
 M 
 
162 DUTCH GUTANA. 
 
 believe, tlie nearer to the truth. Negroes, like 
 other Eastern tribes, when required to give an 
 account of themselves, are in the habit of reckon- 
 ing up their men only, omitting the women alto- 
 gether, and even the male children, if still at the 
 breast. Fear of taxation is another common 
 motive for imder-statement, especially in the pre- 
 sence of official inquiry. Every village has its 
 chief ; his office is partly hereditary, partly elect- 
 ive, and he himself is distinguished from his 
 subjects by a uniform, to be worn, however, only 
 on rare and special occasions — a fortunate circum- 
 stance in so warm a climate. He also bears a 
 staff of office. These lesser chiefs are a^ain 
 under the orders of the headsman of the tribe, 
 who has a right to wear, when he chooses, — a rare 
 occurrence, let us hope, — a general's uniform, and 
 to bear in his hand a baton of rule, surmounted 
 by a gilded knob. 
 
 The principal divisions of Bush negro na- 
 tionality are three in number — x\ucan, Sara- 
 maccan, and Moesinga or Matrocane, names not 
 of ancestral, but of local origin — a circumstance 
 alluded to before. Each group has, hoAvcver, its 
 own subdivisions, known among the tribesmen 
 
BU8II NEGROES. 10-3 
 
 tliemselvcs, tliougli hardly recognized by others. 
 Thus, under the general title of Aucans are com- 
 prehended the Bonni, Paramaccan, and Pore- 
 goedoc negroes ; the Luango belong to the Sara- 
 maccans; the Koffys, to the Moesingas. The 
 three great tribes were, in fact, at their first 
 beginnings, composed of men held together by 
 no special link, except that of arms, taken wp in 
 a common cause. But the groujoing, once made, 
 perpetuated " itself, and in the course of years 
 it has produced in each instance a distinct type, 
 till what was at first merely nominal and acci- 
 dental has become permanent and real. Of the 
 three clans, the Aucans rank the highest in 
 general estimation, as being the most manly, 
 intelligent, and industrious. That they have 
 persistently declined to exchange their hereditary 
 paganism for Christianity may pass for an excep- 
 tion to, or a confirmation of, their good qualities, 
 according as the moralist is a disciple of the 
 Rev, Mr. Badger or of the South Sea '' Earl." 
 Next in rank come the Saramaccans, amongst 
 whom the Moravians have made not a few dis- 
 ciples ; they are said to be of subtler disposition 
 than the Aucans, but inferior to them in energy 
 
 M 2 
 
164 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 and work. The Mocsinga or Matrocane negroes 
 occupy tlio lowest place. Taken, however, all in 
 all, and allowing for the average amount of every- 
 day defects, from which human nature, civilized 
 or uncivilized, negro or non-negro, is rarely free, 
 the Bush negroes hold a good position among 
 men ; better, certainly, by far, than that occupied 
 by most of the aboriginal races of the South 
 American continent, or, under Fcnimorc Cooper's 
 leave, of the Northern either. 
 
 The three tribes just enumerated are to a cer- 
 tain degree reunited in the person of the Aucan 
 chief, or '^ Gramman," Anglice ''Grand Man," to 
 whom his Saramaccan and Moesinga colleagues 
 allow a respectful j^recedence, and who is, in fact, 
 acknowledged for the supreme head of all 
 Surinam Busli negroes whatsoever, though in 
 rnnk and in title rather than in power. The name 
 of the present dignitary is BlymafFo ; his pedigree 
 remounts up to Pamo, the first Aucan chief, to 
 wbom it is duly traced through a line, not of 
 ancestors, but of ancestresses ; for negroes, like 
 Shakspeare, consider tlie recognition of a motber 
 as an easier matter than that of a father, and 
 tficir pedigrees are accordingly reckoned, not on 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 165 
 
 the i^aternalj but the maternal line. The ^' Grand 
 Man," when appomted, is formally recognized 
 and confirmed by the Colonial Grovernor, to whom 
 he is bomid to joresent himself in person at the 
 capital ; but his authority is on ordinary occasions 
 of a very limited kind ; and his position, though 
 it commands respect, can rarely enforce obedience. 
 As much may be said of the other chiefs, each of 
 his tribe, Saramaccan or Moesinga. Frans 
 Bonham is at this moment the fortunate holder of 
 the former title ; Noah Kroon, who also rejoices 
 in the more African name '' Edraai," reigns by 
 the latter. However, the real and absolute ruler 
 among the Bush negroes is neither " Edraai " nor 
 Bonham, nor even the great Blymaffo himself, 
 but custom — a ruler powerful even among civilized 
 races, absolute among the uncivilized. 
 
 Besides the '' Grand Man " of their own 
 *' skin," in negro phrase, each tribe enjoys or 
 endures the presence of a European official, whom 
 the Colonial Government appoints under the title 
 of '' Post-houder," to reside among them, and 
 whose duties chiefly consist in settling the frequent 
 petty contentions that arise between the villagers 
 themselves or their neighbours, regarding riglits 
 
166 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 of property or land. IMost otlior cases, civil or 
 criminal, fall under the jurisdiction of tlie tribe 
 itself, and are decided by tlie unwritten code of 
 usage, often sufficiently barbarous in the punish- 
 ments that it awards ; though the cruellest of all, 
 that of ]3urning alive, is said not to have been in- 
 flicted on any one for a generation past. It was 
 the penalty especially reserved for sorcerers, and 
 its discontinuance is attributed to the fact that 
 the sorcerers have themselves, like the witches of 
 Germany or Scotland, disappeared in our day. The 
 truth is that the negroes themselves are less super- 
 stitious than of old, and, having discarded the 
 imaginary crime from their belief, have also dis- 
 carded the real one by which it was supplemented 
 from their practice, just as the erasure of heresy 
 from the catalogue of sins was immediately 
 followed by the extinction of heretic-burning 
 fagots. The beneficent triumphs of Rationalism, 
 so ably chronicled by Lecky, are not confined to 
 Europe and the European races ; and the process 
 of the suns brings wider thoughts to other men 
 than the dwellers of tlie moorland by Locksley 
 Hall. 
 
 Sorcerers, indeed, have, it is said, — though 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 1G7 
 
 from wliat cause I cannot readily determine, — 
 been of all times rare articles among tlic negro 
 colonists of Sm'inam. So too, tlioiigli the large 
 majority of tlie Busli negroes arc yet pagans, as 
 were their ancestors before them, when, cutlass 
 in hand, they hewed out their way to freedom, 
 Obeah, so notoriously wide-spread throughout 
 Africa, and, if report say true, not unknown in 
 some West Indian regions, is scarcely ever hoard 
 of among them. Yet, did it exist in any notable 
 degree, it could hardly have failed, by the natural 
 contagion of evil, to have establisjied itself also 
 among the Creole blacks, their immediate neigh- 
 bours and kinsmen, who are, however, in general, 
 remarkably free from any imjmtation of the 
 kind. Nor, again, are the Bush negroes, now- 
 adays at least, addicted to the indiscriminate 
 fetish-worship so often described by modern tra- 
 vellers as prevalent in Africa. Perhaps they may 
 have been so formerly. At present the ^'ceiba," 
 or " cotton tree," that noblest forest growth of the 
 West Indies, enj oys almost alone, if report sa}'s true, 
 the honours of negro worship, avowedly among 
 the Maroons, furtively in the creole villages. I 
 myself ave often seen the traces of oft'eriu^s— 
 
168 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 fowls, yams, libations of drink, and tlio like — 
 scattered round its stem. Tbe s^^irit-dwellcr of 
 its branches, tliiis jiropitiated, is said to be of an 
 amiable disposition, unlike his demon-brother of 
 the poison-tree, or Hiari, also venerated by some, 
 but out of fear. Idols, in the strict sense of the 
 term, they certainly have none ; and their rejec- 
 tion of Roman Catholicism, a circumstance to 
 which I have alluded before, is asserted to have 
 had, at least, for its ostensible motive their dis- 
 like of the image-worship embodied in that 
 system. 
 
 I would Avillingly indulge the charitable hope 
 that the Moravian Bush negro converts may pos- 
 sibly have acquired some kind of idea of the 
 virtue commonly designated, though in a restricted 
 use of the word, by the name of morality. It is 
 a virtue with which their pagan brethren are, in 
 a general way, lamentably unacquainted. On 
 principle, if the phrase may be allowed, they are 
 polygamists ; but the frequency of divorce 
 renders, it is said, the dignity of a Bush negro's 
 wife more often succcssional than simultaneous. 
 
 Indeed, their avowed laxity in this and analogous 
 directions is sometimes asserted, but how truly I 
 
BUSH NEGROES. 1G9 
 
 cannot say, to be one of the cliief hindrances to 
 the increase of tlieir numbers. Without going 
 into the particulars of an obscure and unpleasant 
 subject, thus much is clear, that a child whicli 
 has for its parents ''no father and not much of a 
 mother," a normal condition of things in the Bush 
 negro villages, must necessarily commence the 
 infantile struggle for life under somewhat disad- 
 vantageous conditions. To this may be added a 
 total absence of medical practitioners — a circum- 
 stance which however might, by a cynical mind, 
 be rather reckoned among the counterbalancing 
 advantages of forest existence. 
 
 In form and stature the Bush negroes of 
 Surinam may rank among the best specimens of 
 the Ethiopian type. The men are often six feet 
 and more in height, with well-developed limbs 
 and pleasing open countenance ; and the women 
 in every physical respect are, to say the least, 
 worthy of their mates. Ill-modelled trunks and 
 disproportioned limbs are, in fact, as rare among 
 them as they are common among some ligliter- 
 complexioned races. Their colour is, in general, 
 very dark, and gives no token of the gradual 
 tendency to assume a fairer tint, that may be 
 
170 ri^TCII GUIANA. 
 
 observed among the descendants of negroes resi- 
 dent in more northerly latitudes. Their hair, too, 
 is as curly as that of any Niam-niam, or Darfooree 
 chief, or native of Senegal. I have heard it 
 asserted more often than once, that, by long 
 domicilement in the South American continent, 
 the negro type has a tendency to mould itself 
 into one approaching that of the Indian abo- 
 riginal. And something of the kind might l^e 
 looked for, if anywhere, among the Bush negroes 
 of the Surinam interior. But in the si^ccimens 
 that I saw, and they were many, I could not 
 detect any such modification. 
 
 Their language is a curious and uncouth mix- 
 ture. When it is analyzed, English appears to 
 form its basis ; next on the list of contributors 
 comes Portuguese ; then Dutch, besides a sprink- 
 ling of genuine African words thrown in at 
 random, and the thick, soft African pronunciation 
 over all. But of this jargon the negroes them- 
 selves make no use in writing, for whicli they 
 employ Dutch, thereby showing themselves, in 
 this respect, possessed of a truer feeling of the 
 fitness of things than, I regret to say, their 
 Moravian friends, who have taken superfluous 
 
BUSH NEGROES. I7l 
 
 pains to translate books of instruction and devo- 
 tion into the so-called ''negro language," for tlie 
 sui^posed benefit of tlieir half -tamed scholars : an 
 instance — one amongst many — of being too prac- 
 tical by half. What is most practical is not 
 always what is most adapted to human nature, 
 nor what answers its purpose best; — a truth I 
 respectfully commend to the consideration of the 
 doctors of the utilitarian school. 
 
 Fortunately for the Bush negroes themselves, 
 their ultimate tendency in language, as in every- 
 thing else, is to uniformity with the general Creole 
 colonial type — one not of the very highest, it may 
 be, but much superior to the half or three- 
 quarters savagery in which they at present live. 
 Their little and, so to speak, accidental nation- 
 ality is composed of elements too feeble and too 
 loosely put together not to be ultimately re-absorbed 
 into the more vigorous and better constructed 
 mass to which, though under differing conditions, 
 it once belonged. A strong centrifugal impulse 
 dispersed them, a century ago, on the outer ring 
 of the colonial orb ; the gentler but abiding 
 centripetal force of civilized organization is now 
 drawing them back to the inner circle. Old mis- 
 
172 DUTCH GUIAKA. 
 
 trusts and antipathies are fast wearing themselves 
 out in the daily contact with European life ; and 
 contact with Europeans never fails to produce, 
 where negroes are concerned, first imitation, then 
 assimilation. So long as slavery lasted, this was, 
 of course, an impossibility for the Bush negroes ; 
 it is now a mere question of time, longer or 
 shorter, according to the discretion and tact of 
 the Colonial Government itself, and we may 
 reasonably hope that the sagacity and moderation 
 by which that same Government has thus far 
 always distinguished itself Avill not fail it in this 
 matter either. 
 
 Freedom from taxation and internal autonomy 
 are the special privileges which the Bush negroes 
 in their present condition enjoy : by the latter 
 they set some store ; by the former much. On the 
 other hand, they are fully aware of the greater 
 advantages and enjoyments of a more settled and 
 civilized form of life than their own, and would 
 sacrifice much to make it theirs. The result of 
 the exchange would be, undoubtedly, a very 
 beneficial one, not only to the Bush negroes them- 
 selves, but to the colony at large. Labour is the 
 one great requisite of Surinam : rich in every gift 
 
BUSH NEGROES, 173 
 
 of iinasslstoci nature, she is poor of that which 
 alone could enable her to make profit of these 
 gifts. In these Maroon subjects of hers close at 
 hand, she possesses a copious and, as yet, an un- 
 employed reserve force of labour, suj^erior in most 
 resjoects to the coolie or Chinese article, and, 
 which is a main point, cheaper by far. The com- 
 plete incorjDoration into colonial life and work of 
 the negro element, now comparatively isolated 
 and wasted in the bush, would add about a third 
 to the progressiveness and energy of Dutch 
 Surinam. 
 
174 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MUNNICKENDAM. 
 
 Not a word, a word : we stand upon our manners. 
 Come, strike up. (Afusic : here a dance.) 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 When Byron expanded Cowper's well-known 
 '' England, with all her faults," and the rest, into 
 the graceful stanzas of that most graceful of all 
 his poems, ' Bcppo,' winding up witli his compre- 
 hensive '^ I like all and everything," he gave ex- 
 pression to the genuine conservatism that, what- 
 ever the formula and mode of utterance, constitutes 
 the under-depth and assigns the key-note of every 
 great mind. This conservatism is summed up in 
 two words — the one '' submission," the other 
 " content "; the former has more in it of human 
 philosophy, the latter of divine. 
 
 But in some places, and amid some conditions 
 of life, it is almost impossible to feel contentment, 
 because the restlessness that characterizes them is 
 based, like the phases of beiug themselves, on 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 175 
 
 dissatisfaction, and can communicate no other 
 feeling by contact to tlic mind. A walk in the 
 streets of Chicago or Galata, a day of a New York 
 " gold market " or of a Parisian Comnmne, the 
 interior of a Stock Exchange, a Home Rule meet- 
 ing, a Kenealy, a Cleon, these and their kin, all 
 of them things without contentment in themselves, 
 the results of disquiet, the embodiments of un- 
 rest, have only power to disturb and vex wdiilo 
 they are present, and long after, in their remem- 
 brance, mar, like inharmonious notes, the concert 
 of the past. Nor, again, is the feeling of content- 
 ment compatible with mere stagnation and listless 
 quiet. Little enough is to be met with of rest- 
 lessness in the streets of a central Anatolian city, 
 says Sivas, or in the sailorless port of Sidon, or 
 among the sand-strewn ruins of Egyptian Thebes ; 
 but of such like scenes the mental result is com- 
 monly depression, deepening at times into melan- 
 choly gloom. Too little life is almost — I will not 
 say quite — as bad as too mucli : screaming dis- 
 cord is intolerable ; but dead silence is not either 
 what we Avant. It is v^liere life abounds, but life 
 regulated by moderation and law, — where move- 
 ment is continuous, not spasmodic and unequal, — • 
 
176 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 wlierc progress lias way, but along the steady 
 lines of order, not down the ringing, jarring 
 grooves of change, — where the jDresent is enough 
 for the day, and tlie morrow is 2:)romised " as 
 to-day, and much more abundant," for the very 
 reason that it is the continuation of to-day, — that 
 contentment exists, and can be found by those 
 wdio seek it, and when found enjoyed. 
 
 So ^' huzza," not "for Otaheite," but for Mun- 
 nickendam, of which I have already said tliat it 
 had been pronounced by the competent authority 
 of his Excellency the Colonial Governor the 
 most conservative ''institution " in conserA^ative 
 Surinam. Nor need my Liberal readers, if I am 
 honoured by such, start aside, in liorror»of a name, 
 from the easy companionship of my tale. By 
 ''conservative" I mean — I mean — well, I do not 
 mean anything connected wdth either side of the 
 House : my use of the word is purely philosophi- 
 cal, not political ; and if it were political, Avhy 
 they wdio, with Pope, "know like Whig minister 
 to Tory," may forgive: where no allusion is in- 
 tended, no offence should be takc^n. 
 
 Bush negroes are fine fellows of their kind, I 
 have seldom seen finer ; Indians are, within cer- 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 1 77 
 
 tain limits, pictiiresqiio ; Clilnoso, if not orna- 
 mental, are decidedly useful ; and coolies, tliougli 
 not unfrequently neither, are sometimes both. 
 But, after all said, to be innocuous is the Indian's 
 highest praise ; and any notable increase in West 
 Indian lands of ''Celestials" is — for reasons not 
 all celestial, but much the reverse — not a thing 
 to be desired; while coolies are expensive to 
 import, and as settlers offer but a dubious future 
 at best. Negroes, with all their defects, are now, 
 as of old times. West Indian labour's best hope ; 
 and since "salt-water" blacks and purchased 
 gangs are no longer to be had, Creole negroes 
 must to the fore. In this view, if in no other, 
 they are worth study, and where can we study 
 them better than at Munnickendam ? 
 
 Digression is a fault ; I know it ; but it is a pet 
 fault of mine, and, like other things under the 
 sun, has its time : let me indulge it here a little 
 longer. Besides, what I am writing is not a 
 guide-book, nor a narrative, nor an essay, in 
 any one of which I grant that digression would 
 be unpardonable ; it is, if you will allow the 
 word, and be content to take it in a purely meta- 
 phorical sense, a sketch-book ; and the arrange- 
 
 N 
 
178 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 ment of sketches is a mere matter of couvenience, 
 not of principle. And here I would like, though 
 I am not going to do it, to insert a sketch of the 
 little village — not so little neither — near Bel Air, 
 on the way to Berbice, where live the liberated 
 Congoitcs, or Congoesc, or Congonians, rescued 
 by our cruisers from the slave-ships to which they 
 had already been consigned, and brought hither 
 at a recent date. It is a village absolutely 
 picturesque in its details, and, what is perhaps 
 more to the purpose, it offers to view, in itself and 
 in its garden surroundings, abundant evidence of 
 industry, skill, and the manly independence that 
 lives by its own labour, and is content to live so. 
 Another sketch, too, I would willingly give, that 
 of the new quarter of Paramaribo — the one, I 
 mean, situated on the westernmost outskirts of 
 the town, and called '' the Plain of the 13th 
 May." That date last year was the jubilee of 
 the Dutch King's reign, and to celebrate the 
 occasion the Governor had offered quizes to the 
 negro workmen who would best excel in laying 
 out the roads and digging the trenches of the 
 proposed subui'b. It was opened on the day itself, 
 with great pomp and ceremony, and distribution 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 1 79 
 
 of rewards, by Iiis Excellency in person, and 
 was at once made over to its present inhabitants, 
 a class resembling in every respect the tenants of 
 Bel Air. A pretty patchwork of cottages and 
 gardens, well-doing diligent freemen to maintain 
 them in order and comfort — a sight to justify the 
 23ride that its originator takes in it — a successful 
 experiment, on a small scale indeed, but arousing 
 a wish for more. 
 
 And this is exactly what not I only, l)ut every 
 landoTViier, every proprietor, every planter in the 
 colony would wish to see, namely, a greater 
 abundance of villages and settlements like those 
 just described, only to a wider purpose, and on a 
 larger scale. Certainly I have no desire to dis- 
 parage the good qualities of the slave- descended 
 black Creoles, or to join in the vague outcries, 
 contradicted everywhere by facts, that ignorance, 
 and still more prejudice, have raised against them. 
 But this much must be allowed, that, from the 
 very cii'cumstance of being slave-descended, they 
 bear, and long will bear, traces of the deteriora- 
 ting process to which they have been subjected in 
 tlie persons of their ancestors — a deterioration 
 
 not moral merely, l)ut mental and even physical. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Ill fact, tlieir rapid, tlioiigli as yet only partial, 
 recovery from tliis very degradation is one proof, • 
 among many, of the wonderful elasticity of the 
 negro character. Hesiod, if I remember rightly, 
 or, if not he, some other old coeval Greek, has 
 said, ''When Jupiter makes a man a slave, he 
 takes away half his brains from him"; and a truer 
 thing was never said or sung. Cowardice, 
 duplicity, dislike of labour, a habit of theft, 
 sexual immorality, irreflectiveness, apathy, these 
 are the seven daughters of slavery ; and they but 
 too often live persistently on, though tlieir ill 
 mother be dead for generations past. Hence 
 the negro who has never been a slave, or who at 
 any rate has never experienced that most crush- 
 ing form of slavery,^ the organized task-master- 
 ship of a foreign and superior race, has a decided 
 vantage-ground, not over his enslaved fellow- 
 countrymen, but over the descendants of such, 
 on whom his father's sins, and still more the sins 
 of his father's masters, are, by hereditary law, 
 visited even to the third and the fourth gene- 
 ration. 
 
 Now, assuming that of all races the negro is by 
 physical constitution the best adapted to the 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 181 
 
 South American tropics, and that negro labour 
 
 is, of all others, not the cheapest merely, but also 
 
 the most efficient in this soil, both of which 
 
 are propositions that few experienced planters 
 
 or overseers will dispute, why not organize 
 
 emigration from Africa to ihe West Indies after 
 
 a regular and durable fashion ? and as the East 
 
 African races arc undoubtedly superior alike in 
 
 mind and body to the Western, Avliy not estaljlish 
 
 an emigration-agency on the east coast ? — why not, 
 
 to fix a locality, at Zanzibar ? Have we not lately 
 
 closed in principle, and shall soon, by means of 
 
 our cruisers, have closed in fact and deed, the 
 
 East African slave-trade, doing thereby a deed 
 
 worthy of England, worthy of ourselves? True ; 
 
 and we look at our work, and justly pronounce it 
 
 to be '' very good." But what if some of the 
 
 immediate results of our work, in order to be 
 
 rightly called "very good," also require careful 
 
 management, and the dexterity that not only 
 
 destroys what is bad, but replaces it by something 
 
 better ? Have we not, while forbidding the 
 
 further outpourings of the poison-stream that 
 
 has for ages flowed in tears and blood from the 
 
 ports of the East African coast, driven back, in 
 
182 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 a manner, the bitter ^yaters to eddy on them- 
 selves, and, "udiile stoj^j^ing a recognized outlet 
 of the unemployed and superabundant popula- 
 tion — a wasteful and a wrongful one it is true, 
 yet an outlet — created a novel surj^lus in tlic 
 inland African labour-market, where violence and 
 captivity are the only laws of exchange and 
 supply? Have we not also, while depriving 
 Zanzibar of its hateful but long-established 
 trade — the trade that alone gave it importance 
 and wealth — curtailed the revenues, and with the 
 revenues the very kingship, of one whose patrons 
 we had before consented to be, and whom we had 
 ourselves taught to shelter his authority, nay his 
 very existence, under our flag ? ^Yo may have 
 been right — we have been right — in doing all 
 this ; but we are not the less liable for the con- 
 sequences, nor less in duty bound to obviate the 
 injmy we may have indirectly caused, than is 
 the surgeon to tie up the wounds that his needful 
 knife has inflicted on the patient whose cure he 
 has taken in hand. To do evil that good may 
 come, is not well ; but to do good so that evil, 
 however indirect, comes of it, is not commend- 
 able either. 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 183 
 
 Now, so it is that for botli the evils I have 
 indicated — and neither of them is imaginary — a 
 remedy is within easy reach ; a remedy not only 
 efficacious with regard to its immediate object, 
 but beneficial in its ulterior results. " Easy 
 reach," did I say? Yes, easy enough, if only 
 well-meaning ignorance will stand aside, and 
 have the grace to permit what it cannot compre- 
 hend. But this is a piece of good fortune to be 
 wished for rather than hoped; and already I 
 seem to hear a horrified outcry of " negro-kidnap- 
 ping," ''disguised slavery,'" "slave-trade re-estab- 
 lished," and the rest, rising from every plat- 
 form, and re-echoed from every bench of the 
 Anti-Slavery Association and its kindred sup- 
 porters. What? supply the deficit of West 
 Indian labour by negro importation from the 
 east coast? Give the Seyyid, Sultan, or Sultanlct 
 of Zanzibar, perhaps him of Muscat too, a 
 nominal patronage and a real percentage of an 
 emigration-agency ? Load ships with African 
 semi-slaves? — bear them, "far from home and 
 all its pleasures," to the coasts of Surinam, of 
 Demerara, of St. Vincent, &c. ? What is all 
 this but to revive the monster we have ourselves 
 
184 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 SO lately slain ; to stultify our own wisdom, annul 
 our own decree ? 
 
 Nothing of the kind, my respected friend: 
 say, rather, it is to hinder the brood that the 
 monster has left from coming into life, to confirm 
 the decree of self -maintaining freedom, to com- 
 plete what else, if left imperfect, might speedily 
 bring in question the wisdom of our former deeds. 
 It is to transfer, not by compidsion, but by their 
 own free consent, those who, if they remain at 
 home, cannot, by the nature of things, be other 
 than slaves or slave-makers, to the conditions of 
 honourable labour, self-support, and security ; to 
 bring them into the full possession of whatever 
 benefits organized society and equitable law can 
 confer ; to substitute, so far as their own former 
 masters are concerned, a fair and beneficial for 
 an unjust and cruel gain ; to bestow on the lands 
 of their destination advantages that no other 
 means, no other colonists, can equally secure. 
 
 It is certain that, if conducted under regu- 
 lations and safeguards similar to those provided 
 for the coolie emigrants of Bengal and Madras, 
 and with the same or analogous provisions in 
 matters of engagement, voyage, and occupation, 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 1 85 
 
 the unnecessary and burdensome obligation of a 
 return passage being alone omitted, East African 
 emigration y/ould be much less costly, and at the 
 same time much more profitable to the colonies, 
 than Indian or Chinese. The negro is of himself 
 a better agricultural labourer than the Hindoo ; 
 he is stronger, healthier, more readily domiciled, 
 more easily ruled, and, an important point, more 
 likely to devote himself to field and country 
 work after the expiration of his indentures. Ho 
 is also much less disposed than cither coolie or 
 Chinaman to swell the town population and the 
 criminal list. I have said that, in his case, the 
 option of a return passage might be safely 
 omitted; for no negro, the solitary hero of Mrs. 
 Hemans's ballad excepted, has any great longing 
 to revisit his own natal land : his country is not 
 where he was born, but where he is well off; no 
 local worship, no sacred rivers, no ties of caste, 
 draw him back to his first home. In him, there- 
 fore, is the best, if not the only, hope of sup- 
 plementing the great, the urgent Avant of the 
 New World — an indigenous pojoulation ; for the 
 Guiana Indian must, unfortunately, reckon for 
 nothing, either in number or in available worth ; and 
 
186 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 thus the benefit derived from him as an indentured 
 labourer would be followed by the still more last- 
 ing benefit of an acclimatized and a useful colonist. 
 Andj to return to our friends of the Anti-Slavery 
 Association, the evidence collected on all hands, 
 from Anthony Trollope, after his kind, up to the 
 Demerara Inquiry Committee in 1868, after 
 theirs, may surely have convinced the members of 
 that respectable body, that coolie emigration and 
 coolie labour in the West Indies are further 
 removed from hardship, injustice, and slavery 
 than are too often the means by which our own 
 agricultural labour-market is supplied, or the condi- 
 tions by which it is governed. Let them, then, 
 rest assured that the same system would have no 
 worse result for the East African negro also. 
 
 Enough of this. The subject is one tliat 
 cannot fail to be taken up sooner or later, not in 
 speculative view, but in exj)erimental practice ; 
 till then lot it rest. Perhaj)S the time is not come 
 yet ; the very extent of the prospect suggests its 
 distance. But a little sooner, a little later, not 
 the less surely it will be reached. An African 
 colony, the Arab, has already half peopled the 
 East ; an African law, matured in Egypt, pro- 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 18?' 
 
 mulgated on the shores of the Reel. Sea, remodelled 
 and repromulgated in the deserts of the same 
 coast, rules over half Asia this day. Already the 
 Libyan Sibyl prepares to turn the next page of 
 her book ; its writing is the West. A new creation 
 wanted here ; and creation of this sort is a work 
 not for the European, or his half -cousin, the 
 Hindoo, — it belongs to the elder races. The 
 Aryan of our day, the Indo-German, can elaborate, 
 can perfect, he cannot originate ; art-trained, art- 
 exhausted, the productive energy of nature is his 
 no longer. Unmodified by science, unpruned by 
 art, the rough offshoots of the ever-teeming 
 African stem are vital with tlie rude vitality of 
 nature ; like her, they are prolific too. 
 
 Is it a dream ? Possibly so — a nature-sent 
 dream, as under the hot sun we float in breeze- 
 less calm down the glassy black waters, between 
 high walls of reed and forest, bright flowers, 
 broad leaf, and overtopping palm, up to the intense 
 heaven all aglow; till here before us, on the 
 left river-bank, rise the bower-like avenues 
 of Munnickendam. Here let us land, and from 
 the study of the long-settled Creole negroes of 
 this secluded estate let us draw, if so disposed, 
 
188 DtJTCH GUIANA. 
 
 some augury as to what tlicir bretliren of tho 
 East African coast, the colonists of our visionary 
 or visioned future, are likely to be in and for 
 South-American Surinam. 
 
 This, at any rate, is no dream : 217 acres ; 
 260 labourers, all, without exception, negro- 
 creole; average yearly produce, 750 hogsheads 
 of sugar, besides molasses and rum ! so much for 
 Munnickendam statistics. Machinery of the older 
 and simple sort; factory buildings corresponding; 
 planter's dwelling-house large, old, and tliree- 
 storied, Dutch in style, with high roof, and 
 fantastic wolves topping the gables by way of 
 weathercocks ; a wide, double flight of steps in 
 front, with a paved space, surrounded by an open 
 parapet, before the hall-door : the garden very 
 Dutch in its walks, flower-beds, and statues ; long 
 avenues, some of palmiste, some of areka palm, 
 some of almond-trees, with sago palms inter- 
 mixed, around a green, turfy soil, and a crescent 
 background of cane-fields and forest. So much, 
 and enough, I think, for general descri]Dtion. 
 Negroes very stm^dy, very black, very plainly 
 dressed, or half dressed in white and blue ; the 
 women rejoicing in variegated turbans; children 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 189 
 
 d la Cu^^id and Psyche as to costume, though not 
 perhaps in feature or shape ; three or four white 
 men, overseers, straw-hatted of course; lastly, for 
 visitors, the Governor and his party (myself 
 included) ; — such are the principal accessories of 
 the picture. Time, from five or so in the after- 
 noon to midnight, or thereabouts : we did not 
 very acciu-ately consult our watches. 
 
 Night had fallen; but no, — this is a phrase well 
 enough adapted, it may be, to the night of the 
 North — the heavy, murky veil slowly let down, 
 fold after fold, over the pale light that has done 
 duty for day. Here it is not so. Transparent 
 in its starry clearness, its stainless atmosphere, 
 night rises as day had risen before, — a goddess 
 succeeding a goddess ; not to blot out the fair 
 world, but to enchase it in a black-diamond circle 
 in place of a white — to change enchantment for 
 enchantment, the magic of shadow for the magic 
 of light. But I am anticipating. A good hour 
 before sunset the covered barge of the estate had 
 set us ashore on the wdiarf, where, with flowers 
 in their hands, songs on their lips, smiles on every 
 face, and welcome in every gesture, the boys and 
 girls of the place received us from the '^ stelling." 
 
190 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Between this double human range, that, like an 
 inner and more variegated avenue, lined the over- 
 arching trees from the water's edge up to the 
 dwelling-house, we passed along, while the merry- 
 tumult of the assembled crowd and the repeated 
 discharge of the small cannon planted at the 
 landing-place and in the garden mingled together 
 to announce and greet our arrival. The warm 
 though almost level sunbeams lit up the red-brick 
 lines of the central mansion, the tall, tower-like 
 factory chimneys, the statues in the garden, the 
 pretty bush-embosomed cottages of the estate, 
 and tipped with yellow gold the plumy cane-fields 
 beyond. This lasted some time, till the sun set, 
 and for a little while all was orderly and still in 
 the quiet evening light. 
 
 But soon night had risen, and with her had 
 risen the white moon, near her full ; and now the 
 merry-makers, who had dispersed to their evening 
 meal, re-assembled on the gravel walks and clean- 
 kept open spaces of the garden in front of the 
 dwelling-house, to enjoy the sport of the hour. 
 For in the AYcst Indies as in Africa, in Sm-inam 
 no less than at Damascus, the night is the negroes' 
 own time ; and no member of Parliament in the 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 191 
 
 later months of the session, no fashionable beauty 
 in her fourth London season, can more persist- 
 ently invert the solar allotment of the hours 
 than does the negro votary of pleasure ; and 
 wherever and however pleasure be attainable, 
 the negro is its votary. 
 
 Group l^y group, distinctly seen in the pale 
 moonlight as if by day, only with an indistincter 
 background, our Creole friends flocked on. The 
 preparations for the dance were soon made. 
 Drums, fifes, a shrill violin, and a musical in- 
 strument, some say of Indian, some of negro 
 invention, consisting of a notched gourd, that 
 when scraped by a small stick gives out a sound 
 not unlike the chirping of a monster cricket, and 
 accentuates time and measure after the fashion of 
 triangles, were brought from heaven knows what 
 repositories ; and with them the tuneful orchestra 
 was complete. The dancers ranged themselves, 
 more than a hundred men and women, mostly 
 young, all dressed in their choicest, for the night's 
 sport. The men, with few exceptions, were 
 attired in white trousers, and shirts of various 
 colours, with a predominance of red ; some dandies 
 had wrapped gay sashes round their waists, and 
 
192 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 most liad 2^i'c>vicled tliemselyes with sprigs of 
 flowers, jauntily stuck in their hatbands. The 
 women's dresses consisted chiefly of loose white 
 sacques, without the cumbrous under-layer of 
 petticoats, or the other '' troublesome disguises '' 
 that Europe conceals her beauties withal; and they 
 reserved their assortment of bright but rarely 
 inharmonious colours for their fantastic turbans, 
 some of which were arranged so as to give the 
 effect of one or two moderate-sized horns pro- 
 jecting from the wearer's head, while other girls, 
 with better taste, left an embroidered end hang- 
 ing down on one side. Eastern fashion. Many of 
 the women were handsome, shajoely figures, full- 
 limbed, and full-bosomed ; but — must I say it ? — 
 the particular charm of delicate feet and hands 
 was universally wanting ; nor, indeed, could it 
 have been fairly looked for among a throng of 
 field-labourers, female or male. As to faces, the 
 peculiarities of the negro countenance are well 
 known in caricature ; but a truer pattern may be 
 seen, by those who wish to study it, any day 
 among the statues of the Egyptian rooms in the 
 British Museum: the large gentle eye, the full 
 but not over-protruding lips, the rounded contour, 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 193 
 
 and tlie g-ood-naturcd, easy, scnsiioii-s expres>sion. 
 Tliis is the genuine African model — one not often. 
 I am aware, to be met Avith in Em'opean or 
 American tliorouglifares, wliere the plastic African 
 too readily acquires tlie careful look and even 
 the irregularity of the features that surround him, 
 but which is common enough in the villages and 
 fields where he dwells after his own fashion, 
 among his people ; most common of all in the 
 tranquil seclusion and congenial climate of a 
 Surinam plantation. There you may find, also, a 
 type neitlier Asiatic nor European, but distinctly 
 African ; with much of independence and vigour 
 in the male physiognomy, and something that 
 approaches, if it does not quite reach, beauty in 
 the female. Rameses and his Queen were cast in 
 no other mould.* 
 
 The Governor and ourselves were seated, with 
 becoming dignity, on the wide open balcony atop 
 of the steps leading up to the hall-door, thus com- 
 manding a f idl vicAv of the garden and the people 
 
 ■•■ I am glad that so keen and so discriminating an observer as 
 the late Mr. Winwood Reade concurs Avitli this very opinion ; 
 in support of which he cites the authority of Livingstone him- 
 self. Vide 'African Sketch Look,' vol. i. page 108. 
 
 O 
 
104 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 assembled. Immediately in front of us was a 
 large flower-bed, or rather a labyrinth of flower- 
 beds, among which stood, like white goblins in the 
 moonlight, the quaint statues before mentioned, 
 methodically arranged after the most approved 
 Dutch style, and flanked by two pieces of mimic 
 artillery. Such was the centre-piece, and on 
 either side there opened out a wide, clear space, 
 clean swept, and strewn with '' caddy," the usual 
 white mixture of broken shell, coral, and sand, 
 and in each of these spaces to right and left 
 a band of musicians, or rather noise - makers, 
 squatted negro- wise on the ground. Round these 
 centres of attraction the crowd soon gathered in 
 a double group, men and women, all noisy, 
 animated, and ready for the dance. Tlic moon, 
 almost at the full, glittered bright overhead ; and 
 her luicertain light, while giving full effect to the 
 half-barbaric picturesqueness of attire and form 
 in the shifting eddy of white-clad figures, served 
 also to veil from too exact view the defects (and 
 they were many) in the clothes, ornaments, and 
 appearance of the performers. Around the garden, 
 and behind it, dark masses of palm, almond-tree, 
 acacia, '^ saman," and kindred growths rose 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 195 
 
 against the sky, loftier and denser in seeming 
 than by day ; the whole formed an oval picture 
 of brightness and life, amid a dark and silent 
 framework of shadow — a scene part gay, part 
 impressive, and very tropical above all. 
 
 The music, or what did duty for sucli, began. 
 At first it was of a European character, or, rather, 
 travestied from European — disintegrated quad- 
 rilles and waltzes to no particular time. The negroes 
 around, shy as they always are when in the presence 
 of those whose criticisms they fear — for no race is 
 more keenly sensitive in regard to ridicule than 
 the African, except it be perhaps the semi-African 
 Arab — did not at once venture to put forth all 
 their prowess, and the performance opened witli 
 a few sporadic couples, women dancing Avith 
 women, men pousseting to men, and either seem- 
 ing half ashamed of tlieir own audacity. But as 
 the music continued and grew livelier, passing 
 more and more from the imitation European to 
 the unfeigned African style of an unbroken 
 monotonous drone, with one ever-recurring ca- 
 dence — a mere continuity of clanging sound — the 
 dancers grcvv^ more animated ; new couples, in 
 
 which the proper interchange of sex was observed 
 
 o 2 
 
196 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 by the partners, formed themselves ; till at last 
 the larger group, that on our left, took up the 
 genume Ethiopian dance, well known in Oman, 
 and witnessed by me there and elsewhere in the 
 pleasant days, now long since gathered to the 
 ineffectual past, when the East and I were one. 
 A dance of life, where men ranged on one side, 
 and women on the other, advance, retreat, cross, 
 join hands, break into whirling knots of twos and 
 fours, separate, re-form in line, to blend again 
 into a seeming maze of orderly confusion — a 
 whirl of very madness, yet with method in it ; 
 the intoxication of movement and sound, poured 
 out in time and measure. He who has witnessed 
 it, if there yet flow Avithin his veins one drop of 
 that primal savage blood, witliout which man- 
 kind, and womanhood too, are not much better 
 than mere titular names, cannot but yield him- 
 self up to the influence of the hour, cannot but 
 drink of the bowl, join in the revel: and if any 
 looker-on retains coolness enough to sneer or 
 blame — why, let each follow his bent ; but I, for 
 one, had rather be on the side of David than of 
 Michal ; and the former had, in the end, I think, 
 the best of the jest, and of the earnest too. 
 
MUNXK'KEXDAM. 197 
 
 But it is a different thing' with those who, amid 
 tlie decorous surroundings of a European draw- 
 ing-room, read, paper-cutter in hand, of what 
 they liavc never experienced; and many a fair 
 woman, and even a brave man, may be a very 
 Michal in spirit to the narrative, who might have 
 been of a different mind if some power had taken 
 them up and set them down again in the flesh 
 amid the moonlight gardens by the Cottica river 
 and Munnickendam. And, therefore, of what 
 was said or done by his Excellency the Governor, 
 or by his ex-Oriental or ex-Egyptian associates, 
 and the other non-Ethiopian beholders of the 
 dance, I will hold my peace; and if all or any 
 of them cast aside the part of critical spectator 
 for that of impassioned partner, if an^^ official of 
 high Batavian rank and dignity forgot, in the un- 
 veiled arms — I say no more — of his light-robed, 
 lithe-limbed, though dark-skinned j^artner, the 
 tight-buttoned, gold-laced uniform in the ward- 
 robe at home, — if any guest Avho had, once on a 
 time, drunk deep — too deeply, perhaps — of the 
 waters of the Egyptian Nile re-enacted, or at 
 least revived, the memories of its shores on the 
 banks of the South- American river, — the folly or 
 
198 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 the wisdom was theirs, and theirs it may remain 
 in stoi*}', as in fact, for me. 
 
 A Bacchanalian orgie, yet one in which 
 Bacchus himself had no share : Yenus alone pre- 
 sided, and sufficed for all beside ; or if Bacchus 
 seemed present to her aid, it was not he, but 
 Cupid in disguise. Half an hour — an hour — the 
 revelry continued, while the tumult grew every 
 minute louder, and the dance more vehement ; 
 till, with an impulse simultaneous in its sudden- 
 ness, the double chorus broke up, and, blending 
 in one confused mass, surrounded his Excellency 
 tlie Governor, while, amid shouts, laughter, and 
 huzzas, half-a-dozen sturdy blacks caught him up 
 in their arms and bore him aloft in triumphal 
 procession three times round the garden, while 
 others gesticulated and pressed alongside ; others 
 danced before, all cheered, and we ourseh^es, 
 aroused from our Africauo-Oriental dream l)y the 
 local significance of the act, hardly knew whether 
 to laugh at or to yield to the enthusiasm of the 
 moment. That the Governor, though main- 
 taining, as far possible, an appearance of passive 
 dignity and deprecatory acquiescence, heartily 
 enjoyed the spontaneous tribute of affection and 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 199 
 
 loyalty thus tiinmltiiously expressed, I liave no 
 doubt; and so would you have enjoyed it, my 
 dear reader, liad it been offered you. Besides, 
 lie told me as mucli when, after a tremendous 
 outburst of huzzas, his living throne gently dis- 
 solved asunder, and allowed him footing on the 
 ground again. 
 
 And what if in the next-enacted pantomime 
 there was less of national or personal loyalty in 
 its impulse, less of subject deference in its manner? 
 To be enthroned, entwined in the rounded arms, 
 and borne aloft on the shapely shoulders of six 
 buxom, laughing damsels, and so carried in a 
 thrice-repeated circle of unsolicited and un- 
 expected triumph, while a whole troup of African 
 sister-beauty danced and cheered around, was a 
 dignity that left him on whom it was conferred 
 nothing to envy in the honours bestowed on the 
 august representative of Dutch royalty himself. 
 But on whom that happiness was lavished, why it 
 was so lavished, how received, how requited — 
 though favours like these are, I allow", beyond all 
 equipoise of requital — I have once more nothing 
 to say ; wdioever would know, let him take sail or 
 oar up stream to Munnickendam, and inquire there. 
 
200 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Then after a half-liour's pause, congTatulatlons 
 exchanged, healths drunk, and cordial merriment, 
 in which all shared alike, performers, spectators, 
 Europeans, negroes, and the rest, once more to 
 the dance, but now in calmer measure and to a 
 gentler tune. By this the moon, small and 
 dazzling, rode high in the purple heavens, giving 
 warning of midnight near ; when escorted down 
 to the water's edge l3y those Avhose sports we 
 had witnessed, and perhaps in part shared, we 
 reluctantly threaded the dark shades of the avenue 
 riverwards, and re-embarked on our little steamer 
 that had yet to l^ear us a mile further along the 
 current before we reached the night's lodging and 
 rest prepared for us by the District Magistrate, 
 in his large and comfortable residence at Ephrata, 
 — so the place was called. 
 
 ''I wished you to sec something of our black 
 Creoles as they are among themselves," said the 
 Governor, as next morning we pursued our down- 
 ward way to the river junction at the Sommelsdyk 
 Fort, and thence turned off southward to explore 
 the upper branch of the Commeweyne, whicli we 
 had on our way up passed by imvisited. Deep 
 black, and much more rapid than the Cottica, its 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 201 
 
 current flowed behveen noble forest-scene-s, 
 alternating with cultivated spaces on either bank ; 
 but fewlarge sugar estates came in A^iew: j^lantainSj 
 cocoa-nuts, cassava; with cocoa bushes intermixed, 
 seemed the more favourite growths. The yearly 
 amount of sugar manufactured in this district 
 does not exceed 1,000 hogsheads; the mills arc 
 all of the simplest kind, and moved by water- 
 power. In general character, the scenery and 
 waterside objects of the Upper Commewe^me 
 nearly resemble those of the Upper Cottica, and 
 have been sufficiently described before ; a gradual 
 diminution of underwood, an increase of height 
 and girth in the forest trees, and a greater variety 
 in them and in the floAvering creej^ers that inter- 
 lace their boughs, being for many miles up 
 country almost the only distinct indications of 
 approach to the higher lands beyond ; though the 
 practised eye of a naturalist might doubtless 
 detect many significant varieties in the insects or 
 plants of the region. These things have their 
 interest, tlieii* value too ; and Avho has eyes to see 
 them — a Wallace, a Bates, a Darwin, — let him see : 
 my narrower range of vision, limited alike by 
 ignorance and habit, reaches little fiu-ther than to 
 
202 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 the ways and conditions of tlic human inhabitants, 
 their works and pleasures, progress or decay. No 
 great matters in themselves, it may be ; but every 
 man is a link in the chain of conscious intelligence, 
 tliat binds in one tlie universe of time and space; 
 and the least result, however capricious seeming, 
 of thought and will has a wider and more 
 durable meaning than the vastest and most 
 regular development of blind unknowing force. 
 Thought underlies that too, but hidden in depths 
 we cannot reach ; in man alone it rises to the 
 surface, and to study it there best befits surface- 
 minds, and of these mine is one. 
 
 And now as we slowly stem the liquid glass, 
 black as jet, yet pure as crystal, of the strong- 
 flowing Commeweyne, we remark, the Governor 
 and I, tlic evident and recent increase in the 
 number of small plantations, to the detriment, 
 though a temporary one only, if events run their 
 regular course, of the larger jwojierties. This is 
 a necessary phase of free labour, and through it 
 the Surinam colony, like every other of like kind, 
 must pass before it can reach the firm ground of 
 self-sustaining prosperity. Till tlien nothing is 
 solid, nothing sure. Giant sugar estates, proj^j^ed 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 20- J 
 
 up or absolutely maintained by extrancou.s capital, 
 and excluding, or dwarfing into comparative 
 nidlifcy, the varied pare el- cultivation of local 
 ownership and resources, are at best magnificent 
 gambling speculations; most so when the price 
 of their produce is not stored up, but at once 
 applied to widening the enclosures, or purchasing 
 some costly refinements of improved machinery. 
 Establishments like these are every instant at the 
 mercy of a sudden fluctuation of the market, of 
 a new invention, of a tariff ; in a word, they lie 
 exposed to every accident of Fortune's caprice ; 
 and, capricious as she is throughout her whole 
 domain, nowhere is the goddess more so than in 
 the commercial province. Hence it follows that 
 they who repine at the lengthening catalogue of 
 five-acre and ten-acre lots, railing at their cultiva- 
 tors as idle pumpkin-eating squatters, and raising 
 a desponding moan, occasionally an indignant 
 howl, over the consequent withdrawal of labour 
 from the five-hundred or thousand acre estates, 
 are not more reasonable in their complaints than 
 he wlio should fall foul of the workmen emj^loyed 
 in digging and la}'ing the foundations of the 
 house, and declare them to be lazy loons, and 
 
204 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 tlicir labour valueless, because tliey do not at once 
 1)estow it on raising the second stoiy and furnish- 
 ing the drawing-room. Patience awhile : these 
 things Avill come in course ; but, if the foundation 
 be not first strongly laid, how about tlie security 
 of the upper stories ? — if there be no larder 
 and cellar, what will avail the handsome but sterile 
 furniture of the drawing-room ? 
 
 Self-interest reasonably pursued is the best 
 intej'est, not of self only, but of all others 
 besides; and while wo admit that the negro 
 small proprietor may A^ery possibly have no one's 
 benefit immediately in view but his own, we 
 must not conclude that he is, by that same reason, 
 less efficaciously assuring the benefit of others. 
 ,He is in very fact assuring it much more effica- 
 ciously and lastingly than if he had hired himself 
 out as day-labourer at the lowest imaginable 
 wages on the biggest sugar estate of the colony. 
 
 In Dutch Guiana, taking Paramaribo, the 
 capital, for its centre, Ave may regard the rest of 
 the territory as made up, after a rough fashion, of 
 three concentric circles. The circumference of 
 the innermost one would, for what concerns the 
 east and the districts we have now been visiting, 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 205 
 
 pass through the confluence-point of the Comme- 
 weyne and Cottica rivers at Sommelsdyk Fort • the 
 second woukl intersect tJn-ougli the estate of 
 " La Paix," on the Upper Cottica, and tlie corre- 
 sj)onding estate of " Abendsrust," on the Upper 
 Commeweyne; the external limits of the third 
 Avould be correlative with those ef the colonial 
 frontier itself. Within the first circle, dargc 
 estates, mostly owned by Europeans, or at any 
 rate European Creoles, predominate. Throughout 
 the second or intermediate circle, smaller proj^er- 
 ties, mostly in the hands of coloured or black 
 Creoles, are more common. In the outermost 
 space are the villages and pro vision-grounds, 'few 
 and far between, of the Bush negroes, between 
 whom and the European landholders the dark 
 Creoles thus form a sort of link, social as well as 
 territorial, or, to vary the phrase, a connecting 
 medium, destined, if our conjectures be true, to 
 beconie ultimately an absorbing one, not only 
 of the more savage, but of the more civilized 
 element also. 
 
 But we are forgetting his Excellency. '• In 
 the labourers of Munnickendam," lie continued, 
 '•'you have a fair sample of our black Creoles. 
 
206 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Throiigliout the colony tlicy arc everywhere essen- 
 tially the same, — fond enough, as you have seen, 
 of pleasure and amusement when they can get 
 them, Ijut when at work steady, sober, willing, 
 and, which is a fortunate thing for all parties, 
 without a trace of social or political restlessness 
 in any direction. Their only fault is that there 
 is not enough of them ; and, what is worse, tlicir 
 numbers do not increase." 
 
 Wliy not ? Unhealtliy climate, some will 
 say ; while others, in concert with a late author, 
 talk in bated breath of gross and ruinous vices, 
 rendering it a question whether negroes should 
 exist on the earth at all for a few^ generations 
 longer; and others again find in infanticide a 
 third and convenient solution of the question. 
 Let us look a little closer. 
 
 And, first, for the climate. Like British Guiana, 
 its Dutch namesake is a low-lying plain, swampy 
 in some places, forest-grown in others, and far 
 within tlie tropics — none of them at first sight 
 favourable conditions to salubrity of atmo- 
 sphere. But where fresli sea-winds sweep over 
 the earth day and niglit, with scarcely inter- 
 rupted steadiness from year's end to year's end. 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 207 
 
 an open plain is licaltbicr by far than tlie 
 sheltered valleys and picturesque nooks of a 
 mountainous district ; and^ among- tidal streams 
 on a tidal coast, the marsh-fevers, that render the 
 moist shores of tlie stagnant Black Sea pool 
 scarcely less pestilential than those of Lagos itself, 
 find little place. Tropical heat, though here it is 
 never excessive, docs not, certainly, in the long 
 run suit European residents ; and at Surinam, 
 
 where 79° Fahr. is the ycarl}" average, the 
 highest ever recorded being 96^ Fahr., and the 
 lowest 70°, the climate must be admitted to be a 
 warm one. On the other hand, tliose who have 
 experience of Africa, the negroes' birthj^lacc, or 
 have seen how much the black suffers in the com- 
 paratively moderate chill of winter-season in tlie 
 northern West Indian Islands, will hardly con- 
 sider the heat of Dutch Guiana to be too great 
 for the species that forms a good four-fifths of its 
 population. 
 
 As to the second-named cause, or collection 
 of causes rather, it is to bo regretted that tlie 
 author of ' At Last ' should, from ignorance 
 doubtless, or prejudice, have ever lent such vague 
 and baseless calumnies the sanction of his 
 
208 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 respected name. Without being either a '^ clergy- 
 man" or even, thougli an official, a ''police 
 magistrate," I have knowledge enough of negro 
 character and ways to warrant me in asserting, 
 and my readers in believing the assertion, that 
 what is technically called vice is among Africans 
 nearer allied to philoprogenitiveness than among, 
 it may well be, most other races. And without 
 attempting to excuse, much less — as some seem 
 inclined to do — to vindicate, the extreme laxity of 
 their theory and practice in regard of connubial 
 fidelity or maiden virtue, one must allow that 
 their faidts in these respects tend nnich more 
 directly to the increase of tlie population than to 
 its diminution. And to have done once for all 
 w^ith a topic, the mention of which, thougli 
 unavoidable, is unpleasing, it may here be 
 added, that excess in alcoholic drink — a fault 
 decidedly opposed, as all who have studied the 
 subject know, to the "increase and multiply" 
 of healthy nature — is rare among the black 
 Creoles of the Surinam capital, and rarer still, 
 indeed almost unknoAvn, among those of the 
 country. So much for the second cause as- 
 signed. 
 
MUNNIOKEXDAM. 200 
 
 A iiKTC inspection of tlic yearly birtli-rate, 
 averaging- thirty per 1,000, dis2)oses of tlie third 
 allegation. Murdered children are not entered 
 on parochial registers, nor do the numbers given 
 leave much margin for kindred ^crimes at an 
 earlier stage. 
 
 And yet the annual death-rate exceeds that of 
 births by at least one per cent., as is stated, and 
 this at the best of times. Some years show tAVo 
 per cent., or even higher. How is this? And if 
 neither climate, nor vice, nor crime l)e the cause, 
 where is it then to be sought ? 
 
 But here let some indulgence be asked and 
 given. We are on 1)oard a pleasure lx)at; and 
 our attention is Ijeing called away every moment, 
 now to o-aze on a " tall tree by the side of the 
 river, one half of which was in flames," or rather 
 flowers red ^s flames, and not less bright, "from 
 the root to the top, and the other half green and 
 in full leaf," that might have reminded Geraint 
 and Enid of their Celtic wonderland; now to 
 acknowledge the shouted welcome of bright 
 figures crowding to -some little landing-place on 
 the way ; now by an opening vista of glittering 
 plantain groves, now by a tray full of glasses 
 
210 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 with ai^propriate contents, circulating at frequent 
 intervals round tlic deck. Amid interruptions 
 like these, it must be admitted that ^^I'ofo^i^ntl 
 investigations, statistical columns, and a mar- 
 shalled array of figures and facts Avould be 
 hardly less out of place than a sermon at a 
 masked ball. But it is possible to say truth, and 
 even serious truth, without sermonizing — ridentem 
 dicere vera, and the rest ; we will tr)-. 
 
 All have heard, and all who have not merely 
 heard but seen will attest, the fondness of 
 negroes for children ; nor their own children only, 
 but any, white, brown, or Ijlack, — for children 
 generically taken, in a word. Demonstrative as is 
 their affection, it is none the less genuine; tlie 
 feeling is instinctive, and the instinct itself is 
 hardly ever absent from among them. I do not 
 put it forward as a matter of praise; I mention 
 it as a fact. If Sir S. Baker's sweeping 
 assertion regarding I forget how many negro 
 tribes, that they have among them no acknow- 
 ledged form of worship of the Unknown, were 
 exact, which it is not, the existence, the univer- 
 sality, indeed, of Ijaln'-worshi^), at any rate, must 
 be allowed; I think, even hy that distinguished 
 
munnickenda:m. 211 
 
 miso- African. Nor is this species of worship 
 limited to tlie mothers of the babies, or to the 
 womaukind at large ; it is practised in the same 
 degree by the men, who are not a whit behind 
 the women in their love and care of children, 
 especially the yomigest. 
 
 But, imfortmiately, just as men of all tribes 
 and ages invariably make their gods after their 
 own image and likeness, so also they w^orship 
 them after their own fashion, and within the 
 limits of their oAvn habits and ways. Kow 
 negroes, and — I beg the ladies' pardon, but truth 
 is truth, and must be told — negresses still more, 
 are essentially irreflective ; keen-visioned enough 
 for the immediate present, consequences are as 
 nothing in their sight. The " In-sha- Allah," 
 '' Allah-Kereem," " Ala-bab-Illah," and so forth, 
 of tlie Arab, but half express the " ha]3py-go- 
 lucky" habit of mind of his African cousin. 
 And so it comes about that, in the very fervour 
 and ecstasy of her baby-worship, the negress- 
 niother persists in worshipping her little divinity 
 irreflectively, recklessly, and, by a natural con- 
 sequence, often injuriously, sometimes destruc- 
 tively, to the baby-god itself. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 Heated from field-work, excited, overdone, she 
 returns in tlie late afternoon to licr cottage ; and 
 the first thinpr she docs wlien arrived there is to 
 catch np lier little brown sprawler from the floor, 
 and put it to Iier breast. Tlie result needs no 
 guessing. Half an hour later she is howling as 
 only a negress can howl over her offspring, con- 
 vulsed or dead. Or, perhaps, just as she was about 
 to give, in more orderly fashion, the nourishment 
 that the infant has been faintly wailing after for 
 some time past, a friend comes in to invite her to 
 a dance or merry-making close by. Ofl:' she goes, 
 having made Heaven knows what arrangements 
 for the small creature's wants, or it may well be, 
 in her eagerness for amusement, no arrangement 
 at all ; purposes to come back in an hour, stays 
 away until midnight, and, on her return home, 
 finds another midnight, the midnight that knows 
 no sunrise, closed over her child. And thus, and 
 more. On over-feeding, injudicious feeding, 
 ailments misunderstood, quack-doctoring, always 
 preferred by the ignorant to all other, — on half- 
 superstitious usages not less injurious than silly, — 
 on violent outbursts of passion — the passions of 
 a negressj and of a negro, too, are at tropical 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 213 
 
 licat, their rage absolute frenzy, — I need not 
 dwell; suppose what a'ou will, you Avill be short 
 of the mark. But cease to wonder if, among the 
 most kindly hearted, child-loving, and, I may 
 add, child-producing race in the world, births, 
 however numerous, are less in computation than 
 deaths ; if one-third at least by statistical regis- 
 tration, one full half, if to its records be added the 
 unregistered fact, of the negro children in Dutch 
 Guiana die even before they are weaned. Tlie 
 causes, ninety-nine out of a hundred, are those 
 which I have stated or alluded to, and no 
 other. 
 
 What is then to be done ? An evil, or, rather, 
 an agglomeration of evils like these, that threaten 
 to cut down the main-stem of the future, to dry 
 up the very roots, to destroy the existence of the 
 colony, must be put an end to, all will agree ; but 
 how ? 
 
 ''Educate the mothers." Excellent! try it. 
 Education, even among races already at a much 
 higher level of culture than the Guiana negro, is 
 not a thing of a day ; no, nor of a generation 
 either. Look at home, and say how much has 
 the omnipotence of an Act of Parliament done to 
 
214 DUTCH GUIAKA. 
 
 perfect it, even among '' the heirs of all the ages/' 
 among ourselves. 
 
 Educate : yes, by all means ; but if this, my 
 intelligent European friend, be your sole remedy, 
 you will find its application made easy enough, but 
 by a process on which you have not calculated — 
 the process of extinction. For long before the 
 slow-working panacea has so nnich as begun to 
 exercise its beneficial effects — before the first 
 lessons are well learnt, the first prizes awarded — 
 the number of 3^our scholars will be so few that 
 a child may write them, if, indeed, there are any 
 children left to write. 
 
 Well, then, medical supervision, and that im- 
 mediate, say you. Of the medical staff of the 
 colony, its efficiency and its defects also, I shall 
 have occasion to say something in the next 
 chapter. But in suggesting it in the present in- 
 stance you have shown 3'ourself to be merely a 
 bachelor, and a theoretical bachelor, too. The 
 infant field is one in which, for every square foot 
 of doctor's ground, whole acres belong to the 
 mother and the nurse — a territory into which the 
 M.D. is not often or willingly called, even by 
 those who understand his value, hardly ever by 
 
MtJNNICKENDAM. Slo 
 
 those who do not. Bid Datch Guiana possess 
 twenty times more doctors tlian are now within 
 her limits, and were each one of them twenty times 
 as efficacious in his craft, all their learning and 
 skill would go for little in this matter, do as they 
 might: the evil lies far away, the most part 
 beyond their reach. 
 
 Must, tlien, this waste of life continue un- 
 checked ? Is no remedy to be found ? There 
 is a remedy, and a very simple one ; tried 
 before, and worth trying again. Let us go back 
 in memory to the times when every individual 
 negro life meant so many hundred florins to his 
 owner; when the suppression of the "trade" had 
 cut off the supply from without, and the birth of 
 every slave-child on the estate brought a clear 
 gain to the planter, just as its death represented 
 an actual and heavy loss liard to replace, not to 
 the parents only, but to the owner of parents and 
 children, too. Negroes and negresses might be 
 never so unthinking then — never so reckless 
 about what concerned themselves alone; but their 
 master took good thought that they should not be 
 careless Avhere his own interest was involved. 
 And in few things was it so closely involved, 
 
216 
 
 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 especially after the treaties of 1815 and 1819, as 
 in the preservation of infant life among the 
 labouring stock ; and no precaution was neglected 
 that could insure this, and supplement the defects 
 of maternal care. 
 
 Many means were adopted, but the chiefest of 
 all was the appointment, on every estate, of one 
 or more of elderly women, appropriately styled 
 " mammas," chosen from among the negresses 
 themselves, and whose sole duty was to watch 
 each over a given number of infantile negroes, 
 for whose proper care, nourishment, and good 
 condition generally this foster-mother had to 
 answer, and for whose loss, if they drooped and 
 died, she was called to strict account. 
 
 The history of slave institutions has been not 
 inappropriately called the ^'devil's book"; but 
 here, at any rate, is a leaf of it worth taking out 
 for insertion in a better A^olume. This could 
 easily be done in Surinam. The colony is, from 
 old time, divided into districts, eleven in all, the 
 capital included ; and over these, though not in 
 exact correspondence with their number and 
 limits, are set medical officers, appointed by 
 Government, and charged to see to the public 
 
MUNNICKENIUM. 217 
 
 health, and that of the labouring classes in 
 particular. Now my suggestion would ho this : 
 Let there he appointed to each district, not a 
 doctor or surgeon only, but ''negro mammas," 
 middle-aged women, one or more according to 
 the local requirements, whose duty would be to 
 keep and render account of all the black or 
 coloured chiklren born on the lands, from two 
 years old and downwards, like the babes of 
 Bethlehem, but with opposite intent. To fit them 
 for their charge, these district nurses, to give 
 them a more civilized-sounding name than that 
 borne by their predecessors of old days, should 
 have received sufficient instruction, both in the 
 causes and characters of infantile ailments, and in 
 the right manner of their treatment, so that they 
 might be able of themselves to deal with ordinary 
 cases, and, in general, to prescribe and regulate, 
 when needed, the nourishment and care necessary 
 for maintaining good health among the little 
 folks. They should also be obliged to keep an 
 exact register of every birth, and a list of all 
 the children under their charge, and from time 
 to time, say once a month, they should be called 
 on to report to the medical officer of their district, 
 
218 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 to whom, and tlirougli liim to tlie Government, 
 tliey should bo responsible within the limits of 
 their district, for the well or ill being, the health, 
 sickness, or death, of those entrusted to them. In 
 a word, they should do for the free-born infants 
 as much, or ratlier more, and that after a better 
 regulated and more intelligent fashion, than was 
 done on the slave-estates of the pre-emancipation 
 era. 
 
 Now, fill up this outline-project with the proper 
 colouring of qualifications, provisoes, regulations, 
 and the remaining suj^plemental details of theory 
 wrought out into fact, and you will have a scheme 
 for the preservation of infant negro life, or 
 rather the hindrance of its prodigal and ruinous 
 waste, more likely to succeed in its object than 
 any that I have yet heard or seen in practice. 
 Then combine these or similar measures with a 
 reasonable supply of the two needful things, with- 
 out which neither Surinam nor any other trans- 
 Atlantic colony can prosper or, indeed, exist — 
 ca2:)ital and immigration. Not the capital of 
 official subsidy, but of private enterprise; nor 
 the immigration of costly and burdensome East- 
 Indian coolies, or the yet costlier and yet more 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 219 
 
 troublesome Cliinese, but of vigorous, healthy, 
 willing East Africans, the ex-slaves of the 
 Zanzibar and Oman markets. Then put these 
 three requisites together, and stand up and pro- 
 phesy to Dutch Guiana what golden-aged future 
 you mil, nor fear being numbered in the latter 
 days among the false prophets ; your place will be 
 with the true. Tliis done, spread the gilding of 
 education wide and thick as you please, but first 
 secure the mass to spread it on withal. Is not the 
 life more than meat, even school meat ? and the 
 body more than raiment, even the raiment of 
 knowledge, were it gorgeous as that of Solomon 
 himself ? 
 
 The sea ebb has set the dammed-up waters of 
 the Commeweyne at liberty to follow their 
 natural bent, and Ave float swiftly down the 
 stream, admiring, commenting, and enjoying, 
 now the ever-varying, ever-recurring scenes of 
 life and labour of tropical nature and European 
 energy, of forest, plantation, mansion, cottage, 
 and field that every river-bend unfolds ; now the 
 ^' feast of reason and the flow of soul," — a very 
 hackneyed phrase, — as we go; and now more sub- 
 stantial feastings, and the flow of various compo- 
 
220 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 sitions very congenial to tlie Dutch soul and body 
 too, nor less so to the English. But the distance 
 was considerable, and night looked down on us 
 wdtli its thousand starry eyes long before we 
 reached Fort Amsterdam and the broad Surinam 
 waters. An hour later, we disembarked at the 
 Government '' Stelling " of the silent capital, well 
 pleased with our river excursion and with each 
 other also. 
 
 Not many days after, I was riding out with the 
 Governor on the high road, — that is to say, on 
 the horse-path, for the true high road here, as 
 elsewhere in Guiana, is by water, — leading to- 
 wards the wooded regions of Para, south-west of 
 Paramaribo, to wdiicli, in composition with some 
 other Indian word, it has given its name. Its 
 inhabitants are reckoned, exclusive of Busli 
 negroes, at nearly 5,000. They live in villages, 
 and occupy themselves, to some extent, in sugar- 
 cultivation, but, generally, in small lots, where they 
 grow cocoa, coffee, and plantains. Indigo and 
 tobacco are also among the products of the land. 
 The ground is well raised above the water-level ; 
 to the south, indeed, it becomes hilly. The 
 forest scenery is said to surpass in beauty, as iu 
 
MUNNICKENDAM. 221 
 
 extent, that of any otiier district in tlie colony. 
 " You can ride for seven days in one direction, 
 Avitliout ever getting out of the shade," said the 
 Governor, as I noticed tlie noble outskirts of the 
 woods before us ; and he urged on me, almost as 
 a duty, a visit to Para, where, amid the small 
 Creole proprietors and the forest-embowered vil- 
 lages, he assured me I should see Surinam negro 
 life to better advantage, witness greater comfort 
 and contentment, act as spectator or sharer, if the 
 fancy took, of gayer festivities, than even on the 
 banks of the Cottica and at Munuickendam. 
 But my hank of Surinam thread was too nearly 
 spun out already ; and the colours of other lands 
 were now aljout to take its place in the fate- woven 
 twine. 
 
222 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 CHAPTER yir. 
 
 THE COLONY. 
 
 " It would be interesting to know tLe secret of Dutch colonial 
 management, wh'cli presents to an outside observer the aspect of 
 minding one's own business, and inducing other people to mind 
 theirs." — Saturday Review. 
 
 Three mottoes lieacl this work. The first lias its 
 embodiment in the descrii:)tions givoHj or at least 
 attempted, of places and people. The third 
 assigns the tone of the mental coloming thrown 
 by the seer himself over what he saAv. But the 
 second motto is chiefly referable to the summing 
 up; it is a conjecture, the verification of which, 
 if it has the good luck to be verified, must be 
 sought in the conclusion. And this is why I have 
 recalled it to eye and mind at tlie head of this, 
 the concluding chapter. 
 
 Either my narrative has been very inadequate 
 to its subject, or the reader very inattentive, if 
 he has not long ago drawn two distinct and, in 
 some degree, opposite inferences from the preced- 
 
THE COLONY. 223 
 
 iiig cha^^ters : one, that Surinam is not, in a pro- 
 gressive or money-making sense, a very prosper- 
 ous colony ; the other, that it is, on the whole, a 
 remarkably well managed one. But how far its 
 good management may be due to the workings of 
 the twofold secret suggested by the critic, whose 
 clever conjecture I have quoted, is not equally 
 self-evident. "The former," i.e., minding one's 
 own business, is, he subjoins, '' usually not 
 easy"; ''the latter," i.e., inducing other people 
 to mind theirs, ''generally impracticable." If 
 so, all the more credit to those ^^'lio have com- 
 passed them in act. Whether the Dutch lords of 
 Surinam lia.ve really done so will, I think, 
 become more apparent on a general though fore- 
 shortened view of the colony as a whole. 
 
 The beginnings of Dutch Guiana were those of 
 a mere settlement. When early in 1667 the Zee- 
 lander, Admiral Krynnsen, with three ships and 
 600 soldiers,wrested the land from its English occu- 
 pants, he made it over, in right of government as of 
 property, to the particular State whence he had 
 received his commission and equipment, and by 
 which he was himself, under tlie title of " Com- 
 mander," appointed Governor of the territory 
 
2*24 DITCH GUIANA. 
 
 tliat lie had coiiqucTctl. His adminstration was 
 wholly military, and the settlers had to acce^^t 
 the rule, no less than the protection, of the garri- 
 son and the fleet. A few years later the States 
 General of Holland claimed for themselves the 
 right of nominating the Governor of Sm'inam ; 
 and shortly after the State of Zeeland, dissatisfied 
 with the financial results of its enterprise, sold its 
 territorial right, partly to the Dutch West-Indian 
 Company of those days, partly to the city of 
 Amsterdam. But, however much the external 
 relations of the settlement were modified by these 
 changes, its internal management remained the 
 same ; and military rule, unchecked by law, V\'as 
 fast degenerating into mere anarchical tyranny, 
 when the appointment as Governor of the Count 
 of Sommelsdyk not only saved the settlement 
 from disintegration and ruin, but gave it an 
 entirely new and durable character. 
 
 In fact, the existence of the colony as sucli 
 may truly be said to date from the 24th of 
 November, 1683, when this large-minded and 
 high-spirited man landed at Paramaribo. A 
 cursory notice has already been taken of the 
 principal events tlint marked his short but brilliant 
 
THE COLONY. 225 
 
 administration. To it and him the colony owes Its 
 two main Institutions, tlic Council of Policy and 
 the Court of Justice. Indeed, during the whole of 
 the eighteenth and a portion of the nineteenth 
 century, constant struggles with foreign hostilities 
 — chiefly French — from without, and within ser- 
 vile revolts, followed by stranger-occupation and 
 financial difficulties of the most serious kind, left 
 small leisure for administrative development, and, 
 till a comparatively recent date, the Governor, 
 with the two courts already mentioned, summed 
 tip In themselves almost the entire programme of 
 colonial management. But the eight-fold district 
 division Introduced In 1842 gave new elasticity 
 to the administration, and this important measure 
 was followed by a series of improvements In 
 every department, that have rendered the 
 maclnnery of the Grovernment almost as com2:>lete 
 In detail as comprehensive In plan. 
 
 What, then, is the actual administration of the 
 colony? and, first of all, on what basis Is It 
 reared ? What Is the ground-plan of the simple 
 yet multiple structure that covers and protects 
 the land ? And let us not be surprised, much 
 
 less offended, if It Is not entirely In accord with 
 
 Q 
 
226 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 our own political conceptions : there is always 
 something to be learned from those who disagree 
 with us ; rarely from those who agree. 
 
 King, Lords, and Commons, a triple machine, 
 with each part equibalanced in the correctest 
 imaginable counterpoise, — such is, in the main, 
 the English constitutional ideal of a government 
 as it should be. On the other hand, caste rule, 
 however disguised, is hardly less generally ad- 
 mitted to be the ideal of a government as it should 
 not be. Both these estimates are, we may safely 
 assert, tolerably correct, where empires of wide 
 extent, and nations that have already attained an 
 advanced degree of development, are concerned; 
 but it does not follow that both or either should 
 be absolute, indisputable truth for all places, at 
 all times, and under all conditions. Systems are 
 very satisfactory things to those who devise them • 
 their only inconvenience is that, when they come 
 to be applied, they are so rarely commensurate 
 with realities. Procrustes doubtless found his bed 
 answer to perfection the purposes for which he 
 designed it ; but it is doubtful whether its occu- 
 pants were generally of the same oj)inion. 
 
 That a certain West-Indian island — I think, 
 
THE COLONY. 227 
 
 St. Lucia — tlion on the point of receiving the 
 blessings of a constitution might get as much as 
 possible of the Queen or King, and as little as 
 possible of the Lords and CommonSj was the 
 sensible wish of the very sensible Anthony Trol- 
 lope, when visiting the Caribbean Archipelago 
 some twenty-five years since. Now Dutch 
 Guiana, though geographically part of a very 
 respectable continent, is to all administrative, 
 legislative, and social purposes just as much of an 
 island as St. Lucia itself ; and what has been, and 
 rightly, said of the one, may, for these matters, 
 be not less rightly said of the other. 
 
 How they have ultimately settled it in St. Lucia 
 I do not know ; but in Surinam, at least, the 
 constitution is almost entirely King. The Governor, 
 who holds his appointment direct from the CroAvn, 
 and to it alone is responsible, through the Colonial 
 Office at the Hague, to which he has to make a 
 tri-monthly rei^ort of his proceedings, is, within 
 the common limits of law, almost absolute ruler, 
 so far as the colony itself is concerned. All local 
 appointments, all subordinate posts, are in his gift ; 
 he is, by virtue of his office, commander-general 
 
 of all garrison troops whatever, by land or sea ; 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 PUTCII GUIANA. 
 
 every financial measure is auljjcct to liis control ; 
 the entire administration centres in his person. 
 So much — a lion's share, truly — for the Crown. 
 
 Follow Lords and Commons, or, rather, an 
 amalgamation of Loth ; but their joint share, when 
 compared wdth the foregoing, show^s off modest 
 indeed. Till lately, they w^ere ''represented" 
 vaguely enough by a council called "■ Colonial," 
 which w^as convoked by the Governor, but solely 
 when he thought fit, and then even merely for 
 consultation and advice. In this council the 
 Governor presided, and, with the '' Procurcur- 
 General," an official inferior in colonial rank and 
 influence only to the Governor himself, the 
 Finance Administrator, and -the Colonial Secre- 
 tary, made up the cx-officio element of the 
 Assembly. The non-official consisted of six 
 Crown members, chosen by the Governor himself 
 from among the most respectable landowners in 
 the colony, or their resident agents. To these 
 six was also entrusted the subordinate administra- 
 tion of the eight districts, some singl^^, some 
 united, into wdiich tlie Surinam territory -was 
 divided, Coronie and Nickerie excepted — these two 
 being allowed sej)arate magistracies of their owii. 
 
THE COLONY. 229 
 
 The council had, accordmgly, a double charac- 
 ter : consultative in its corporate capacity, it was 
 executive in the individuals who composed it ; 
 while under either aspect it might be not unfairly 
 regarded as an extension of the Governor's own 
 personality — little more. It was a Crown aris- 
 tocracy, with, we may suppose, the customary 
 advantages and drawbacks of such, modified by 
 the national type. The '' Commons," that is, the 
 bulk of the population, had, on this plan, neither 
 voice nor expression in the administration ; nor, 
 indeed, previous to emancipation and its correla- 
 tive extension of civic rights, did they require 
 any. 
 
 Yet, even in those days, the government of 
 Surinam was not an arbitrary one, far from it. 
 The Colonial Office at the Hague, to which the 
 Grovernor was obliged to refer everything, and 
 from which all his authority derived, acted as one 
 check. Another existed in the law courts, civil 
 and criminal, over neither of which had he any 
 control. A third was ever present at his side in 
 the person of the '' Procureur-General," a nominee 
 of the Hague, and invested with magisterial 
 and even political powers hardly inferior to his 
 
^30 DUTCH GUIA^TA. 
 
 own. A fourth was provided in tlie '' Finance- 
 Administrator," wliose concurrence in every 
 measure involving serious exjDenditure was indis- 
 pensable. With so many restraints, the govern- 
 ment was, it is clear, more likely to err on the 
 side of over-caution than of precipitancy or 
 despotism. 
 
 When, however, emancipation had, in 1863, 
 converted the bulk of tlie population into Dutch 
 citizens, "without distinction of colour or caste, 
 some corresponding change became necessary, if 
 not in the essentials, at least in the form of 
 administration. This Avas done by creating a 
 House of Assembly, where the Grovernor takes 
 his seat as President, supported by four official or 
 Crown members, nominated by himself, and nine 
 other members, elected by voters, and holding 
 their seats each for six years. Vacancies occa- 
 sioned by death, retirement, or the course of rota- 
 tion are filled up by general election ; a yearly 
 payment of taxes to the amount of forty florins 
 constitutes a voter. The power of the Assembly 
 is limited to debating on measures submitted to 
 its consideration by the Governor, who is not 
 bound by their opinion, unless, indeed, it coincides 
 
THE COLONY. 231 
 
 with his owiij in which case the measure becomes 
 lawj subject always to approval and confirmation 
 from the Hague. The Assembly has no initiative 
 power, nor any direct financial control. Should 
 the Governor find it advisable to act in opposition 
 to the majority of tlie members, he can do so ; 
 but he is bound to supply the dissentients with a 
 written explanation of his motives, with which 
 they are similarly bound to be satisfied, and there 
 ends the matter. 
 
 The Assembly is, in fact, nothing but the old 
 deliberative council under another shape, with a 
 decorous flavour of the '' Commons," so intro- 
 duced that they too, on condition of their remain- 
 ing in accordance with the Grovernor, may bear a 
 part in the dignity of administration; otherwise 
 they are practically excluded from it. Mean- 
 while, the creation of seven district commissaries, 
 the Governor's own nominees, between whom the 
 executive sub-manai2:ement of the entire Surinam 
 territory, from frontier to frontier, is portioned 
 out, while an eighth, as burgomaster, has in 
 charge the capital itself, takes away from the 
 " Assembly " every remnant of the administrative 
 character supported by the ^' council " of former 
 
232 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 days. This has been transferred, within certain 
 limits, to the new ''Advising" or ''Privy" 
 Council, another phase of the old one, but on a 
 narrower scale, since it now includes three persons 
 only — the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, the 
 " Procureur-General," and three other members, 
 selected by the Governor, and nominated by the 
 King. From all which it results that the Gover- 
 nor's hands are, to practical purposes, about as 
 much and as little tied as formerly ; nor has the 
 relative official position of King, Lords, and 
 Commons been substantially changed in Dutch 
 Guiana by or since the constitution of the " As- 
 sembly " in 1865. Summing up. King, in his 
 own person or those of the Colonial Minister and 
 the Governor, almost everything; Lords, in a 
 consultative capacity, something; Commons, 
 honorary ; — such is the government of Surinam. 
 
 Or, rather, so is Surinam governed : — passive, 
 not active. The colonial administration is a 
 portion of the home machinery, and obeys the 
 same central force ; not a distinct engine working 
 apart. 
 
 A system like this has its drawbacks ; what 
 system has not ? It has also its advantages, and 
 
THE COLONY, 233 
 
 they are many. Against the absence of spon- 
 taneity, it has for set-off the assurance of security. 
 One thing deserves especial notice : it is that, 
 under an administration thus constituted, diversity 
 of colour and race can be safely, as occasion 
 requires, disregarded in the colony ; which could 
 never be the case did the officials derive their 
 nomination and powers from the colony itself. 
 White, black, or coloured, all are subjects alike — all 
 equally dependent on an authority beyond the seas; 
 and where such is the common footing, caste-feeling 
 has, it will be admitted, little or nothing to eu' 
 courage it in the distribution of nominations, 
 towards which its influence has in nowise contri- 
 buted. Nor are factions likely to quarrel for the 
 decorations of official power or the sweets of 
 official perquisites, nor even to exist at all, where 
 the control of these desirable things is beyond 
 the control of any faction or party whatsoever. 
 Public opinion there certainly is, in Surinam as 
 elsewhere ; nor can it be absolutely disregarded 
 with impunity on the banks of the Commeweyne, 
 any more than on those of the Yssel. But public 
 opinion is never more moderate and judicious 
 than when it feels itself to be restricted within 
 
^34 DllTCH GUIANA. 
 
 the limits of simple opinion; and lias no recognized 
 expression in act. Hence the Governor remains 
 free, or nearly so, to select at pleasure the most 
 capable and the best deserving candidates to fill 
 the many posts of office within his gift, through- 
 out the territory, without needing anxiously to 
 consider in every instance what may be the pedi- 
 gree, or what the epidermal hue, of the individual 
 aj^pointed. Hence, too, the office-holders them- 
 selves, unimpeded by party ties, are all the more 
 likely to devote their entire attention to the satis- 
 factory performance of their duties — a moral im- 
 possibility did they owe their position to faction 
 and intrigue. Nor are the good effects confined 
 to the officials themselves ; they pervade the 
 whole population : and the secret of getting every 
 one to mind his own business is thus found to 
 resolve itself into the correlative and not more 
 abstruse secret of giving no one the temptation to 
 mind any one 's business except his own. 
 
 " A most autocratic style of administration, 
 and one that would not at all go down with us," I 
 hear some colonial Briton — Antiguan, it may be, 
 or Grenadan, or Barbadian — say. To such I have 
 no answer to make : if they are content with 
 
THE COLONY. 235 
 
 themselves and their condition, it is well ; and 
 Heaven forbid I should wish them otlierwise. 
 But should a like comment be uttered by a friend 
 from Canada, Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria, 
 and so forth, the reply is ready. Eemember, then, 
 Canadian, Tasmanian, or whatever you be, 
 that in colonies, not large like your own, but 
 small, very small, and in the presence, not of a 
 tolerably homogeneous population, but of one in 
 which the vast majority is composed of a race or 
 races inferior, by nature perhaps, ^^erhaps by cir- 
 cumstances actual or antecedent, local self-govern- 
 ment involves problems singularly difficult to solve 
 aright. If frankly conceded, it must include all 
 the component members of the colony, and that on 
 an equal footing ; if otherwise, it can be nothing 
 but caste rule under a thin disguise. For an 
 example of what the former leads to, take Jamaica 
 from 1836 to I860 ; for a specimen of the latter, 
 see . . . but I will not particularize. Which do you 
 prefer — the lordship of misrule, or the lordship of 
 Bumbledom ? tumultuous anarchy or respectable 
 stagnation ? For to one or the other you must 
 come, according as you follow the former system 
 or the latter, according as you put within the reach 
 
236 DUTCH GUIAKA. 
 
 of all, or withhold from some, that most seduc- 
 tive temptation, the temptation of self-rule, after 
 once displaying it as something attainable before 
 their eyes. Much better, say I, not to hold it 
 out at all; and that is just what our Dutch friends 
 of the Hague have done. "Do you mind your 
 business," say they to the colonists, " and we will 
 mind ours. Do you go steadily to work, make the 
 best you can of the land and its products. Govern- 
 ment is our affair, and we will look after it": — a 
 wise j^artition of labour, and deserving the praise 
 not of the Saturday Reviewer only, but of all 
 reviewers who have ever sat in the censor's chair. 
 
 In a word ,party spirit, colour-antagonism, does 
 not exist in Surinam, because it has never been 
 summoned by opportunity into existence ; and 
 to its absence we may, in great measure, attribute 
 the freedom with which intermarriage, climate, 
 and those occult local influences that subtly, but 
 powerfully, modify national types do their work 
 at large in Dutch Guiana, and cast over the entire 
 population that uniformity of tint and guise of 
 which I have already spoken in an earlier chapter 
 of this work. 
 
 And now to come to subordinate details. 
 
THE COLONY. 237 
 
 liberally fiirnislied by the yearly Surinam Blue 
 Books, but of wliicli few only need be mentioned 
 here, and that briefly. And, first, the adminis- 
 tration of justice : it is in every respect regulated 
 by Dutch law and custom, and impartially dealt 
 out to all. The Supreme Courts of Justice, civil 
 and criminal, sit at Paramaribo ; and to them all 
 cases of importance have to be referred. In 
 addition, six district judges, three of whom enjoy 
 fixed stations, while the three others go on a kind 
 of circuit, have authority in lesser matters, decide 
 disputes between masters and men, and inflict 
 fines or imprisonment, the former not exceeding 
 the sum of 300 florins, the latter limited to two 
 months. These district judges are stipendiary 
 officials, no landowner or trader being allowed to 
 perform their part; while, on the other hand, 
 they themselves are not alwa}'s members of tlio 
 legal profession — a serious defect, and productive 
 of much inconvenience. Their sentence, too, is, 
 in the majority of cases, subject to appeal ; and 
 this circumstance, added their own Avant of 
 personal weight, throws l^ack nearly the v/holo 
 judicial duty on the central courts. To those 
 courts, accordingly, almost every case, trifling or 
 
238 DUTCH CiUIANA. 
 
 serious, is ultimately referred, from a rap over 
 the head up to deliberate murder, and from a 
 disputed corial to a lawsuit involving the largest 
 estate in Dutch Guiana. Hence delay and incon- 
 venience without end. A ''block'' at Temple 
 Bar, before it was pulled down, a Waterloo 
 Station booking-rail on an excursion-day, a Covent 
 Garden box-office on a "Patti" night in the 
 season, feebly image forth the habitual condition 
 of these unlucky courts. Worse still for those 
 who have to come before them. I have myself 
 seen in the Paramaribo Jail detenus of more 
 than six months, waiting their turn for a sentence 
 the duration of which, when awarded, would 
 probably not exceed six weeks. 
 
 This evil, and it is not a trifling one, might 
 best, I think, be remedied by giving the district 
 magistrates power to deal summarily, and ^^-ith- 
 out appeal, as justices of the peace, with minor 
 cases of assault, petty larceny, and the like ; at 
 the same time establishing in the districts them- 
 selves two or three places of correction, especially 
 destined for carrying out the execution of light 
 sentences, suited to the offences in hand. In a 
 country where intercommunication is easy, and 
 
THE COLONY. 239 
 
 under a system that can readily provide tlio 
 requisite supervision, no serious abuse need bo 
 feared from sucli an increase in the local magis- 
 terial power ; or it could soon be remedied, did 
 it occur. Meanwhile, the work of the central 
 courts would be reduced by more than half ; and 
 the now-overcrowded prisons of Paramaribo and 
 Fort Amsterdam proportionately cleared, to the 
 great advantage of all parties. Labour is too 
 valuable an article in Surinam to be kept locked 
 up a day longer than absolutely necessary, what- 
 ever the motive. 
 
 Another part of the administration that stands 
 in need, not so much of reform as of re-adjust- 
 ment, is taxation. A poll-tax, however graduated, 
 is invariably odious, almost invariably unfair ; 
 and, in the Surinam of the present day, an 
 anachronism besides. The poll-tax of Dutch 
 Guiana owedits origin to the peculiar circumstances 
 of the slave-holding epoch, when the best standard 
 for regulating the taxation of freemen was un- 
 doubtedly the number of bondsmen in tlicir 
 em2:)loy, as a starting-point from Avhich to arrive 
 at the rough estimate of the incomes to be taxed. 
 But, with emancipation, this state of things passed 
 
240 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 away ; and the old method is evidently in- 
 applicable to the conditions of free labour. A 
 further inconvenience lies in the difficulty of 
 collection. The bulk of those from whom a poll- 
 tax has to be made up is, of course, formed by the 
 lowest and the poorest classes — field-labourers, 
 woodcutters, charcoal-burners, fishermen, and the 
 like — men who rarely frequent Paramaribo, and 
 are not readily noticed when they do. So the 
 tax-o-atherer has to hunt after them himself in 
 their haunts, up the rivers of the interior. But 
 in a region like this, with an unlimited ])ack- 
 ground of wild country, what more easy than to 
 forestall the unwelcome official visit by a temporary 
 absence in the bush ? Nor, in the absence of the 
 dweller of the hut, does distraining offer much 
 chance of satisfaction where there is generally 
 nothing, except, maj^be, a broken bottle, to dis- 
 train ; nor demolition, where there is nothing to 
 be demolished that cannot be rebuilt in half a day. 
 So that in every respect the poll-tax is not a 
 success. 
 
 Another error is embodied in the colonial 
 export duties, ranging from five to ten per cent, 
 on the value of the goods — an unadvisable source 
 
THE COLONY, 241 
 
 of revenue, because tending directly to tlie dis- 
 couragement and disemployment of labour and 
 j)roduce. However, taxation in Surinam, taken 
 altogether, is not over heavy ; nor does the 
 burden require so much to be lightened as to be 
 shifted. Tlie fault consists in this, that the 
 strongest shoulders are not under the present 
 system those that have to bear the most load, but 
 the weakest. 
 
 I pass lightly over the remaining administra- 
 tiA^e departments, because they are in general 
 organization identical with those of our own 
 colonies ; the differences are slight and of a local 
 character. For these things, see the annuid 
 Eeports, in which education, charitable insti- 
 tutions, and public works occupy a large space. 
 The statistics of the first show 5,871 children in 
 regular school attendance ; a large numberj being 
 in fact one-tenth of the entire population, Bush 
 negroes and Indians excepted. About one-half of 
 the schools throughout the colony are maintained 
 by the Moravian Brotherhood, with or without 
 official subsidy, and more than half the remainder 
 by the Government itself. Naturally the educa- 
 tion furnished by most of the town schools and 
 
 R 
 
242 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 l)y all tlie country ones is merely elementary. 
 Among the charitable institutions, a magnificent 
 hospital, the largest and best aiopointed I have 
 seen in the West Indies, a poor-house, also 
 spacious and well kept, a solidly funded '' Bene- 
 volent" Society, an Orphanage, and the Lepers' 
 Asylum, at Batavia in the Coronie district, 
 take the foremost rank. Canals, dams, sluices, 
 bridges, landing-places, and the other adjuncts of 
 water-communication are the principal items on 
 the list of public works. They are maintained, 
 and from time to time extended, with genuine 
 Dutch perseverance and skill. 
 
 The medical staff of the colony consists of 
 forty-seven practitioners, apothecaries and mid- 
 wives included. The police corps, between 
 officers and men, musters 160 strong. Neither of 
 these numbers can be considered adequate to the 
 requirements of so large and so widely scattered 
 a population. A more numerous and better 
 organized police force might besides allow the 
 colony to dispense in great measure with the 
 expensive services of the over-numerous Euro- 
 pean garrison, at present maintained for show 
 rather than use, in the principal forts. Nor need 
 
THE COLONY. 243 
 
 the good folks of Surinam go any further to h)ok 
 for the very model and pattern of a police force, 
 than which none better exists anywhere, than to 
 their neighbours of Demerara. Lastly, such a 
 corps, if judiciously blended Avith the elder insti- 
 tution of '' Guides," now for some reason or 
 another left in abeyance, would prove a useful 
 instrument for introducing the beginnings of dis- 
 cipline and social order among the Bush negroes, 
 and thus help to pave the Avay for the gradual 
 incorporation of these last into the rest of the 
 colony. 
 
 Sectarian rivalry, a too frequent cause of dis- 
 cord in colonies, whatever their isothermal lines, 
 has been remarkably innocuous in Surinam, 
 tliough not for want of diversity of sects. First 
 come the Moravians, whose muster-roll runs on 
 considerably beyond 20,000 ; next follow Roman 
 Catholics, who boast about half that number; 
 only, while the former are chiefly recruited from 
 among tlie field-labourers and the negroes, the 
 latter supply their ranks with a medlc}^ of Portu- 
 guese, Indians, and arrivals from outside. Tlie 
 Dutch-Reformed, whose system is, I am told, not 
 far removed from that of our own Presbyterians, 
 
 R 2 
 
244 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 count only 8,500 ; but among tliese are most 
 of the officials and leading men. Their congre- 
 gation represents, so to speak, the ruling and the 
 burgher element. The peasantry and the land are 
 represented by the Moravian Brotherhood ; the 
 lower toAvnsmen and proletarian class, by Roman 
 Catholicism. Lastly, wealth and energy of cha- 
 racter bring the Jews, though little over 1,200 
 in all, to the fore. History, but history only, 
 notices some rather serious bickerings between 
 them and their fellow-colonists ; of these and 
 analogous squabbles no trace now remains. 
 Toleration, introduced by the large-mindedness 
 of Van Sommelsdyk, though in the teeth of 
 much opposition and obloquy at the time, has now 
 for two centuries ])revailed in principle and in 
 act alike throughout Surinam ; nor has any sect 
 had occasion to complain of unfairness in the dis- 
 tribution of official patronage or subsidy. In a 
 word. Government and jDcople have happily 
 agreed in preferring the mellow lotus of dog- 
 matic adiaphorism to the sharp-tasted apple of 
 sectarian discord ; may they long abide by their 
 choice. In a field like this, the lotus is the better 
 pasture. 
 
THE COLONY. 245 
 
 I have made liitlicrto little mention, and even 
 that incidental only, of the natiu'al products of 
 the land, of its wild animals, birds, or insects, of 
 its trees, 2:)lants, fruits, floAvers, grasses, and the 
 rest, because they are in the main identical with 
 those of British Gruiana, and may be found, by 
 whoever lists, fully catalogued in books descrip- 
 tive of the latter province. Though ethnogra- 
 phically divided, the two Gruianas — Dutch and 
 English — are geographically and physically one ; 
 except that a slightly higher elevation above 
 the sea-level gives to the Dutch moiety of this 
 region a somewhat healthier climate and a greater 
 variety of agricultural produce. In the latter 
 reg£«rd, the contrast between Demerara, that land 
 of sugar and sugar only, and Surinam is certainly 
 remarkable enough. The yearly statistics of 
 Demeraran productions are well known; and 
 though no exact statement, showing the compara- 
 tive extent of cane land with that appropriated to 
 other growths, has, to the best of my knowledge, 
 been published, }'et an export list like that of 
 1873, where, out of a total value of 2,217,432?., 
 sugar and its twin offspring, molasses and rmn, 
 make up together no less than 2,031, 5GU., or 
 
240 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 almost eleven-twelfths of the whole, sufficiently 
 indicates the lordship, I had almost said the auto- 
 cracy, of the cane. 
 
 In Sminam it is othenvise. There, indeed, 
 the painstaking accuracy of Dutch statistics does 
 not leave us to the complicated and, in a certain 
 degree, conjectui-al calculation of the relative pro- 
 portion between the amount of land laid out in 
 cane and that allotted to other growths in the 
 territory. The acres actually under cultivation 
 in 1873 amounted to 27,817 j and of these the 
 official report for that year assigns 13,646, or 
 about one4ialf, to sugar; one-half again of the 
 remaining land is occupied by cocoa; and the 
 residual quarter appears as divided between 
 co:ffee, cotton, bananas, and the mixed gardening 
 of provision-grounds. 
 
 These proportions have not been always the 
 same. Thus, for example, cotton, first intro- 
 duced in 1752, rose into comparative importance 
 dm^ing the English occu^^ation of 1804-16, and 
 soon secured a sort of monopoly in the Coronie 
 district, then newly opened to cultivation. In 
 1832 the number of cotton-growing estates 
 exceeded sixty : twenty years later it had sunk 
 
THE COLONY. 247 
 
 to thirty, and of tlieso again seven only liavo 
 survived down to the present time; five of them 
 are in Coronie, two on the Upper Surinam. 
 Cocoa, the heir-loom of Van Sommelsdyk's 
 administration in 1685, has been more fortunate. 
 For a long time an interloper, and a mere supple- 
 mentary growth on the spare corners of coffee 
 plantations, it claimed on its own account, even 
 so lately as 1852, only two estates — a number 
 raised in the latest census to thirty-nine, while its 
 produce has absolutely doubled itself within the 
 last five years. On the other hand, coffee, 
 "brought hither from Java about the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century, and at one time the main 
 staple of the colony, has steadily dwindled, till, 
 out of 178 plantations registered in 1832, only 
 thirty di^agged on a feeble and unproductive exist- 
 ence in 1873. For a diminution like this no 
 satisfactory cause has been assigned ; nor can any 
 reason be given why tobacco and indigo, two of 
 the earliest recorded products of the upland of 
 Surinam, should now be represented by a blank in 
 the catalogue of exports. 
 
 The extent of the sugar plantations has been 
 already stated. Their mmiber, according to the 
 
248 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 latest published surveys, is sixty-fiye. The 
 amount of their joint produce exported in 187o, 
 exceeded in value two millions and a half of 
 florins. Cocoa furnished half a million more ; 
 cotton somewhat over a hundred thousand ; coffee 
 scarcely found a mention. 
 
 Yet, in truth, there is no tropical field-growth 
 but finds, or might find, a home in Dutch Guiana ; 
 no valuable timber but forms part of her bound- 
 less forests ; no costly spice is a stranger to her 
 soil ; no usef uL extract alien from the list of her 
 resources. Surinam is the triumph of vegetable 
 life: the triumph of human industry alone is 
 wanting to subjugate and complete. 
 
 Something has certainly been done, and done 
 well ; but how much more remains to do I Out 
 of a million and a half of acres the rough estimate 
 of land superficies in Dutch Guiana, about four 
 hundred thousand acres appear on the public 
 records as having been, not simultaneously, but 
 at different times ■ granted out for cultivation, 
 and of these again not quite thirty thousand are 
 actually occupied. So that the cultivated land 
 stands in pro23ortion to that granted as about one- 
 thirteenth ; to the total, of one-fiftieth only. Of 
 
THE COLONY. 249 
 
 this small oasis amid an ocean of forest, liarclly an 
 acre but is situated in tlie close neiglibourliood of 
 the capital, or along the lower courses of the 
 rivers ; not a single estate is to be found at a 
 distance of more than forty miles in a straight 
 line from the sea. So nuich for the east and 
 centre districts. As for Coronie, to the west of 
 the Coppename river, and Nikerie, alongside of 
 the English frontier, they are settlements of recent 
 date, and even more thinly peopled than the rest. 
 Up the rivers, along the canals, following the 
 bridle-paths, you look around to see what two 
 centmies of Dutch government, of Dutch energy, 
 of Dutch perseverance, have accomplished in a 
 land favoured by nature as are few lands in the 
 New World or the Old. Does the result corre- 
 spond? Near the capital, indeed, and the har- 
 bour, and in the immediate vicinity of the great 
 river-trunks the sight is fair enough ; but further 
 up, how unsatisfactory ! Estates there certainly 
 are, but liow small, how thinly scattered ! — rare 
 islets in a trackless ocean of unreclaimed bush, 
 marginal lines by the winding river-courses, 
 desultory fringes to a boundless expanse of 
 wilderness Ijehind. The narrow European domain 
 
250 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 includes scarce one-tenth of what the map-maker 
 assigns to the Batavian colours, and of that tentli 
 again it is much if one-fifth be under actual culti- 
 vation. 
 
 Now pass beyond, and explore the practically 
 non-European nine-tenths of outside territory. 
 There, amid lofty trees and wide savannas, now 
 wholly lonely, or only visited by some stray Bush 
 negro or listless Indian, may yet be seen, we are 
 told, the ruins of spacious and well-constructed 
 dwellings, the blurred outlines of once-flourish- 
 ing estates, the broken and desecrated tombs of 
 bygone proprietors, the traces of soldierless forts, 
 choked-up canals, and long-perished labour and 
 wealth. Thus for the uplands it is "Ichabod" 
 comj)lete, — they are deserted, dead ; for the coast 
 not so bad, but that too is only half alive, — some- 
 thing there is, but tlie very goodness of that 
 something saddens, because there is so little 
 of it : why is it not more ? And if neither the 
 governors nor the governed, neither the Em-opeans 
 nor the Creoles, neither the whites nor the 
 blacks, neither the climate nor the soil, be in 
 fault, — and in matter of fact none of them are 
 so, — who then is to blame ? 
 
THE COLONY. 251 
 
 Strictly speaking', no one. But what if the 
 colony has never had a fair chance ? — if, from her 
 first starting till now, she has been, without inter- 
 mission, too heavily handicapped to allow her even 
 a chance of coming forward in the race ? And 
 such precisely has been her lot. Her foul days 
 have been out of all proportion to her fair ; 
 her difiiculties, from v/ithout and from within, 
 greater than her means of surmounthig them : 
 that they have stunted her is no wonder ; the 
 wonder is that they have not put an end to her 
 altogether. 
 
 The retrospect is a strange one. In the early 
 days of the '' plantation," as it was then called, 
 the high grounds of the interior were cultivated 
 in preference to the coast, because possessed of a 
 healthier climate and a richer soil. Here were 
 Marshall's first tobacco-fields ; here Willoughby's 
 indigo growth; here the great sugar estates of 
 Nassy and his Hebrew followers : fair beginnings 
 of speedy prosperity, as speedily blighted. Before 
 the "savannah" had waved with its tenth harvest, 
 began the French hostilities of 1696, that culminated 
 fourteen years later in the sack of Paramaribo, 
 not merely exhausting the actual resources of the 
 
252 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 colony, but loading it with heavy debt, and the 
 still more intolerable burden of a fifty years' servile 
 war, of which Cassard's invasion was, by the 
 prostration it left behind, the direct cause and 
 2:>relude. Then insurrection followed on insurrec- 
 tion, raid on raid ; estate after estate was ravaged ; 
 night by night the sky was reddened by the flames 
 of burning plantations, and the earth with the 
 blood of the planters, till the entire inland lay 
 desolate, and whatever energy remained to the 
 colonists was perforce driven to take refuge in 
 the narrow strip of comparative security along 
 the coast. 
 
 With a new field before it, industr}^ took a 
 fresh start, and at the beginning of the present 
 century 640 estates along the banks of the Lower 
 Surinam river and its kindred streams made some 
 amends for the losses inland. But the evil genius 
 of the colony lost no time in again interposing 
 with a series of adversities, less tragic indeed in 
 kind than the past, but not a whit less injurious 
 — financial embarrassments, commercial rivalries, 
 social changes. There is no need to reiterate the 
 list : I liave read it out, at least the principal 
 headings, before. By 1850 the number of culti- 
 
, THE COLONY. 253 
 
 tivated estates had fallen to 260 ; in 1862 there 
 were only 229. Matters were now at their worst, 
 and accordingly the turn came. Already in 
 1867 the estates had risen again to 276 ; five 
 years later, to 292 ; at the present date they 
 exceed 300. May they continue to increase and 
 multiply till they fill and replenish the land ! 
 there is room and to spare. But this cannot be till 
 the two great wants, the prime requisites of Suri- 
 nam as of CA^ery other colony, are supplied — 
 capital and population. 
 
 Of the first deficiency, that of capital, and its 
 causes, I have spoken already. But one main 
 cause is ignorance. Let Surinam be better 
 known, she will be better provided ; let her name 
 but become familiar on the European money- 
 market, and the treasures of that market Avill find 
 their way to her before long, — they could take 
 no better direction, flow into no securer or more 
 remunerative channels. - fi^jiorc''-^ l/^t 
 
 Remains last in mention, first in importance, 
 population. This is to a colony what action is, 
 if we credit Demosthenes, to an orator ; boldness, 
 iu Bacon's estimate, to a statesman; patronage, 
 as Blake avers, to a painter, and perhaps to others. 
 
254 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 And, so tliat a colony may flonrislij be wealthy, 
 2^rosperons, successful, wliat first ? Popula- 
 tion. What second ? Population. What 
 third, thirtieth, three-hundredth if you will? 
 Population. But let not the w^ord be mis- 
 construed. By ''population" I dj not mean 
 the "sufficient" merely; that is, a population 
 just adequate to the w^orking of large estates, 
 with nothing over — enough for a monopoly of 
 labour and strength, whatever its direction ; this 
 is not the ''population" I mean. Or rather it is 
 this, and something more ; this, and a surplus 
 joojDulation into the bargain, — "over-population" 
 in fact, with an ample margin, after tlie 
 large properties of the land have drawn from it 
 their necessary labour-supply, to create, enclose, 
 and cultivate those small freeholds, that varied 
 minor produce, without which staple products 
 are only an unbuttressed w^all ; vast exjoorts, a 
 vast risk ; and giant estates, a giant instability. 
 No cup is truly full till it runs over ; no man rich 
 till he has not enough only, but to spare ; no 
 territory flourishing till it has an over-su2:)2)ly of 
 labour and life, sufficient not for great uses only, 
 but for small — for waste at times. And did the 
 
THE COLONY. 255 
 
 tutelary goddess of Surinam yet enjoy her old 
 pagan advantages, now lost, alas ! to lier as to 
 her fellow-goddesses, of a bemg and a voice, 
 " More life and fuller, — that I want," would be 
 her answer to the votaries come to inquire of her 
 courts. 
 
 ''Granted; and to this very end we have 
 within the last three years imported 5,000 
 coolies," those votaries may re23ly. So far, so 
 good. But when we recall to memory the 
 400,000 acres portioned out to cultivation, and 
 only tilled to the extent of 30,000, not to 
 mention the unassigned 1,100,000 acres beyond, 
 the Adamless Eden of the south, we cannot but 
 he reminded of certain five small fishes, not of 
 pagan but Christian tradition, set before a 
 Syrian crowd of 5,000 and more, and exclaim, 
 as some one is said to have then not unnaturally 
 exclaimed, ''What are these among so many?" 
 Nor can a miraculous multiplication be hoped for 
 to solve the difficulty nowadays. Bear in mind, 
 too, that of all proposed means for filling up the 
 popular void, coolie immigration is the most 
 costly : the initial outlay alone required for each 
 imported Hindoo — an outlay apart from frequent 
 
256 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 extra charges, losses by sickness or death, and all 
 tlie '^s^nld^ies" that figure so largely at the foot 
 of every general account — equals or exceeds -34?. 
 per head. A Chinese is more exjoensive still — a 
 serious preliminary absorption of future j^i'ofits. 
 Prepayments of this kind may he borne once in 
 a Avay by Dutcli Guiana, perhaps twice; luit 
 should they have to be often repeated, where, in 
 the name of all the discoverers of unknown quan- 
 tities, are the funds to come from ? The same 
 non-influx of capital that keeps at low ebb, as 
 I have formerly remarked, the vitality of tlic 
 town, has an even more lowering effect, it is easy 
 to understand; on the vitality of the country. 
 What might happen if tlie funds were attainable, 
 if Trollope's ''million of coolies" loomed as dis- 
 tinct on the Surinam as on -the Demerara horizon, 
 I cannot say : millions of hogsheads possibly, and 
 a golden age. But the golden sjiell for calling 
 them forth from the Indian deep is not written in 
 the estate-books of Dutch Guiana, nor is likely 
 soon to be; certainly not on the ''million" 
 scale. 
 
 Coolies and Chinese do not, then, form the siaE 
 on wdiich Surinam must lean before she can rise. 
 
THE COLONY. 257 
 
 But European immigration ? Tried over and over 
 again, it has failed here neither more completely 
 nor loss than elsewhere within the West Indian 
 zone, and for the same reasons. It nuist always 
 fail. Not because the climate is unhealthy, but 
 because it is unsuited ; and experience on this 
 point has been bought so often and so dear, that 
 it is to be hoped no further bands of immigrant 
 European labourers, Dutch, Irish, Scotch, Grerman, 
 or other, Avill bo tempted into buying it again. 
 
 But, say some, there is hope of mines to be 
 discovered among the mountain ranges in the far 
 south of the Guiana territory; and on mines 
 what may not follow ? Little good, I fear. Long- 
 since the world-wide wisdom of ''large-browed 
 Yerulam " pronounced the sentence, ratified by as 
 world-wide experience, that " the hope of mines 
 is very uncertaine, and useth to make the 
 planters," i.e. colonists, " lazie in other things." 
 Mineral treasures are the veriest Pandora-gifts of 
 nature to a land, and that Surinam may be spared 
 the deadly present is the best wish her friends 
 can make in her behalf. Happily, there is not 
 much cause for fearing the contrary. But should 
 ever the ill genius of South America, the " demon 
 
258 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 of the mine," set up his yellow throne on the 
 banks of her rivers, should the gold, of which 
 particles, fortunately very small ones, washed 
 down stream have from time to time half 
 awakened tlie dormant cupidity of discoverers, 
 become to Dutch Gruiana what it has been to 
 California or Natal, then, indeed, farewell to 
 estates, to agriculture, to honest industry, to true 
 prosperity, to contentment, to hope itself, in 
 Surinam. All will disappear in the devouring 
 mine-gulf ; all melt away, fused down into one 
 common mass of rascality and gold. The territory 
 is too narrow to contain at once two masters, the 
 mine and the field ; one or other must speedily 
 give way ; and the glittering though delusive 
 vistas oj^ened by the former would inevitably 
 efface the sober and substantial prospects offered 
 by the latter from the landscape. The first man 
 who brings in the news of remimerative gold- 
 fields in Upper Surinam ought to have from the 
 colony a rope for liis reward ; and if it silences 
 his voice before he has time to make his discovery 
 public, so much the better. 
 
 Tlie true product-mines of Surinam are her 
 plantations ; they lie above ground, not under. 
 
THE COLONY. 259 
 
 And her most reliable labour-mine is, as in one 
 way or other it always has been, Africa; and, 
 above all, the eastern coasts of that continent, 
 after the manner I have indicated in a previous 
 chapter. The project has, I allow, its difficulties ; 
 it might, probably would, meet Avitli opposition 
 all the more serious because based on well- 
 intentioned error ; but its advantages are more 
 than its difficulties, and, to sum up all in one, 
 it is, under existing circumstances, the only 
 practical course for obtaining, not merely an 
 immediate and transitory, but a permanent supply 
 of labour and life. Nor is there, I repeat it, any- 
 thing to fear for the colony or the colonists from 
 a negro immigration, however numerous, luider 
 the combined discipline of Dutch rule and 
 Moravian teachership, that has trained the 
 African native into the Surinam Creole, the 
 cannibals of Gaboon into the peasants of Mun- 
 nickendam ; there is everything to hojDC. May 
 the vision become reality ! — 
 
 Good wishes have been exchanged, hospi- 
 talities acknowledged, their renewal offered, 
 hopes of future meetings expressed — all that 
 
 makes parting bitter sweet; and now the ''stelh 
 
 s 2 
 
260 DUTCH GUIANA. 
 
 ing" is left; and town and tower lessen and 
 disappear behind the nearer river-margin of 
 plantation and tree. We have passed Fort 
 Amsterdam; the river's mouth opens wide on 
 the Atlantic before iis ! Our little coasting- 
 steamer — she is commanded by the same cheery, 
 semi-Indian captain who last week had our river- 
 craft in charge — will in a day more cast anchor 
 by the Demeraran shore, off the busy wharfs of 
 Georgetown ; and Surinam will for me take its 
 place, a thing of the j)ast, in the ^picture-gallery 
 of other memories of other lands. Nor will it be 
 the least pleasing in the series, nor the least 
 often recalled to view. And, to borrow for 
 Dutch Guiana the words of the same author and 
 the very same chapter cited when I began, '' I can- 
 not end this crude e2:)itome of crude views re- 
 specting the colony, without saying that I have 
 never met a pleasanter set of peo^^le than I found 
 there, or ever passed my hours nmch more 
 joyously." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ' Abendseust," estate of, 205 
 
 /\d vising," the, or "Privy" Council, 232 
 i\lbiua, Dutch settlement of, on the Maro- 
 
 weyne river, 142 
 Amazon, the, watershed of the valley of, 29 
 Arabee, the rebel leader of 1757, 150 ; in 
 
 treaty with the Colonial Government, 151 
 Architecture, African ideas of, 132 
 ' At Last,' the author of, and the Creoles, 
 
 207 
 Atmosphere, effect of, on distant objects, 
 
 104 
 Aucan Bush negroes, their possessions, 
 
 141 ; their position among other tribes, 
 
 163 ; their chief, 164 
 
 Jdaker, Sir S., and negro worship of the 
 Unknown, 210 
 
 Baptist preachers, happy freedom from, 129 
 
 Barbadian, the, how distinguished from 
 negroes of neighbouring islands, 56 
 
 Barbados, English character of, 36 
 
 Baron, freebooter chief, his head-quarters, 
 155 
 
 Batavia, and its population of lepers, 23 
 
 " Bel Air," inhabitants of, 161 
 
 "Berg en-Daal " plantation, the rising of 
 1730 on, 148 
 
 Betel- palm, the, beauty of, 86 
 
 Blymafio, the Aucan chief, acknowledged 
 precedence and pedigree of, 164 
 
 Boat traffic of the Surinam river, 74 
 
 Bonham, Frans, the Saramaccan chief, 165 
 
 Bonni, freebooter chief, his head-quarters, 
 154 
 
 Bri(!getown, 37 
 
 Bush negroes, 54 ; their floating dwellings 
 and costume, 75 ; nature-worship of, 
 125; and cotton-tree worship, 127; re- 
 sidence of chief, 141 ; difficulties with, 
 
 144 ; their advantages in insurrection, 
 
 145 ; the rising of 1730, 148 ; rising of 
 1757, 150; object of insurrection secured, 
 158 ; chief occupation of, 160 ; temperate 
 
 habits of, 161; their villages, and pro- 
 bable population, ib.; uniform of chiefs, 
 162; divisions of nationality, i'J.; decline 
 of suj^erstition among, 167; their rejec- 
 tion of Roman Catholicism, 168 ; physical 
 character of, 169 ; language of, 170 
 
 " Caddy," 41 
 
 Canal system, 72 
 
 Cassard, Jacques, and De Monans' attack 
 on Paramaribo, 14, 30 ; disastrous re- 
 sults of, 143 
 
 Cayenne Government, connivance of, with 
 the rebels, 154 
 
 " Ceiba" or " cotton-tree," 167 
 
 Ceylon, cocoa yield of, 133 
 
 Charitable institutions of the colony, 242 
 
 Charlottenburg, Moravian establishment, 
 130 
 
 Chinese, numbers employed on the estates, 
 55 ; in Georgetown, ii. 
 
 dwellings at Voorburg, 94 
 
 Churches, and other places of worship in 
 Paramaribo, 46 
 
 Cocoa, extensive grove, 78 ; mode of 
 gathering jjods, SO ; produce of Surinam, 
 81 ; land under cultivation of, 82 ; 
 cultivation, 247 ; value of produce, 248 
 
 Coermoeribo river, 29 
 
 Coffee, decline in cultivation of, 247 
 
 " Coffee-mamma," the, 79 
 
 " Colonial " Council, the, construction of, 
 228 
 
 Commeweyne river, meeting of, with the 
 Surinam, 28 ; voyage up, 98 ; variety 
 of shore scenery, 102 ; 114 ; upper branch 
 of, 200 
 
 " Commons," the, 228 
 
 Congoites, settlement of, 178 
 
 Coolies, their avoidance of the streets, 55 ; 
 their recent introduction into Suri- 
 nam, 92 ; indifference to domestic com- 
 fort, 93 
 
 Coppenarae river, estuary of, 22 
 
262 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Corentyn river as bouiidary of British and 
 Dutch Guiana, 9 
 
 Corials, the conveyance of the Labourers, 7G 
 
 Coronie district, 22 ; cotton cultivation in, 
 lb. 
 
 Cottica river, 20, 114 ; beauty of, 116 ; 
 feathered and other inhabitants of the 
 banks, 119 : vegetable growth on banks, 
 136 
 
 Cotton, cultivation in Coronie, 22 ; estates 
 of Surinam, 246 ; value of export, 248 
 
 " Cotton-tree " worship, traces of offerings, 
 101, 167 
 
 Crab Island, 8 
 
 Creole negroes, iniiuence of the Dutch 
 traceable in, 59 ; character of, 62 ; and 
 emancipation, ib. ; village of, at Voor- 
 burg, 95 ; welcome, 105 ; loyalty of, 121; 
 their worship and belief, 125 ; converts 
 to Moravian teaching, 127; traces of 
 slave descent in, 179; their love of 
 pleasure and steadiness in work, 206 ; 
 temperate habits of, 208 ; birth and 
 death rate of, 209 ; fondness for their 
 children, 210; causes of death in chil- 
 dren, 212 
 
 Creutz, Captain, and the treaty of 1749, 
 149 
 
 JJageeaad, and the insurgents of 1763, 
 153 
 
 De Casse, Admiral, heads attack on the 
 colony, 113 
 
 Demerara, under Dutch rule, 3 ; resem- 
 blance to an English or Scotch manu- 
 facturing district, 36 ; police force of, 
 243 ; value of sugar export, 245 
 
 Denmark nnd her colonies, 69 
 
 Dutch, tettlers of the seventeenth century, 
 12 ; character, traces of, in Creoles, 69 ; 
 rule, influence of, 259 
 
 Dutch Guiana, State support, 68; under 
 Van Sommelsd^k, lOS ; conquest of, by 
 Admiral Krynnsen, 223 ; district division 
 of, 225 ; animals, birds, ])lants, kc, iden- 
 tical with those of British Guiana, 245 ; 
 land under cultivation, 246 
 
 JiiAST African, slave-trade, 181 ; im- 
 migiation recommended, 185, 258 
 
 Education, statistics, 241 ; schools of Mo- 
 ravian Brotherhood, ib. 
 
 Emancipation crisis, the slow recovery of 
 colonies from, 16 ; and the Creoles of 
 Surinam, 63 ; 67, 128 
 
 England and Dutch Guiana, 16 
 
 Ephrata, residence of district magistrate at, 
 200 
 
 Estates, names given to, 99 
 
 Eta palm, its resemblance to toddy palm of 
 
 East Indies, 118 
 European colony at Groningen, 23 
 
 immigration discouraged, 257 
 
 Export duties, tendency of, to discourage 
 
 labour, 241 
 
 r OUKGEODD, Colonel, arrival of, 1773, 156 
 French, the, assimilative power of, 59 
 
 attack on colony under Admiral De 
 
 Casse, 113 ; border raids, 142 ; effect of, 
 on the slaves, 143 ; sack of Parama- 
 ribo, 251 
 
 Erench Cayenne, position of, 136 
 
 *'■ (xAZELLE," the, crew of, 6 
 
 George Town, route from, to the Berbice 
 river, 5 ; 36 : sea communication with 
 Paramaribo, 77 ; Hindoos in, 55 
 
 German colony of Jamaica, 24 
 
 Government, changes in, caused by eman- 
 cipation, 230 ; the supreme courts of 
 justice, 237 
 
 House at Paramaribo, animal collec- 
 tion in garden of, 50 ; beauty of flowers 
 and trees, 51 
 
 Governor, the, His Excellency— see Van 
 Sypesteyn 
 
 responsible to the Crown, 227 ; his 
 
 power, ib. 
 
 " Gramman," the, or "grand man"— see 
 Blymafio ; recognition of, by the Colonial 
 Governor, 165 
 
 Groningen, colony of Europeans at, 23 
 
 " Groot Marseille," 137 
 
 Guiana, date of discovery, 40 
 
 xiEBKEW settlement in valley of Surinam 
 river, 109 
 
 Helena, a famous mulatto syren, 117 
 
 Hiari, or i^oison-tree, venerated through 
 fear, 168 
 
 Hindoos, in George Town, £5 ; negroes 
 superior to, ns pgiicultural labourers, 
 185 ; cost per head of impoited, 255 
 
 Houses of Paramaribo, how built, 48 
 
 iMMiGRATiON of Fast African ex-slaves 
 recommended, 219, 258 
 
 • , Euroi)ean, discouraged, 257 
 
 Indians, rarely seen in Paramaiibo, 54 ; 
 
 native, and Van Sommelsdyk, 109 ; 
 
 intemperate habits of, 161 
 Insurrections, 1712-13, 146; 1730, 148; 
 
 1757, 150 ; 1763, 152 ; close of, 157 
 Irish colony of Jamaica, 24 
 
INDEX. 
 
 263 
 
 Jamaica, German and Irish colonies of, 24; 
 
 English tone of, 26; 07 
 " Joden-Savanaah," or Jews' Savannah, 
 
 110 
 Johnson, Dr., and his toast, 147 
 Judges, district, their power, 237 
 Justice, the court of, 225 ; administration 
 
 of, evils of s^'stem, 238 
 
 JxiNGSLEY, Charles, as a botanical autho- 
 rity, 87 
 Kingston, 36 
 Kroon, ISToah, or "Edraai," the Moesinga 
 
 chief, 165 
 Krynnsea, Admiral, conquest of Dutch 
 
 Guiana by, 223 
 
 "i-iA Paix," 135; distance from the 
 capital, 136 ; extent of estate, 137 ; 
 
 cultivation rersiii natural growth, i'j. ; 
 
 welcome at, 151 
 Lepers, a settlement of, 23 ; asylum at 
 
 Batavia, 242 
 
 MAHOMETAXlSii and slavery, 124 
 
 Mangrove tree, uniform growth of, 22 
 
 Marowej-ne river, 136 ; Dutch settlement 
 on the, 142 
 
 Marshall, Captain, and the first system of 
 cultivation, 40 ; place selected as the 
 capital by, ib., 251 
 
 Matappica river, 114 
 
 Mauricius, Governor, originator of the treaty 
 of 1749, 149 
 
 "Moco-raoco," the, plant, 113 
 
 Moesinga, or Matrocane tribe, their position 
 among Bush negroe-i, 164 
 
 Moravian Brothers, the, 121 ; settlement of, 
 among the Indians, 1735, 126 ; their 
 converts, 127 ; schools maintained by, 
 241 
 
 , school attendance, 123 ; simplicity of 
 
 creed, 130 ; establishment, ^6. ; influence, 
 259 
 
 Munnikendam, 134; conservatism of, ib.; 
 174 ; produce and population, 188 ; wel- 
 come at, 189 ; holiday dress of inhabit- 
 ants, 192 ; " a sound of revelry by night," 
 194-200 
 
 Mutiny of 17th July, 1688, 112 ; execution 
 of ringleaders, 113 
 
 Nassau Fort, abandoned in the risinc 
 
 of 1763, 153 
 Nassy, Samuel Cohen, 46 ; co-operation 
 
 with Van Som'ji^lsdyk, 109 ; conduct '. 
 
 during French attack, 113,251 j 
 
 Negroes, as seamen, 7 ; at rest, 24 
 
 Nepveu, Louis, and the treaty of peace 
 with Csaramaccan negroes, 152 ; assumes 
 the government, 155 ; his native corps, ib. 
 
 New Amsterdam, fortress of, 30 
 
 Newmvn, John Henry, and consistency of 
 idea, 56 
 
 Nikarie, town and district of, 15 ; soil under 
 cultivation, ib. ; encroachment of the sa i 
 at, 17 ; produce and population, 20 
 
 L/BEAH, absence of, among Bush negroes, 
 167 
 
 1 AMO, the first Aucan chief, 164 
 
 P.ira, negro life at, 221 
 
 Paramaribo, French attacks on, 14 ; author 
 arrives at, 31 ; atmosphere of, 33; popu- 
 lation and value of exports, 35 ; streets 
 and public buildings of, 37 ; canals and 
 cemeteries, 38 ; early settlement of French 
 emigrants at, 40 ; a capital in 1050, 41 ; 
 origin of the name, ib. ; healthiness o'^ 
 42 ; the founder, Cornelius van Aerssen, 
 ib. ; extent in 1633, 1750, and 1790, ib. ; 
 its decline and recovery, 43 ; destructive 
 fires of 1821 and 1832, ib. ; population in 
 1854, ib.; churches and synagogue, 40; 
 the siesta, iO ; tower of, 52 ; recreation 
 of inhabitants, 53 ; uniformity of cha- 
 racter of, 58; Hague types, ii. ; pros- 
 perity of the Creole, and signs of stagna- 
 tion in European quarters, 05 
 
 Parwa tree, resemblance to English poplar, 
 22 
 
 Pedigrees, negro mode of tracing, 164 
 
 Perica river, 29, 114 
 
 "Plain of the 13th of May," opening of, 178 
 
 Plantations, increase of small, in the Upper 
 Comnieweyne district, 2'J2 
 
 Policy, the Council of, 225 
 
 Poll-tax, its origin and attendant difficulties, 
 239 
 
 Population, causes of decrease in negro, 
 212 ; suggestions for preventing decrease 
 of, 210 
 
 Portuguese colony of St. Kitts, 24 
 
 " Post-Louder," a resident European oflScial 
 appointed to the Bush tribes, 165 
 
 " Procureur-General," the, 228 
 
 XtAiiESES and his Queen, 193 
 Eeade, Mr. Winwood, 193, note 
 Raligious sects, 243 
 Rivei's, effect of outflow on the sex, 9 
 Roman Catholics successful as missionaries, 
 126 
 
264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Roman Catholicism, cause of rejection of, 
 by negroes, 168 
 
 Oaaea river, Bush negroes on banks of, 141 
 St. Kitts, Portuguese colony of, 24 
 Hanisam, the rebel chief, 149 
 Saraniacca river, estuary of, 22 ; connected 
 
 by canal with the Surinam, 41 
 Saratnaccan negroes, Moravian influence 
 
 over, 163 ; chief of the, 165 
 Sea, evidence of encroachment of the, 15 
 Sects, religious, 243 
 Siesta at Paramaribo, 49 ; the awaking, 
 
 53 
 Slave system, evils of, 145 
 
 trade, East African, 181 ; effect of 
 
 the close of, on Zanzibar, 182 
 
 Sommelsdyk fort, importance of, 114 ; 200 
 
 Stedman, Captain, historiai . of the cam- 
 paign 17/3, 156 
 
 " Stelling," or landing-place, 86 
 
 Stoelman, Colonel, assistant organizer of 
 the black corps 1770, 155 
 
 Sugar, growth of Surinam, S3 ; factory, 90 ; 
 and other estates, names given to, 99 ; 
 produce of the Upper Commeweyne dis- 
 trict, 201 ; value of produce, 243 
 
 Superstition, fading away of, among the 
 ]3ush negroes, 167 
 
 Surinam, cocoaprodiiceof, 81 ; sugar growth 
 of, 83; average heat of, 207; the Go- 
 vernor responsible to the Crown, 227 ; 
 absence of party spirit in, 236 ; the 
 author's farewell to, 260 
 
 liver, 9; mouth of, 25; journey 
 
 up the, 27 ; its meeting with the Com- 
 meweyne, 28 ; connected with the Sara- 
 niacca, 41 ; boat traffic on, 74 
 
 Thokacica, abandonment of, as the 
 capital, 40 
 
 Trollope, Mr. Anthony, and British Guiana, 
 2 ; and the island of St. Lucia, 227 
 
 Van Aerssen, Cornelius, founder of Para- 
 maribo, 42 — see Van Sommelsdyk 
 
 Erancis, Lord of Chatillon, 
 
 declines governorship, 113 ; action of, 
 during French attack on the colony, ib. 
 
 Van Sommelsdyk, administration of, 42, 
 111, 224 ; state of colony on his arrival, 
 109 ; grants terms of peace to Indians, 
 ib.; co-operation with Samuel Cohen 
 Nassy, ib.; prosperity of colony under, 
 111 ; death of, in mutiny of July, 1GS8, 
 112; William III. and widow of, 
 114 
 
 Van Sypesteyn, His Excellency the Go- 
 vernor, 4 ; his barge, 74 ; his reception by 
 the damsels of Munnikeudam, 199 
 
 Voorburg. sugar estate of, 84 ; beauty of 
 garden andliowersat, 86 ; festive salutes, 
 88 ; the sugar factory, 90 ; the labourers, 
 92 
 
 War debt of the colony, 158 
 
 William III. and the widow of Van Som- 
 melsdyk, 114 
 
 Willoughby of Parham, Lord, raises Para- 
 maribo to a capital, 41 ; 251 
 
 Yellow-feyek epidemic of 1851, 67 
 
 Zanzibar, effect of the crushing of the 
 
 slave trade on, 182 
 Zeeland, State of, sale of territorial right to 
 
 Dutch Guiana by, 224 
 Zeelandia, Fort of, 42 
 
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