I.
WE were led to believe, through various accounts from former travellers, that the excursion to the Pitch Lake would be attended with considerable discomfort and some hardships.
After a run of about four hours from Port of Spain, Trinidad, we made La Brea at two o’clock in the afternoon of a blistering hot day. Fully one-third of the ship’s company were frightened off, while the rest of us made ready for the much-anticipated expedition.
It was a funny-looking company that stood at the gangway, waiting for the first boat ashore.
Handkerchiefs took the place of collars and ties; coats and vests were, for the most part, discarded, and all endeavoured to make themselves as light in wearing apparel as possible.
The Caribbean Sea, which had, until now, been ruffled only by the regular sweep of the “trades,” was badly tossed by a strong wind, so that the embarkation in the ship’s boat was to me unpleasantly exciting. The sea was running so high that, in order to reach the boat without being wet through, we had to gauge our time well and take the jump just as the boat was lifted to the top of the wave. As we started down the ship’s ladder, with Little Blue Ribbons tightly holding Daddy’s hand, Sister having gone before in the whale-boat with friends, the ship’s mate begged us to leave the Wee One with him. He said the sea was too rough and the landing too difficult; and besides he would take such good care of her, and she should have ice cream, and be a little queen all day,—if she would only stay. So, with some tears, and disdain for ice-cream, Little Blue Ribbons remained on board; the only time in the journey thus far when she was not one of the party.
Had it not been for the confident man, who likes the water, and the absurdity of the thing, I should have begged to be taken back to the ship.
We were in the second boat. The captain had arranged to have the launch tow us ashore, but the launch—true to the traditions of “oil engines”—had no intention of towing us ashore; it puffed and popped and made a great fuss, but would not move an inch. The engineer lost his steerageway, and it seemed every moment as if the great, clumsy thing would crash into us; and there we lay, going up and down the side of the ship, rolling from side to side, and bobbing from bow to stern, in a very disagreeable situation for those who don’t like that sort of thing.
I know quite well that I was not the only one who would gladly have felt himself safe on the solid decks of our ship. For once, the incessant talking had ceased, and our boat-load of people sat there absolutely quiet, thinking very hard.
After numerous unsuccessful attempts to make the launch behave, they gave up the attempt, manned our life-boat with six round-faced, lubberly, German “jackies,” each with a big oar, and went off independently.
I was heartily thankful not to have been assigned to the launch, for it could not compare in sea-going qualities with the boat in which we were placed.
As I said, it was a long row to the landing, but we finally reached smooth water, and disembarked at the end of a long bridge-like pier; not, however, without some difficulty.
We were still some distance from shore, which was reached by means of a narrow board walk, carried along one side of the pier, and bridging over the shoal water.
At the quay, a big “down-east” schooner (thank Heaven, there are a few American merchant vessels left!), two barks, and one full-rigged ship, were being loaded with pitch, by means of great steel buckets, travelling on an endless wire cable, which went from the end of the pier, up an incline, to the works on the hill, near to the great deposit of pitch beyond.
This ship at the pier was the first full-rigged merchant ship we had seen during the cruise—most merchantmen seeming now to be rigged as barks or barkentines—and was, even in spite of its black cargo, a beautiful sight. There is something in the look of a ship—its mass of rigging, its straight yard-arms, well set up, its black, drooping sails, half-furled, its inexplicable riddle of shrouds and stays and braces and halliards and sheets—that always stirs my soul mysteriously. Black as this vessel was, prosaic as was her cargo, unsightly the hands that loaded her, she was a picture. By right, she should have carried teas, and spices, and silks, and jewels; but she was worthy of admiration despite her humble calling.
Once on land, we realised, looking up the long, black hill ahead of us, and feeling the heat from a blazing sun directly overhead, that the walk would be a hard one, and that we must go slowly, in order to make it with any degree of comfort; but walk we must, or stay on the beach.
The pitch was in evidence immediately. Reefs of hard asphalt ran through the sandy beach into the sea. The hill was covered with asphalt, and down near the shore it lay in great wrinkles, where, when the road was being made, it had overflowed and taken to the hedgeway. It was apparent under the grass and weeds, around the roots of trees, and in the banana groves; in fact, there was pitch everywhere, black, oozing, and dull.