New Amsterdam

New Amsterdam is the old Dutch town of the Berbice, laid out on a river bank in the eighteenth century and quiet ever since the trade moved west to the capital. A long floating bridge now crosses the river where the ferry used to run, and the town behind it keeps a strand of timber houses, a stelling and churches from three denominations. The country all around is flat cane and rice land, cut through by Dutch drainage canals. A slave uprising began on this very river and is remembered as the start of the nation.