Owing to the shallow waters of the harbor of the Port-of-Spain, the capital of Trinidad, our steamer had to anchor about a mile from the quay. When we were prepared to go ashore—and we lost no time in getting ready—we were surrounded by a motley crowd of sable, shouting, importunate boatmen, all clamoring and gesticulating and sounding the praises of their canoes, and calling attention to their fantastic names, as if this were a guarantee of their safety and comfort. In a few moments we were seated in one of these gayly decked craft, with our baggage beside us, on our way to the customhouse. Here we were delayed only a few minutes, for the English in their colonies, as in the mother country, rarely subject the traveler to those delays and annoyances that constitute so disagreeable a feature in certain other countries. “What a contrast,” we said to ourselves, “between the conduct of the officials here and that of the officious inquisitors at La Guayra!”
After we had been comfortably located in our hotel—there are several good hotels in the city—our first thought was about our journey up the Orinoco. To our great delight we learned that there would be a steamer going to Ciudad Bolivar in about a week. This accorded with our plans perfectly, as we thus had ample time to visit the chief points of interest—and there are many—of the island, and enjoy at least a passing view of the wonderful and varied floral display for which Trinidad is so famous.
Trinidad, as the reader will recollect, was discovered by Columbus during his third voyage, and given the name it still bears in honor of the Blessed Trinity. In his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, describing this voyage, he says he started from San Lucar in the name of the most Holy Trinity, and after two months at sea, during a portion of which time all aboard suffered intensely from the heat,[2] they saw to the westward three mountain peaks, united at the base, rising up before them. Here, then, was to them the symbol of the Triune God—the Three in One—in whose name all had left their native land, and what more natural than that it should be named Trinidad—the Trinity? “Upon this,” writes the pious admiral, “we repeated the ‘Salve Regina,’ and other prayers, and all of us gave thanks to our Lord.”
What a grateful change it was from the extreme heat which they had endured, to the delightful climate of the newly discovered island. “When I reached the island of Trinidad,” I again quote from the Admiral’s letter, “I found the temperature exceedingly mild; the fields and the foliage were remarkably fresh and green, and as beautiful as the gardens of Valencia in April.”[3]
What so deeply impressed Columbus on his arrival at Trinidad was what likewise most impresses the visitor to-day—its mild climate and the beauty and luxuriance of its vegetation. Although the island is but little more than 10° from the Equator the mean annual temperature is not more than 77° F. In the mornings and evenings of the cooler season the thermometer is about 10° lower. During our sojourn of some weeks in Trinidad we never suffered from the heat. On the contrary, during our morning and evening drives, especially in the mountains, we found the ocean breeze delightfully refreshing.
Columbus was also much impressed by the natives of the island. They had a whiter skin—he had expected to find them very black—than any he had hitherto seen in the Indies and were very graceful in form, tall and elegant in their movements.
With the exception of a few scattered families, of more or less mixed descent, the visitor will find no evidence of the former existence here of that splendid type of Indian of whom the great navigator speaks so highly, and of whose race there were then on the island many thousands of souls. Here, as on the other islands of the West Indies, the aborigines have disappeared, never to return.
In their place we find the most cosmopolitan agglomeration of people under the sun—English, Germans, Spaniards, French, Chinese, Hindoos, and Negroes from the darkest Senegambian to the fairest Octaroon. About one-half of the population is composed of Negroes, one-third of Coolies, and one-sixth of whites of various nationalities and shades of color. As we contemplated the motley crowds which always throng the streets of the Port-of-Spain we could not but recall Lopez de Gomara’s curious reflections on the divers colors of the different races of men. We give his remarks in Richard Eden’s translation:
“One of the marueylous thynges that god ... vseth in the composition of man, is coloure; whiche doubtlesse can not bee consydered withowte great admiration in beholding one to be white and an other blacke, beinge coloures vtterlye contrary. Sum lykewyse to be yelowe whiche is betwene blacke and white; and other of other colours as it were of dyuers liueres. And as these colours are to be marueyled at, euen so is it to be considered howe they dyffer one from an other as it were by degrees, forasmuche as sum men are whyte after dyuers sortes of whytnesse: yelowe after dyuers maners of yelowe: blacke after dyuers sortes of blacknesse: and howe from whyte they go to yelowe by ... discolourygne to browne and redde: and to blacke by asshe colour, and murrey sumwhat lyghter then blacke: and tawnye lyke vnto the west Indian which are all togyther in general eyther purple, or tawny lyke vnto sodde quynses, or of the colour of chestnuttes or olyues: which colour is to them natural and not by theyr goynge naked as many haue thought: albeit theyr nakednesse haue sumwhat helped thereunto. Therfore in lyke maner and with suche diuersitie as men are commonly whyte in Europe and blacke in Affrike, euen with like varietie are they tawny in these Indies, with diuers degrees diuersly inclynynge more or lesse to blacke or whyte.”[4]
The Coolies interested us immensely, in whatever part of the island we met them—and they are to be seen everywhere—and were for us the subject-matter of constant study. They occupy an entire suburb of the Port-of-Spain, and, for those who are interested in sociological and economic questions, no place is more worthy of a visit. Day after day, when the delicious evening breezes began to sweep in from the ocean, we found ourselves directing our course towards the “Indian Quarter,” as it is called, and we always found something new to arrest our attention or excite our admiration. It required no effort whatever of the imagination to fancy ourselves in the crowded streets and markets of Benares or Madras.