A slave ship from the West African coast had unloaded some twenty-odd Negroes: men, boys, women, children, naked and shielding their eyes from the light. What was left of an original one hundred and forty souls. The breeze picked up the stink of their stale sweat, of their fear and hunger. In a huddle, they were ladled water from a bucket then handed bananas and oranges.

A voice called out, ‘Wash ’em!’

While the Negroes continued to eat, buckets on ropes were dipped into the river and then hauled up and the water was splashed over them; five, ten, fifteen buckets of river water. The women rubbed their children’s hair and cheeks, their necks and chests and backs. After they’d eaten the fruit and had been washed by the buckets of water, a man came with a smaller bucket and each Negro cupped out some of the coconut oil there and rubbed it into their skin. The women rubbed their children then themselves. Now the Negroes glistened and Krüger could see how the men were roped in muscles and the women were smooth-legged and shone and the children were long-limbed and shiny too.

He walked on.

There were some fine houses in Paramaribo, made of timber and brightly painted, two and sometimes three storeys. Along the streets there were orange, tamarind and lemon trees, bursting in bloom, and magnificent gilded carriages making their way, the drivers in full livery (in the heat!), the horses immaculately brushed, and there were finely dressed men and women strolling in embroidered silks and glossy velvets, gold and silver lace, the women with elegant French parasols to guard against the sun. Krüger had never seen anything like it.

At one corner a large group stood around a birdcage hung from a tree: inside, a black-and-red-feathered bird, barely the size of a thumb. It chirped and tweeted sharply. Krüger noticed wealthy gentlemen in expensive clothes, holding silver-tipped canes, and women in silks and lace, fanning themselves. There were barefoot slaves in worn breeches, too, and slave women smoking small wooden pipes. There were ragged children running about, black and white and every shade between, and men who stood importantly at the rear of the crowd, broad-rimmed hats low over their eyes, silent except for an occasional whisper into the ear of one of the slaves, who then ran over to a mulatto man standing beside the birdcage with a slate in his hands. Bets were made and a moment later the talking ceased and everybody fell silent and watched the birdcage.