280 TlMEHRI. 
not only at the sides but at the top also. When the 
coffee was wanted for shipment it was taken out of the 
chest and put into tierces or bags. 
Coffee was more or less injured on the passage home, 
by the steam from the sugar on board, and it was desir- 
able to ship it, if possible, in a vessel loaded entirely 
with coffee, or at least, having no sugar on board. A 
small vessel came here once from Jersey loaded entirely 
with potatoes in bulk ; these Avere readily disposed of, 
and the ship loaded home with coffee. 
The freight of coffee was higher than sugar, it being 
lighter ; when the freight of sugar was ' 3/ per cwt., 
coffee paid 4/. 
Berbice coffee ranked high in the market, and was 
bought to mix with Jamaica coffee, which being grown 
on the mountains, was more delicate in flavour than 
that from Berbice but not nearly so strong. 
That particular quality is still called " Berbice coffee" 
in the shops in London, though none has been shipped 
from Berbice for twenty or thirty years. 
The cessation of the coffee cultivation has been a 
great social loss to Berbice, as reducing the number of 
the educated class. Each estate had not only a manager, 
but by law was obliged to have a white overseer for 
every hundred negroes. But it was impossible to continue 
the cultivation under the free system without loss. This 
the Dutchmen very soon discovered, and they sold 
their estates and cleared out to a man. The free 
system did not suit their ideas at all, any more 
than it does that of their countrymen, the Boers, 
in South Africa. 
