Social Amenities. 
40 
of their hitherto degraded fellow men to the standpoint of a free folk 
was indeed due, should be ruled by such one-sided and narrow preju- 
dices. 
145 . In the Governor, Sir Henry Light, 1 found an extremely love- 
able and estimable man whose white hair only too plainly showed that 
many a year had already crossed his path. His wife and family were 
still living in England, owing to his having taken up the appointment 
only a short while before. Besides his official position he had at the 
same time to assume another locally-political one, because in George- 
town the upper classes are divided into two contending camps, on ac- 
count of which their mutual social intercourse is as impossible as in 
our smaller German towns. The Governor must always lead the party 
formed of the officials and certain of the wealthier estate owners, while 
the planters dissatisfied with the administration, merchants etc. form 
the recruits for the other: “The Brigade’ is the term generally applied 
to the former. 
140. The unlimited hospitality of the West Indies, already a bye- 
word, continues to be so in Georgetown where one linds it particularly 
in families who pin their faith on plain honest domesticity to which 
they must ever remain true so long as Fortune does not shower her 
favours on them as bountifully as she has in the case of others amongst 
w hom the most spendthrift and ostentatious luxury has indeed become 
the rule. The result to-day is that almost the whole of the so-called Eng- 
lish society retains an extraordinarily large amount of ceremonial stiff- 
ness and, in its sporadic seclusion, generally something in the way of 
unnaturalness and affectation. 
147. After the novelty had worn off, the soirees, dinners, lun- 
cheons etc. began to pall on me, though it was with all the more inward 
satisfaction that I accepted invitations from the Dutch families, for 
every visit I paid them made me think 1 was once more back 
in my beloved Home. I found amongst them almost everywhere the 
same honest simplicity, cordiality, and intimacy peculiar to our own 
social circles. The German feels at home with these Dutch 
families, the cold dividing barriers drawn by etiquette be- 
tween the sexes in most English families having taken no 
root in the Dutch ones : once introduced into the latter, 
the stranger is forthwith regarded as a member of the family, and 
unrestricted intercourse reigns between him and all who belong to the 
smaller or larger coterie. 
148. Among the Germans settled here, who all came to pay a visit 
soon after our arrival, was Mr. Bach, an Oldenburger, from the little 
town of Jever, the owner of an important coffee-plantation on the Dem- 
erara : he won my heart at sight, just as I subsequently learned to es- 
teem him still more on discovering him to be, not alone the only, but 
also an excellent, botanist. My brother had already told me on the 
voyage across that one of the most excellent collections of orchids was to 
be seen in his grounds. Unfortunately a severe sickness with which I 
Avas attacked prevented me accepting his invitation to stay with him, 
for some time to come. Among my other countrymen, mostly mechanics, 
aaIio had formed a home here Avas a certain König who, with the impul- 
siveness of a German bred and born, had anglicized himself and chang- 
