The form of government is a mild despotism, tempered by sugar. The Governor is the father of his people, and the Governor's wife the mother. The colony forms itself into a large family, which gathers itself together peaceably under parental wings. They have no noisy sessions of Parliament as in Jamaica, no money squabbles as in Barbados. A clean bill of health, a surplus in the colonial treasury, a rich soil, a thriving trade, and a happy people—these are the blessings which attend the fortunate man who has cast his lot on this prosperous shore. Such is Demerara as it is made to appear to a stranger.
That custom which prevails there, of sending to all new comers a deputation with invitations to dinner for the period of his sojourn, is an excellent institution. It saves a deal of trouble in letters of introduction, economizes one's time, and puts one at once on the most-favoured-nation footing. Some may fancy that they could do better as to the bestowal of their evenings by individual diplomacy; but the matter is so well arranged in Demerara that such people would certainly find themselves in the wrong.
If there be a deficiency in Georgetown—it is hardly necessary to explain that Georgetown is the capital of the province of Demerara, and that Demerara is the centre province in the colony of British Guiana; or that there are three provinces, Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, so called from the names of the three great rivers of the country—But if there be a deficiency in Georgetown, it is in respect to cabs. The town is extensive, as will by-and-by be explained; and though I would not so far militate against the feelings of the people as to say that the weather is ever hot—I should be ungrateful as well as incredulous were I to do so—nevertheless, about noonday one's inclination for walking becomes subdued. Cabs would certainly be an addition to the luxuries of the place. But even these are not so essential as might at the first sight appear, for an invitation to dinner always includes an offer of the host's carriage. Without a carriage no one dreams of dragging on existence in British Guiana. In England one would as soon think of living in a house without a fireplace, or sleeping in a bed without a blanket.
For those who wander abroad in quest of mountain scenery it must be admitted that this colony has not much attraction. The country certainly is flat. By this I mean to intimate, that go where you will, travel thereabouts as far as you may, the eye meets no rising ground. Everything stands on the same level. But then, what is the use of mountains? You can grow no sugar on them, even with ever so many Coolies. They are big, brown, valueless things, cumbering the face of the creation; very well for autumn idlers when they get to Switzerland, but utterly useless in a colony which has to count its prosperity by the number of its hogsheads. Jamaica has mountains, and look at Jamaica!
Yes; Demerara is flat; and Berbice is flat; and so is Essequibo. The whole of this land is formed by the mud which has been brought down by these great rivers and by others. The Corentyne is the most easterly, separating our colony from Dutch Guiana, or Surinam. Then comes the Berbice. The next, counting only the larger rivers, is the Demerara. Then, more to the west, the Essequibo, and running into that the Mazarony and the Cuyuni; and then, north-west along the coast, the Pomeroon; and lastly of our own rivers, the Guiana, though I doubt whether for absolute purposes of colonization we have ever gone so far as this. And beyond that are rolled in slow but turbid volume the huge waters of the Orinoco. On its shores we make no claim. Though the delta of the Orinoco is still called Guiana, it belongs to the republic of Venezuela.
These are our boundaries along the South American shore, which hereabouts, as all men know, looks northward, with an easterly slant towards the Atlantic. Between us and our Dutch friends on the right hand the limits are clear enough. On the left hand, matters are not quite so clear with the Venezuelians. But to the rear! To the rear there is an eternity of sugar capability in mud running back to unknown mountains, the wildernesses of Brazil, the river Negro, and the tributaries of the Amazon—an eternity of sugar capability, to which England's colony can lay claim if only she could manage so much as the surveying of it. "Sugar!" said an enterprising Demerara planter to me. "Are you talking of sugar? Give me my heart's desire in Coolies, and I will make you a million of hogsheads of sugar without stirring from the colony!" Now, the world's supply, some twelve years ago, was about a million hogsheads. It has since increased maybe by a tenth. What a land, then, is this of British Guiana, flowing with milk and honey—with sugar and rum! A million hogsheads can be made there, if we only had the Coolies. I state this on the credit of my excellent enterprising friend. But then the Coolies!
Guiana is an enormous extent of flat mud, the alluvial deposit of those mighty rivers which for so many years have been scraping together earth in those wild unknown upland countries, and bringing it down conveniently to the sea-board, so that the world might have sugar to its tea. I really think my friend was right. There is no limit to the fertility and extent of this region. The only limit is in labour. The present culture only skirts the sea-board and the riversides. You will hardly find an estate—I do not think that you can find one—that has not a water frontage. This land formerly belonged to the Dutch, and by them was divided out into portions which on a map have about them a Euclidical appearance. Let A B C D be a right-angled parallelogram, of which the sides A B and C D are three times the length of the other sides A C and B D. 'Tis thus you would describe a Demerara property, and the Q. E. D. would have reference to the relative quantities of sugar, molasses, and rum producible therefrom.
But these strips of land, though they are thus marked out on the maps with four exact lines, are presumed to run back to any extent that the owner may choose to occupy. He starts from the water, and is bounded on each side; but backwards! Backwards he may cultivate canes up to the very Andes, if only he could get Coolies. Oh, ye soft-hearted, philanthropic gentry of the Anti-Slavery Society, only think of that; a million hogsheads of sugar—and you like cheap sugar yourselves—if you will only be quiet, or talk on subjects that you understand!
The whole of this extent of mud, beyond the present very limited sugar-growing limits, is covered by timber. One is apt to think of an American forest as being as magnificent in its individual trees as it is huge in its extent of surface. But I doubt much whether this is generally the case. There are forest giants no doubt; but indigenous primeval wood is, I take it, for the most part a disagreeable, scrubby, bushy, sloppy, unequal, inconvenient sort of affair, to walk through which a man should be either an alligator or a monkey, and to make much way he should have a touch of both. There be no forest glades there in which uncivilized Indian lovers walk at ease, with their arms round each other's naked waists; no soft grass beneath the well-trimmed trunk on which to lie and meditate poetical. But musquitoes abound there; and grass flies, which locate themselves beneath the toe-nails; and marabunters, a villanous species of wasp; and gallinippers, the grandfathers of musquitoes; and from thence up to the xagua and the boa constrictor all nature is against a cool comfortable ramble in the woods.
But I must say a word about Georgetown, and a word also about New Amsterdam, before I describe the peculiarities of a sugar estate in Guiana. A traveller's first thought is about his hotel; and I must confess, much as I love Georgetown—and I do love Georgetown—that I ought to have coupled the hotel with the cabs, and complained of a joint deficiency. The Clarendon—the name at any rate is good—is a poor affair; but poor as it is, it is the best.