7 
Notes on a Trip to Surinam. 147 
THE Town. 
On entering the town, fine squares with noble Mahogany, Saman, and other 
trees of large growth give vistas of shade and sunlight quite pleasing to the eye. 
The first-named timber shows much more vigorous growth than it does with 
us here on the coast-land. That is doubtless due to the greater suitability 
of soil and conditions at the distance Paramaribo lies from the sea. On 
the other hand the absence of a breeze to cool the air does not improve the 
conditions for human comfort. 
A breathless heat in the months of September and October renders life 
between 2 p.m. and 4.30 a limp thing of sudorific gasping. Very wisely the 
Surinamer abandons active life for two or three hours. The streets present to 
the observer a shimmering stillness in which all life seems reduced to its lowest 
terms, even the vegetation hangs listless and goes to sleep, until the reviving 
coolness of evening again brings a stir and movement amongst animate things. 
For the most part business is done between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. when the 
middag maal is universally eaten. Supper about 8 p.m. supplies energy to keep 
one going till eleven, when the chief interval of rest supervenes. 
GENERAL ASPECT. 
In some respects the Dutch town is not very different from our own. The 
sunlight reveals the same brilliant colouring, vivid greens of every shade, scarlet 
orange and browns, black shadows and high lights, a kaleidoscopic feast in 
which the eye delights till it tires with the banquet. The details, however, 
are distinctive in many ways. 
Tue Burpines. 
There is, for example, that quaint curve of the roof everywhere in evidence 
and pleasing to the artistic sense, dormer windows emeiging to break the 
monotony of line, provide architectural features and give character to the 
smaller buildings. Occasionally, a Mansart roof varies the type and suggests 
some Gallic influence at work in its construction. Quite often one notes with 
a certain vague wonder that the uprights of house and fence are perpendicular. 
Even gates, it gives one a gentle shock to perceive, swing true and the gate 
posts do not nod to one another in the neighbourly way they have in Demerara, 
but stand erect surprisingly often. It might be worth while sending a com- 
mission to inquire into the secret of this! I got what may be an explanation 
of the verticality of house uprights in the statement that the foundations are 
usually a broad, concrete of brick and cement, but this does not account for the 
gate posts. 
Red-tiled roofs occur and lend a note of their own and the whole survey of 
the town is a demonstration of the possibility of getting architectural features 
even in ordinary wooden buildings. Perhaps the success of our Dutch neigh- 
bours in these matters is due to their Netherland traditions and, without doubt, 
there is a certain flavour of old Holland about the outlines and arrangement 
of the buildings and a kind of far away reminiscence of Peter de Hooghfand 
Vermeer of Delft. The houses are generally boarded with “ Kopie,” a wood not 
