H.M. Penal Settlement. 
201 
small Fort wliicli the new promoter met there and subsequently received 
the name of Kyk-over-all. In 17(31 the defence works were partly de 
molisked and the sugar-mill of Plantation Duinenburg built out of its 
hewn stones, while some years later, in 17(38, they had to supply material 
for the mill at Plantation Luiksbergen : nevertheless it was not razed 
to the ground. As 1 was once again so close to Cartabo Point I could 
not refrain from continuing my trip and paying it a visit when I was 
immediately recognised by the residents and given a hearty welcome: the 
women enquired after husbands or sons, about whom 1 could naturally 
give them no further information than that it was to be hoped they would 
soon be safely coming down the Cuyuni with my brother. 
656. While paddling one day with a small coloured boy along 
Naikuripa Island, which lies immediately opposite Bartika Grove, 
I heard the piping note of a sloth which the sharp eyes of my young 
and smart companion soon discovered in the top of a tree. Without 
waiting for my instructions the clever climber clambered up and 
reached the animal : he vainly tried to loosen its hold, and to gain posses- 
sion of the creature, had to lop it off the tree with a hatchet. It was a 
female with its young that was clinging tightly on to her back. Their 
appearance on the island doubtless indicated that they not only under- 
take long journeys, but that they must also be expert swimmers, for 
otherwise the mother would never have reached the island lying tolerably 
far from the bank. My young friend told me that he had found plenty 
of sloths on the islands of the Essequibo. After killing both, which T 
only succeeded in doing after a great deal of trouble, I stuck them into 
a cask of spirits to be forwarded to Berlin for making into skeletons. 
657. An excursion to Kai-tan, a < 'a rib settlement on the Cuyuni, was 
at last to satisfy my desire of becoming acquainted with this race, so 
feared in earlier times, and the accounts of whose brutality had made 
me shudder while still a boy. At the Cuyuni mouth is to be seen the 
former residence of the Postholder which now, deserted and abandoned, 
looked sadly down upon us from its 50ft. high granite rock. The hope 
of finding from there an unrestricted panorama over the Essequibo, 
Mazaruni, and Cuyuni induced me to climb the dismal and formidable 
rocky massif of the bank, when the reality that presented itself far 
surpassed my expectations. The station had been removed to Ampa a 
long while before and people were just then engaged in completely 
demolishing the house that was fast going to ruin, and establishing in 
its place a penal institution for the convicts of the Colony. The system 
of punishment hitherto in vogue had turned out to be of so little efficacy 
especially in the case of Negroes, and at the same time had proved so 
expensive that the Government had decided upon another procedure 
which, it was to be hoped, would remedy both evils. The immense 
quantity of granite offered an inexhaustible field for convict labour, for 
the prisoners could obtain from it the stone required for street-paving, 
house-building, etc., in Georgetown, and at the same time cultivate the 
broad unused stretches of land for their support. The hopes that were 
set upon the change have been completely fulfilled : the sentence of a pun- 
ishment of several months or weeks in the Penal Establishment at Maza- 
