34 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 



Stop-Off. It may be reached either by boat directly through the canal, or by rail and 

 boat by way of Mahaica. Arrangements were made for us to go via Mahaica. 

 The railroad runs through a flat country grazed by cattle, often standing up to their 

 knees, or even deeper, in water. In places cocoanut-plantations abound and at 

 frequent intervals canals run across the country to the ocean. Burnt clay is used 

 in ballasting the railroads and in building the roads. Between the station at 

 Mahaica and Cane-Grove Corner are a number of sugar-estates, all traversed 

 by canals. 11 At Cane-Grove Corner the Lama Water Conservancy begins. It is a 

 large tract of swampy savannah converted into a pseudo-lake, or water reservoir, 

 by surrounding it with a ditch or canal and an outer embankment. At Lama 

 Stop-Off and Maduni Stop-Off two streams, the Lama and the Maduni, tributaries 

 of Mahaica Creek, formerly draining the savannah, are " stopped off " or dammed. 



11 The following from Rod way gives a picture of a single plantation: 



" One of the principal estates situated on the east coast of Demerara is two hundred roods on facade 

 by the full depth of two thousand two hundred and fifty roods, i. e., about half a mile wide by five and a half 

 deep. In front is the seashore, to protect which mangrove and courida bushes are allowed to grow, inside of 

 which a dam of earth is thrown up, the excavation alongside forming a drain for carrying off any salt water 

 that may come over during high tides. At a short distance within the front dam comes the public road, which 

 extends along the coast, and which is kept up at the expense of the estate owner, as far as it extends through his 

 property. Beyond the road, which with its two canals at the sides forms a second dam, comes about a mile 

 of grassy land which is used for pasturing cattle, horses, and mules belonging to the plantation. Then comes 

 the railway, near which is the draining engine and kokers or sluices of the canefields, which co mm ence immedi- 

 ately behind this third defence. Beyond a mile or so of pale green sugar-cane come the plantation buildings, 

 winch consist of the sugar factory, manager's residence, house for the overseers, hospital, school-house, one or 

 two shops, and the labourers' cottages, which last are very numerous. This group of buildings forms, to all 

 intents and purposes, a self-contained village, the manager's house, standing in the midst of a fine garden, 

 representing the mansion of the squire, while round him live as many mechanics and labourers as are necessary 

 to carry on the cultivation and factory. Beyond this village come interminable fields of canes as far as the 

 cultivation extends, where a back dam protects it from floods. The plantation under review had some years 

 ago nine hundred and thirty-five acres, or exactly half its area, planted with canes, and produced over fifteen 

 hundred hogsheads of sugar annually. The remaining portion comprised three hundred and fifty-eight acres 

 in pasture and bush, one hundred and sixty-two acres not then empoldered, one hundred and ninety-eight acres 

 in dams, parapets, and trenches, one hundred and sixty-two acres of swamp in front, above low water mark, 

 but outside the sea dam, and fifty-three acres covered by the buildings, garden, public road, railway, etc. 

 From the number of acres in dams and trenches it may be seen how important this part of the economy of 

 the plantation must be. On every hand is an earthen dam with corresponding canals, these latter being cut off 

 from outside by flood-gates, so that no water from sea or swamp can penetrate, while the rainfall of the plan- 

 tation itself is run off through the sluices at low water, or in very heavy weather, by means of the draining 

 engine. These draining canals are connected with other trenches between every field, and these again with the 

 ditches of each bed of canes. With such a perfect system of canals it has naturally followed that sugar canes 

 are brought to the factory by water, and to complete the communication a middle dam and two canals are car- 

 ried through the center of the plantation to the factory and thence up to the railway, or to the shipping-trench, 

 where the droghers take the produce to the port by sea." 



