This is old Dutch fortress, built right out in the middle of the Essequibo, in 1744. Back then, the tiny islet was called Vlaggen Eyland, or ‘Flag Island’. These days its called Fort Island.
From the river, it looks like a tussock of floating jungle. But its appearance is deceptive. Although the fortress was never Krak des Chevaliers, it was better in a way. Here was a huge, unsinkable gunboat, moored right in the shipping lane, halfway up the estuary. Whoever possessed this outcrop controlled not only the river but the thousands of acres of swamp all around.
Despite the encroaching undergrowth, the fort is still a formidable sight: a huge nest of ramparts, parapets, moats, scarps and counter-scarps. In the middle is a three-storey blockhouse, shaped like a diamond, and built from brick. Every surface facing the river had been slewed through forty-five degrees, to deflect any incoming fire. It seems that the tireless Dutch governor (Gravesande) had ordered the very latest in military technology. His fortress – ‘Fort Zeelandia’ – had been armed with over forty heavy cannon, and, even now, there are half a dozen left.
In the 1790s, the fort was visited by one Henry Bolingbroke of Norwich, England. No one had known the old Dutch colony like Bolingbroke. For seven years, from 1798, he’d travelled the colony, working as an articled clerk. His memoirs, ‘A Voyage to the Demerary’,
