REMINISCENCES OF DEMERARY. 



By Mewburx Garnett. 



At a general meeting of the Boy a I Agricultural and Commercial 

 Society held on the 20th December, 1913, the Hon. J. B. Laing, Presi- 

 dent in the chair, Mr. Mewburn Garnett contributed a paper on 

 " Beminiscences of Demerary." 



Mr. Garnett stated that when he was first asked, as one of the oldest 

 members of the Society and one who had always taken the deepest 

 interest in its welfare, to say a few words on the Society of the past, he 

 hesitated for fear that his remarks might not be interesting and also 

 from the fact that since he last spoke in the hall of the Society a new 

 generation had sprung up which might not be in sympathy with the dead 

 long ago. The kind remarks of the president and the hearty wel- 

 come which had been accorded him gave him encouragement, and he 

 thanked them all very heartily for their warm reception. " I can but 

 hope, therefore, that in the hustle of a more restless age when the whole 

 world, socially, politically, commercially and I might add religiously, 

 would seem ready to break into discord on the slightest provocation, 

 when in England the feeding or non-feeding of a Mrs. Pankhurst stirs 

 Society and locally the beautifying or not of a Cathedral causes dis- 

 sension, I say in the midst of all this I hope there might yet remain a 

 few grains of interest in a Society of which we are all proud to be 

 members."' 



To confine himself to his reminiscences he was afraid his remarks 

 must naturally become very egotistical, and therefore he proposed to 

 touch on the Society as it existed long before his time. First of all, he 

 wished to pay tribute to the spot on which they were assembled that 

 day — a spot which was of interest second to none in the colony. It was 

 there, on the occasion of the original occupancy of the British in 1781, 

 that the first fort was built in Demerary to protect our flag. It 

 was a poor little mud structure but they were very proud of it. They 

 strutted up and down its battlements, weather permitting, and they 

 christened it Fort George after their King, for the Colonials of those 

 days were as loyal to their Georges as those of the present day are 

 to the gracious Sovereign of the same name who reigns over them. 

 An inefficient structure that old fort, near it courida bushes and many 

 mosquitoes, the penetrating power of whose descendants has by no 

 means diminished. Can it have been the aggressive galinipper which 

 caused the Government offices to be erected at Borselem ? Oh the 

 simplicity of Government officers on that happy island ! A Customs 

 without dues and only the receiving generally of arrows from the natives 

 which hardly required an audit ! But the historic fort was to suffer an 

 indignity. The French, who were the allies of the Dutch of that time, 



