The Three Counties under the Dutch. 23 
depths/ behind, and parallel to those on the coast, which 
were technically called ' first depths.' In laying out the 
' first depths' care had been taken by the Government 
to reserve a narrow strip of land, called the colony path, 
between each, in order to give access to the sea to those 
who might occupy the 'second depths.' Moreover, be- 
tween the ' first depths' and the ' second depths' a canal 
had been planned, similar in purpose to those which in a 
former chapter, I described as having been actually made 
from the other side of the Demerara to the Essequibo ; 
but this plan for a canal on the the east bank 
of the Demerara was only very partially effected. 
Very few ' second depths' were ever occupied. Up the 
Demerara there were but few plantations ; for this 
river had been colonized after the tendency to settle on 
the coast rather than along the river banks had arisen. 
In Berbice the case was somewhat different, There the 
plantations were scattered far up the river and there 
were as yet comparatively few, though they were fast 
increasing in number, on the coast. . 
The chief obje6t of cultivation was cotton. Of the 
116 plantations between the Demerara and the Abary, 
all but one were planted with cottton. The single 
exception, that of Plantation Kitty, close to Stabroek, 
had recently been planted with sugar. This exceptional 
case is noteworthy, because within ten years of the time 
at which PlNCKARD wrote, not only had cotton been 
rejected for sugar on many other of the old plantations, 
but very many new plantations were made and planted 
with sugar ; thus began the movement which has 
since caused sugar to be practically the only article 
produced by Guiana. But in the time of PlNCKARD, 
