Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/167

Rh level, has thrust forward the swamp region from the interior down to the very shore, where it forms a barrier behind which the sugar lands and estates ensconce themselves with no particular background, untill perhaps the worthy Brazilians condescend to define their frontier, which as yet they seem in no hurry to do, and thus remain for the most part out of sight of the seafarer, though not out of easy reach of river communication.

This invisibility from the sea and those who go down to their business in the great waters was by no means an adverse circumstance; on the contrary, it was a very desirable one to the old Dutch settlers throughout the seventeenth and even during the eighteenth century. For those were days when many a gallant Captain Morgan, Captain French, or Captain Cutthroat whatever, would hail his men on the look-out, as their piratical bark hugged the coast on her way to the golden plunder of the Spanish Main, ready enough to shorten sail and let down the boats, had any tempting indication of hoarded Batavian wealth, whether in produce or in coin, appeared within the limits of a long-shore raid. But the case was different so long as the dense bush-barrier defended what it concealed; and the river estuaries, however frequent and wide, afforded no better prospect to the would-be plunderers than that of a difficult and perhaps distant navigation up stream, far from their comrades in the ships at sea, with the additional probabilities of meeting with a fort or two on the way to bar their passage. And thus, throughout the worst days of piratic menace, the hoards of Dutch Guiana remained, with one exception to be mentioned hereafter, unpillaged, chiefly because unseen; while the more patent treasures of the Frenchman and the Spaniard were harried to enrich the coffers, or decorate the Pollys and Betsys, of these lawless heroes of the Caribbean deeps.

The age of pirates and buccaneers is past, and even from regular naval invasion a West-Indian colony, under the present circumstances of warfare, has little to fear. But independently of the mischief-makers, whom of old times it brought on its waves, the sea of this coast is itself a troublesome and occasionally a dangerous neighbour to the planter and his labours. Whether it is that the north-eastern side of this great continent is in very truth slowly sinking, as runs the ominous verdict of not a few grave scientific judges or whether, as I found to be the prevalent opinion among the long-shore men themselves, some secular deflection of winds and currents yearly brings a heavier volume of water to war against the unprotected low-lying land, I know not; but this much is certain, that the sea encroaches more and more, and that every equinoctial spring-tide, in particular, is signalled by a wider and more perilous invasion of the watery enemy, and bears his usurpations ever farther over forest and plain.

Whatever the cause, aqueous or terrene, its effects are only too certain; and a woeful example was soon before our eyes, when, after not many hours' cruise, we anchored off the little town, or, to speak more truly, remnant of a town, called Nikerie. The name is, I believe, like most of the names hereabouts, Indian, the meaning of course unknown. The district, which is also denominated Nikerie, lies immediately to the east of the Corentyn River, and is thus the nearest of all to the British territory. It contains at the present day, as official returns tell us, nine estates, comprising between them 2,832 acres of cultivated soil. The number was formerly greater, but no portion of the colony suffered so much from the emancipation crisis, and the other causes of discouragement and depression, from which wealthier and more favoured colonies are only now beginning to recover, and that slowly.

The estates, mostly cane or cocoa, are all situated at some distance inland up the river, safely sheltered behind the tangled mangrove fringe. Where goods have to be shipped, remoteness from the seacoast is of course an inconvenience; yet with this the colonists long preferred to put up rather than deviate from their traditionary rule. But when, at the opening of the present century, the British lion, jealous lest so choice a morsel as Dutch Guiana should fall into the jaws of the ravenous French republic and still more ravenous empire, temporarily extended a protective paw over these regions, a new order of things prevailed for a time, and an unwonted self-confidence took in more than one instance the place of prudential caution. Under these novel auspices the seemingly eligible site of the Nikerie River mouth was not likely to be passed over, and soon a flourishing little town, with streets, shops, stores, churches, public buildings, and the rest, arose and dilated itself on the western point, to the great advantage of commerce, and for awhile bravely held its own.