Fehrl-.trv 1. 1911. 1 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



151 



Frlit Sf.llek. 



1 he good humored inert- 

 ness of the black Dutch is 

 constantly making itself felt, 

 and the most casual observer 

 cannot fail to note it. For in- 

 stance, a colony of black 

 Hutch lived in houses be- 

 longing to a planter, and 

 Haid no rent. They did not 

 refuse to pay, not at all. 

 l{vory time they saw the 

 iiwncr they not only ac- 

 knowledged their debt, but 

 took pains to hunt him up to 

 assure him that they had not 

 forgotten the obligation, and, 

 incidentally, to borrow a Ut- 

 ile more for present needs. 

 Me finally put the matter in 

 the hands of a sheriff, tell- 

 ing him to evict them at 

 once, and the official de- 

 parted, determined to do his 

 duty at whatever cost. He, 

 by the way. was a black man, and they are the severest 

 of all government officials, .\rriving at the settlement, he 

 called on the people, and announced to them that he 

 was about to evict them, and by force if necessary. They 

 agreed that it was only just and proper, and sat and smoked 

 and watched him with great respect. His dignity would not 

 allow hiin to handle their effects himself, and he therefore 

 decided to remove the shingles from their roofs so that they 

 would no longer be habitable. After some bargaining the 

 debtors began to remove the shingles for him, he paying them 

 two florins each in advance. By mid-afternoon the roofs were 

 stripped, the shingles neatly piled by the roadside, the laborers 

 paid and the official had departed for town. As soon as he had 

 gone, the homeless ones calmly nailed them on again, and con- 

 tentedly awaited another profitable eviction. 



One of my friends in Paramaribo wanted a trench dug. and 

 bargained with an honest Dutch negro to do the job for a cer- 

 tain number of florins. The price being agreed upon, the negro 

 demanded one-half his pay in advance (as is customary), which 

 was readily granted. Then he started off to get his shovel, and, 

 as it was Friday afternoon and rather late to begin on a new 

 job, he did not return. The next day being Saturday, and as he 

 had money in his pocket, he could not be e.xpected to work, and 

 thcrctore didn't. The day after being Sunday he could not work 

 without outra.ging his own and his neighbors' religious principles. 

 On Monday he came around to inform his employer that he 



Il.\KEOR VlFCW, P,\R.\M.ARIBO. 



Witch Broom. 



couldn't work the day after a holy-day (another custom), but 

 that the trench would be begun Tuesday morning, and it was, 

 and finished in due time. 



There were but few mosquitos in Paramaribo while we were 

 there, but in certain parts of the bush they are very plentiful, 

 and malarial fevers are the result. They even tell a story of a 

 Dutch sailor up in the bush committing suicide because the 

 mosquitos tormented liim so. While the colony is uniformly 

 healthy, and Paramaribo, for a tropical city, wonderfully so, it 

 has its share of diseases. The excellent city hospital has 600 to 

 700 patients, and the study of cic/'haiiliasis and the hookworm 

 disease is constant and thorough. ■ _ . 



I am more and more impressed with the conviction that a 

 man can go almost anywhere in the tropics and continue in good 

 health if he is careful about 

 a few essentials. I have a 

 friend, a case hardened, ex- 

 perienced tropical adven- 

 turer, who took an American 

 mining engineer up into the 

 Guiana bush. They both got 

 fever very badly, and the en- 

 gineer in his delirium came 

 very near killing his com- 

 panion. I went all over the 

 same ground without a touch 

 of illness. Meeting tl:e ad- 

 venturer later, I resolved to 

 discover, if possible, the rea- 

 son for their suffering. A 

 very little questioning devel- 

 oped the fact that they car- 

 ried no mosquito bars, and 

 that they drank unboiled 

 l)ush water when they were 

 thirsty. In other words, 

 tlic\' did not take ordinary 

 proved precautions, and they c.^rrying a Rejected Bunch 

 giit what they deserved. Home. 



