DUTCH GUIANA. 59 



Paramaribo is soon to be connected by rail with the fertile riverside districts in 

 the Saramacca valley. The approaches from the sea are commanded by FoH Nietiip 

 Amsterdam, which occupies a strategical position of vital importance at the Comme - 

 wijne confluence in full view of the estuary. 



Eastern Settlements. 



East of Paramaribo the banks of the Commewijne and Cottica rivers were 

 lined with an uninterrupted succession of gardens and plantations, which are now 

 partly abandoned, while most of them have changed hands. Black descendants of 

 the old slaves have become the owners of many a domain which at one time 

 depended on some great Dutch landed estate. The village of Sommehdyk, com- 

 manded by a pentagonal fort at the junction of the two streams, recalls the name 

 of the famous Dutch governor, who was himself owner of one- third of all the 

 colonial plantations. 



Some 50 miles above Paramaribo on the Surinam river, are seen ihe ruins of 

 a synagogue and of a group of cottages at a place called Jocdcn Savane, " Savanna 

 of the Jews," which preserves the memory of the Portuguese and Leghorn Jews, 

 who, after their expulsion from Pernambuco, took refuge in Guiana and established 

 themselves on the banks of the Surinam in 1641. The white population is still 

 largely composed of Israelites, who control the money market of Paramaribo, and 

 supply the colony with most of its professional men — doctors, lawyers, and judges. 

 During the eighteenth century these Semites had their own administration of 

 justice, at least for all cases heard in the lower courts. During their religious 

 feasts also they enjoyed the privilege of immunity from arrest or legal prosecution 

 of any kind. 



The left bank of the Maroni on the French frontier is very thinly peopled. 

 Here the scattered groups of cabins nearly all belong either to the Galibi Indians 

 or to the descendants of the Maroons, now universally known as Bush Negroes. The 

 western streams are inhabited by a few communities of Bovianders, that is, half- 

 breeds sprung from Dutch fathers and Indian mothers. 



Natural Resources, 



During the slave period, sugar was the chief crop in Surinam, as in British 

 Guiana. But the planters, unable to resist the crisis following on emancipation, 

 abandoned most of their large estates ; hence the colony even now possesses only 

 a small number of sugar mills belonging to wealthy capitalists, who have pro- 

 vided them with plant and machinery as complete as those of the Georgetown 

 factories. A single proprietor employs as many as 1,580 hands, negroes, Hindus, 

 Javanese, and Chinese. 



The cultivation of the colïee shrub, which had formerly acquired great iuipor- 

 tance, producing about 6.000 tons for the annual export trade, was neglected to 

 such an extent that the colony had to import the cofPee required for its own 

 consumption. This industry, however, has been revived with fair prospects 

 of permanent success since the year 1883, when some speculators introduced the 



