"Then I'm glad it is winter now when we are going there."
"Yes; I think winter is the best season for paying a visit there," said her grandma.
"I suppose we are going to one of the towns," said Ned. "Aren't we, papa?" as his father drew near.
"Yes, to the capital, called Port of Spain. I was there some years ago. Shall I tell you about it?"
"Oh, yes sir! please do," answered both children, and a number of the grown people drew near to listen.
"It is a rather large place, having some thirty or forty thousand inhabitants. Outside of the town is a large park, where there are villas belonging to people in good circumstances. They are pleasant, comfortable-looking dwellings with porches and porticoes, gardens in front or lawns with many varieties of trees—bread-fruit, oranges, mangoes, pawpaws—making a pleasant shade and bearing delightful fruits; and there is a great abundance of flowers."
"All that sounds very pleasant, Captain," said Mr. Lilburn, "but I fear there must be some unpleasant things to encounter."
"Mosquitoes, for instance?" queried the Captain. "Yes, I remember Froude's description of one that he says he killed and examined through a glass. Bewick, with the inspiration of genius, had drawn his exact likeness as the devil—a long black stroke for a body, a nick for a neck, horns on the head, and a beak for a mouth, spindle arms, and longer spindle legs, two pointed wings and a tail. He goes on to say that he had been warned to be on the lookout for scorpions, centipedes, jiggers, and land crabs, which would bite him if he walked slipperless over the floor in the dark. Of those he met none; but the mosquito of Trinidad was enough by himself, being, for malice, mockery, and venom of tooth and trumpet, without a match in the world."