12 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



store-keeper and Indian trader, and his salary 

 was thirty guilders, or about twelve dollars, a 

 month about what I paid my cook-boy. 



The high tide of development at Kartabo came 

 two hundred and three years ago, when, as we 

 read in the old records, a Colony House was 

 erected here. It went by the name of Huis Naby 

 (the house near-by), from its situation near the 

 fort. Kyk-over-al was now left to the garrison, 

 while the commander and the civil servants lived 

 in the new building. One of its rooms was used 

 as a council chamber and church, while the lower 

 floor was occupied by the company's store. The 

 land in the neighborhood was laid out in build- 

 ing lots, with a view to establishing a town; it 

 even went by the name of Stad Cartabo and had 

 a tavern and two or three small houses, but never 

 contained enough dwellings to entitle it to the 

 name of town, or even village. 



The ebb-tide soon began, and in 1739 Kartabo 

 was deserted, and thirty years before the United 

 States became a nation, the old fort on Kyk- 

 over-al was demolished. The rivers and rolling 

 jungle were attractive, but the soil was poor, 

 while the noisome mud-swamps of the coast 

 proved to be fertile and profitable. 



