Отрывок из книги
William Gifford Palgrave
Published by Good Press, 2021
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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.
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