This is what remains on the Mora Camp, on the Mazaruni River, Guyana.
These days it's a promontory of semi-derelict terraces, with lemon trees, flamboyants, corolla, mangos and bamboo. At the bottom of the slope is the Mazuruni – looking like a sheet of mercury – and a cluster of bushy islands, including Kijk-over-al.
This is what remains on the Mora Camp, on the Mazaruni River, Guyana.
These days it's a promontory of semi-derelict terraces, with lemon trees, flamboyants, corolla, mangos and bamboo. At the bottom of the slope is the Mazuruni – looking like a sheet of mercury – and a cluster of bushy islands, including Kijk-over-al.
From 1595 until Napoleonic times, this was the fortified estate of the Dutch. From camps like this, the Dutch had watched as their investment took root, sprouted, flourished and turned into wealth.
These river banks were, for a while, the richest farmlands in the world. In the peace treaties of the seventeenth century, they were accorded the same value as vast chunks of West Africa, or the city of Madras. It was a like a tropical Holland, with all its dimensions exploding outwards. But not anyone could turn it to profit. Only the Dutch had got what it took: a nose for finance, the brass for a fight, and an aptitude for drainage.
