Notes oil Jungle and Other Wild Life. i6i 



in removing", without cutting or breaking, an endless string from 

 off two sticks upon which it has been placed. The Spirit 

 coming along sees the puzzle, starts examining" it. and tries to 

 get the string" off; indeed, so engrossed does he become that 

 he forgets all about the wanderer, who is now free to find the 

 road again." 



Every visitor to this region should extend his journey 

 to Dutch Guiana or Surinam as it was originally, and is now 

 officially called. It exhibits a curious mixture of Dutch 

 modernity, and the relics of slave barbarism not to be seen 

 elsewhere. Surinam was colonized by Lord Willoughby, 



Governor of Piarbados in 1665, and became a flourishing" plant- 

 ation within a few years. It was not until more than a century 

 afterwards that the British acquired their present holdings on 

 the mainland. These dry facts are, however, subsidiary to 

 the one I am about to mention, and especially ought it to be 

 known to persons like myself, whose folk for many generations 

 before the British occupation lived on Long Island. In 



1667 that parcel of land and " some waste territory adjoining," 

 were by the terms of the Peace of Breda prartically traded by 

 Holland for Surinam. Probably you and I would have done 

 the same thing, because the British possession was apparently 

 of more value than the bare farmer-fisherland along the Sound! 

 Then, again, Surinam was next door to other Dutch colonies 

 while New Amsterdam was only an isolated gateway to hostile 

 territory; better let it go, and take something of actual value 

 v.hile the taking was good. Still, somehow or other the 

 Dutch guessed wrong, because I am informed that I could buy 

 pretty nearly all Surinam for the present value placed on those 

 600 acres on Long Island which, somewhere around 1676, were 

 apportioned to my patentee ancestors Edmond and Josian Wood. 



Quite a library of books and pamphlets resulted, as you 

 know, from this provision of the Breda treaty, not tne least 

 interesting of which is one, a broadside by an English planter 

 of Surinam, protesting in fervid terms against being turned over 

 to the tender mercies of Holland; indeed Barbados, Virginia, 

 and several other colonies were the gainers by immigration from 

 Surinam after its surrender to the new Masters, the Dutch 

 meantime trying to discourage this exodus, and especiall/ of 



