“Oh, naughty, naughty Clara, how could you serve me so?
I’ll go to Demerara, if you tell me to go.
I’ll sail across the ocean, I’ll go far o’er the seas.
If you’ll tell me to go, my dear, I’ll do just as you please.”
The fast full rigged British clipper, the magnificent “Sheila” smoothly sailed into dark Demerara early on the morning of November 29, 1877, running “bang for the bar” of soft mud when the ugly, frothy river tide rose. Anchoring close to the stelling of Messrs. Sandbach, Parker and Company, the ten-month-old ship, with its huge iron masts towering 186 feet above decks, had just delivered its first human cargo of 624 “poor souls” to the indentured immigrant depot at Five Islands, Trinidad.