-i 



22 To the River Plate and Back 



At sunrise on the morning of the nth of November 

 we were steaming into the harbor of Port of Spain. 

 The scenery, the cloud-effects, the wealth of color in 

 sky, on land, on water, produced a charming impression. 

 The luxuriance and density of the vegetation attracted 

 attention even from the deck of the steamer. Sir 

 Frederick Treves, in his charming book, The Cradle of 

 the Deep, says of the island : 



Seen across the gulf, Trinidad is an island of a thousand 

 hills, of incessant peaks and ridges, and of a maze of winding 

 valleys. From the sea-margin to the sky-line it is one blaze 

 of green, the green not of grass, but of trees. . . . Here is a 

 very revel of green, clamoring and unrestrained, a "bravery" 

 of green, as the ancients would call it, a green that deepens 

 into blue and purple, or that brightens into tints of old gold 

 and primrose yellow. Here are the dull green of wet moss, 

 the clear green of the parrot's wing, the green tints of old 

 copper, of malachite, of the wild apple, the bronze green of 

 the beetle's back, the dead green of the autumn Nile. 



Trinidad was discovered by Christopher Columbus on 

 his third voyage on July 31, 1498. He and his com- 

 panions had endured great discouragements and hard- 

 ships. The winds had either been contrary, or had 

 failed them. For a long time they had been becalmed, 

 drifting, always drifting, in that mighty equatorial 

 current which, sweeping up along the northern coast of 

 South America, whirls around in the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and then pours out around the southern tip of Florida, 

 and spreads itself over the North Atlantic to give 

 warmth to the people of Europe, and make their lands 

 habitable. Christopher Columbus knew nothing of all 

 this, however. He really did not know where he was. 

 Drifting, hoping, despairing, at last the cry came from 



