SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 221 



after my health ; we were obHged to hold the conversation in 

 our respective languages. i 



I will attempt a description of his person and dress. He is 

 nearly six feet high, very thin and emaciated, his face, hands, 

 and feet, for he had no shoes on, bore strong marks of the 

 climate, much wrinkled, and the colour of a piece of tanned 

 leather, his chin was graced with a month's length of beard. 

 His hat, made of plantain leaves, was very broad in the brim, 

 he had a pipe in his mouth, about two inches long in the tube, 

 which was perfectly blacked from frequent application to the 

 fire ; an umbrella, which he carried in his hand, was covered 

 with a thin sort of brown dowlas, not much unlike Scotch Os- 

 naburgh. The jacket and trowsers were made of Russia duck, 

 which, with a checked shirt, comprised the whole of his dress. 

 This grotesque figure, however, received me with the utmost 

 cordiality, and getting a gin bottle from the chest, offered me a 

 sapie, which he had poured into a calabash, but this I declined 

 accepting ; however, drink with him I must, and therefore 

 preferred a little lemonade, which was made with lime juice 

 and molasses, and then strained through a piece of cotton 

 bagging. We then went to business. Mynheer made me half 

 a hundred apologies for the trouble I had had in calling for 

 the money, as it was his intention to come to Stabroek to pay it, 

 he had just sold his cotton for a bill of ninety days sight, for the 



