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 1789 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. 
