Luxuriant Coco-Nut Palms. 
389 
display an iiucoiuiiuMil}- lively laiKlstaiH'. The neyio village, Mocha, 
nestles vei-y sweetly on the left bank: pleasant little houses are sur- 
I'ounded and shaded with luxuriant coconut and eabbage-palms. The 
residential quarters and boiling houses of the plantation onto which the 
village joins lie immediately on the Demerara waterside. The smoking 
stacks of the sugar-mills, the flourishing green cotfee plantations with 
their often three-storey-high drying houses, the numerous boats plough- 
ing along the water, and a road raised high and dry along the banks, 
with a nund)er of branches inland, every \\ here proclaimed the enter- 
prising s])irit and busy hand of man. The dark green hem of Rhizoplwra , 
Aviccnnia and Lagnnciilaria which bordered the waterside was only 
wanting at the Avharfs and landing places of the ditferent estates: it Avas 
at such spots alone that a glance over the luxuriantly growing cultiva- 
tion flats with their waving fields was rendered possible. 
973. For 70 to 80 miles up the river continues navigable even to 
larger loaded ships and liere runs fairly parallel with the Essequibo. 
Number Three Canal branches off on the right or easterly bank. Some 
miles above this we reached Chantilly Island, to Ite soon followed by 
two others. Tonvicts sentenced in Georgetown are buried in the 
l'oi-mei-, ami accordingly have still to make a considerable journey after 
death. Only one of tliese islands, Borselen, is in a state of cultivation 
and planted uj) with idantains. Here was formerly the seat of Covern- 
nient, c.f/., the Courts of Policy and Civil Justice: in the year 1774, how- 
ever, this was transferred to the eastern point of land at the river month 
where the new site received the name of Staltroek, and is now called 
Ceorgetown. Beyond the islands the ]»lantations have now disap^^eared, 
tlieir place being at present taken by the small settlements of (--olonred 
l^eople and negroes, of Avhich latter, after the Emancii)ation, a numbei' 
banded themselves together, bought an abandoned estate or an area of 
Crown Land, parcelled it out, and so called a regular negro cf)lonv into 
exisience. But as the black man always idants or keeps cultivated only 
just so much land as he and Ills family reonire for their support, the 
bank is already becoming i-egnlarlv encroached nnon by the wall-like 
f(U'est against which the small white-painted residences, shaded witli 
luxuriant coconut palms and plantains, stand out in ])leasant contrast. 
The coconut palm shews to best advantage only so far as the salt water 
is carried up with the flood tide: bevond this limit the beautiful palm 
loses its fulness and develoT>s a sicklv appearance that becomes more 
anjiarent in i^roportion Avith its distance fi'om the coast. On the 
Demerara this fact revealed itself to ime most strikingly — the reason for 
its luxuriant growth might therefore lie in the evaporation of the sea- 
water or in the peculiar soil, Avhich consists almost generally of a bluish 
clav mixed with disintegrated vegetable matter and copiou.sly soaked 
with salt water. Plow much it must be dependent on soil and locality 
can be seen in our palm-houses, where one very rarely finds them, and 
then only in a sickly condition. 
974. After passing Ihe mouth of the Madewini, which flows into the 
Demerara from the 4^.ast, there rose in front of us a huge Imilding, on 
a fair way to complete ruin. It was the lag*, propei ty of an immeuseljf 
It 
