On my last trip to Guyana, I went in search of an old sugar estate called Reynestein, which is described by a traveller called Dr Bollingbroke in 1799. It is now part of the super-estate, Wales. Back then, the good doctor had described the life of the Dutch planters; billiards, good coffee, the finest linen, floors scrubbed with citrus juice, farmland ‘like gardens’,
On my last trip to Guyana, I went in search of an old sugar estate called Reynestein, which is described by a traveller called Dr Bollingbroke in 1799. It is now part of the super-estate, Wales. Back then, the good doctor had described the life of the Dutch planters; billiards, good coffee, the finest linen, floors scrubbed with citrus juice, farmland ‘like gardens’,
solid dinners (‘salted ling, roast beef and Muscovy ducks, then Bologna sausage’), and hammocks round the table. Scattered throughout this scene was a riot of semi-feral infants. The ‘Massa’ of Reynestein, noted Bolingbroke, was ‘particularly fond of children and used to enjoy their antic nakedness.’
Over two centuries later, the mansions have gone, but there cane is still there. At one point, I was taken to an old stone tomb (see pciture). It was scrolled and grand but the inscription had gone. ‘Who is it?’ I asked.
My host shook his head. ‘Probably the planter.’
Perhaps it was the Master of Reynestein? Or his cringing overseer? I had a sudden image of a pale, thin man, with his silvery breeches and his flask of gin. It was unsettling to think he might be here, leering up out of the clay. My host told me that the tomb still terrified the cane-cutters., and that they won’t even touch it. Two centuries on, an unspeakable violence still haunted the sugar.
