A private mansion, Port of Spain, B. W. I.
This majestic gateway has seen the coming and going of many famous mariners. Through it Columbus sailed north on his third voyage in midsummer of the year 1498. Sir Walter Raleigh and many buccaneers swept through the bocas in the days when English seamen performed deeds of valor against the Spaniards, and any galleon was their lawful prey. Here, too, cruised Nelson with his great English fleet, hunting for the French warships on that half world chase that ended at Trafalgar. To-day important trade centers in Trinidad, and the harbor of Port of Spain, the only city of size, is busy with the arrival and departure of steamships bearing to Europe and America the tropical riches of the Island.
A country road just outside Port of Spain
In Trinidad the thermometer records 85 degrees almost every day and never changes more than twenty degrees. The only difference between one season of the year and another, is that for a few months it rains. Even in the rainy season, however, and nearly every day, there is an abundance of bright sunshine. There are fine shops, large warehouses filled with chocolate beans, sugar and other tropical products; and one can ride on trolley cars made in Philadelphia. The most popular hotel faces the great Savannah, a wide stretch of lawn bordered by trees. There are beautiful drives to the Reservoir; up the mountains to Maracas Waterfall with vista of the Caribbean a thousand feet below; through avenues of giant bamboos arching over the roadway, and through miles of plantations of cacao.
Queen’s Park Hotel, the most popular in Port of Spain, facing the great Savannah
A street in Port of Spain, where one can ride up town on a trolley car built in Philadelphia
Railway lines run east from Port of Spain, and south for thirty-five miles, down the coast of the Gulf of Paria, to Prince’s Town and San Fernando, through sections crowded with East Indian coolies. From San Fernando, a little steamer leaves daily for trips along the coast. The land-locked waters of the Gulf are usually calm and the mountains of Venezuela are seen miles away in an exquisite blue haze. The steamer skirts along a shore bordered by mangrove swamps, to Brighton, and there it stops at the long pier of The Trinidad Lake Asphalt Operating Company, Ltd.