nature is written in vivid colours throughout the island’s tangled forests and deep, still lakes.
The enchanting island has a history brimming with romance. Its story contains the names of Columbus, its discoverer; Raleigh, who visited the place in search of a gold mine, and many of our famous old British sea-dogs. Trinidad started of course by being annexed to Spain; then France took the place and held it until just over one hundred years ago, when England claimed it as her own. The white inhabitants to-day are members of these three European races. The coloured people are pure negroes, Indian coolies, and Spanish, French and English half-breeds. The latter element is particularly strong. Consequently, in Trinidad there are many political agitators.
Visitors will land from their mail steamer at Port of Spain and find themselves in a foreign-looking British West Indian capital, in an atmosphere of tramways, telephones, suffocating heat, negroes, and spasmodic bustle and noise. It is a town containing buildings reminiscent of its Spanish, French, and British periods of Government. Houses in all the styles of each nationality will be found on every side. Each particular style of architecture has of course been West-Indianised—altered for comfort’s sake, and so stage-managed, as it were, that it is converted into style suitable for a living place in the fearful heat of the hottest island in the Indies. The tourist will find the market-place and a few interesting churches. He will feel that he has been landed into a hothouse. The atmosphere of Trinidad is like that of an English hothouse on a scorching summer-day. The brilliant foliage and the constant banks of gaudy blossoms will help to support the illusion. He will pant for breath and speedily seek the cool shelter of a heavy verandah. It may be that at first he will wish that he had not landed. But after an hour or two he will have become accustomed to the curiously-suffocating heat, and the beauty of the place will evidence to him the wisdom of his coming.
He will remain for a day or two in Port of Spain, and then in the course of many excursions he will visit the chief places of interest. The pitch lake is an inexhaustible sea of most valuable asphalt. Nearly two hundred thousand tons of this asphalt were exported last year: it is a most valuable commercial commodity, and one of the wonders of the island. Though it cannot be described as being beautiful, or even picturesque, this hundred-and-ten acre patch of fathomless bitumen is worth seeing. Commercially it is of the utmost value to the island, since the annual value of the pitch exported is something like one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The waterfall at blue basin should be seen by all who land in Trinidad. Nothing could be more fascinating than the heavy fall of this mass of water, which, emerging from a wooded tunnel, tumbles into a pool filled with rocks and walled by the heavy foliage of the greenest trees. It is a fairy glen filled with the gorgeous beauty of wildest tropical loveliness, and always echoing the strong music of falling water. You find the place by way of winding slippery paths; you approach it through a light haze of tinted mists, and when you stand face to face with the broad white streak of falling water you are half stunned by the noise and the heavy splashing. The beauty of the place is overpowering. The heavy noise of falling water is so out of place in that brilliant valley of languorous silence that it produces something in the nature of a discord—an entrancing, intoxicating discord.
There are other towns beside Port of Spain to visit. San Fernando, Arima, and Princestown should be seen if one’s visit is likely to be a long one. True, they are typical of all other little West Indian towns, but each contains an individuality—a something not held in common with other towns, so, if you can spare the time, see them all. Then there are the Maraval Reservoirs and the Five Islands.
Tobago is a little island attached to the Government of Trinidad. It is a healthy West Indian colony supporting a population of 20,000 souls, only about one hundred of whom are white. The industries of Tobago are purely agricultural: coffee, cocoa, and india-rubber are extensively cultivated. From the tourist’s point of view the little place is chiefly famous for its beautiful birds and butterflies. The angler can find many varieties of fish in its rushing streams, and fruits and vegetables grow in the richest profusion all the year round.
