A Parliament of Ants. This is the great Dutch hall on Flag Island in the Essequibo River, established in 1744. It has tall, shuttered windows, the bell-tower of a church and the body of a warehouse. Aside from forts, it's probably the oldest building in Guyana. Inside there's a large expanse of flagstones, a cluster of well-laureled tombs, and a colony of bats. In its day, the hall had been a church, an office, a college, a slave market, and, most importantly, the Court of Policy. From here, the great Dutch planters had declared dominion over an estate five times the size of Holland.
They were men of exorbitant ambition, and each had a fancy title, like the Predicant, the Vendue-Master and the Fiscal. Now all that remained of them were a few coloured pictures, each looking splendid in a breastplate and wig.
It wasn’t really true power. Of the land the Dutch claimed, 96% of it remained unvisited and unexplored. All they controlled was one brilliant, fertile edge. As for the rest, their dominion was illusory. Out there, this great hall might just as well have been a Council-in-the-Sky, or a Parliament of Ants.