The c: Good Old Times'' in Guiana. 123 



done by the antiquarian to rectify this drawback ; the materials for his 

 work are of the utmost importance, and are often more valuable than 

 government records, though not so precise as to dates. 



Too much stress is generally laid upon the exactness of dates and 

 some have disputed about a day or two as if it were more important than 

 the event itself. Chronology comes in here but we must be suspicious of 

 all old dates. It would be well to get more general ideas of times, because 

 there were antecedants and consequents connected with most events 

 which could not be dated. A battle fought on a certain day depended on 

 the movements of the two parties for weeks or perhaps months before. 

 As far as possible we should try to comprehend something more than the 

 battle, however decisive that may have been. 



On an old tombstone in the Chapel of Farley Castle I first read the 

 words "Time trieth truth'' some sixty yearsago and have remembered them 

 many a time since. I cau picture the old knight, one of the Hungerford 

 family, who quoted the saying some four centuries ago and perhaps 

 understood it in his |own way. We are now appreciating the fact that 

 time is trying all our histories and proving most of them to be imperfect 

 and distorted. Many of us who learnt what was once called history 

 found it very dry and tedious. Real history however should be interest- 

 ing to everyone, especially when they know that they themselves are 

 making it every day of their lives. The querulous old women who tells 

 us all about the relatives of a certain family is a historian in a small way 

 and the old man who remembers an event of his childhood is another. 



In studying the history of a colony like British Guiana we have to 

 make a start with things as they are before going to old books and 

 records. It is quite evident that what we see to-day is more tangible 

 than documents. Every building has its history and so has each planta- 

 tion, village and town ; we can go farther to study people for they also 

 are " heirs of the ages," and family history cannot be ignored. Not only 

 must we deal with what are called " great ' families, for every person in 

 the community has affected the whole in some way. Some historians 

 are inclined to deal only with the ruling families, but it can be easily 

 seen that the prosperity of a country depends far more upon its working 

 men than upon the rulers. There could be no government were there no 

 subjects — the two are inseparable. The old writers generally ignored 

 everyone except the rulers and spoke of Generals and Admiials winning 

 battles. Surely some credit is due to the body of men as well as the 

 leaders. If British Guiana is fairly prosperous to-day its position is not 

 due to the Government but to the people. Good government however is 

 not to be ignored but put in its right place. The development of our 

 colony could not have come about were there no negroes to be obtained 

 in earlier times and no immigrants in later periods. Every man in a 

 community helps, and even when he sometimes appears to hinder, his 

 actions may be lessons worth taking to heart. In the constitution of 

 things it appears as if even criminals are useful to warn us of what should 



