As for the land-crabs, which are unlike any I have seen elsewhere, they swarm all over the island in incredible numbers. I have even seen them two or three deep in shady places under the rocks; they crawl over everything, polluting every stream, devouring anything—a loathsome lot of brutes, which were of use, however, round our camp as scavengers. They have hard shells of a bright saffron colour, and their faces have a most cynical and diabolic expression. As one approaches them they stand on their hind legs and wave their pincers threateningly, while they roll their hideous goggle eyes at one in a dreadful manner. If a man is sleeping or sitting down quietly, these creatures will come up to have a bite at him, and would devour him if he was unable for some reason to shake them off; but we murdered so many in the vicinity of our camp during our stay on the island, that they certainly became less bold, and it seemed almost as if the word had been passed all over Trinidad that we were dangerous animals, to be shunned by every prudent crab. Even when we were exploring remote districts we at last found that they fled in terror, instead of menacing us with their claws.
But the great mystery of this mysterious island is the forest of dead trees which covers it and which astonishes every visitor.
The following account of this wood is taken from the 'Cruise of the "Falcon,"' and as it was nine years ago, so is it now:—
'What struck us as remarkable was, that though in this cove there was no live vegetation of any kind, there were traces of an abundant extinct vegetation. The mountain slopes were thickly covered with dead wood—wood, too, that had evidently long since been dead; some of these leafless trunks were prostrate, some still stood up as they had grown.... When we afterwards discovered that over the whole of this extensive island—from the beach up to the summit of the highest mountain—at the bottom and on the slopes of every now barren ravine, on whose loose-rolling stones no vegetation could possibly take root—these dead trees were strewed as closely as it is possible for trees to grow; and when we further perceived that they all seemed to have died at one and the same time, as if plague-struck, and that no single live specimen, young or old, was to be found anywhere—our amazement was increased.
'At one time Trinidad must have been covered with one magnificent forest, presenting to passing vessels a far different appearance to that it now does, with its inhospitable and barren crags.
'The descriptions given in the "Directory" allude to these forests; therefore, whatever catastrophe it may have been that killed off all the vegetation of the island, it must have occurred within the memory of man.
'Looking at the rotten, broken up condition of the rock, and the nature of the soil, where there is a soil—a loose powder, not consolidated like earth, but having the appearance of fallen volcanic ash—I could not help imagining that some great eruption had brought about all this desolation; Trinidad is the acknowledged centre of a small volcanic patch that lies in this portion of the South Atlantic, therefore I think this theory a more probable one than that of a long drought, a not very likely contingency in this rather rainy region.'
Some time after the publication of the 'Cruise of the "Falcon"' I came across an excellent description of Trinidad in Captain Marryat's novel, 'Frank Mildmay.' It is obvious from the following passage, which I quote from that work, that the trees had been long dead at the date of its publication, 1829:—
'Here a wonderful and most melancholy phenomenon arrested our attention. Thousands and thousands of trees covered the valley, each of them about thirty feet high; but every tree was dead, and extended its leafless boughs to another—a forest of desolation, as if nature had at some particular moment ceased to vegetate! There was no underwood or grass. On the lowest of the dead boughs, the gannets, and other sea-birds, had built their nests, in numbers uncountable. Their tameness, as Cowper says, "was shocking to me." So unaccustomed did they seem to man that the mothers brooding over their young only opened their beaks, in a menacing attitude, at us as we passed by them. How to account satisfactorily for the simultaneous destruction of this vast forest of trees was very difficult; there was no want of rich earth for nourishment of the roots. The most probable cause appeared to me a sudden and continued eruption of sulphuric effluvia from the volcano; or else by some unusually heavy gale of wind or hurricane the trees had been drenched with salt water to the roots. One or the other of these causes must have produced the effect. The philosopher or the geologist must decide.'
Captain Marryat was evidently unaware that these dead trees are to be found on the heights 3,000 feet above the sea-level as well as in the valleys, or he would not have suggested salt water as the cause of their destruction.