94 



most interminable line of green mangroves, over Avhicli at a 

 great distance can be descried an estate's tall chimney pouring 

 out volumes of inky smoke. Further still the heights of Mont- 

 serrat begin to peer through the mist. More southerly San Fer- 

 nando Hill like a dark cloud appears to lightly rest upon the 

 waters; to the south again dark dots indicate the coast line to 

 Iccacos Point. How wonderfully clear the atmosphere appears 

 as we look southward. Such is the scene jjresented to us as 

 Urich and myself stand on the Queen's Wharf Jetty superinten- 

 ding the packing of our provisions and other impedimenta on 

 board a pair oared boat. The clocks are jiist chiming six as we 

 settle ourselves down in the sternsheets and directly afterwards 

 we are being propelled as fast as two pairs of strong arms can 

 pull towards the mouth of the Caroni. The time occupied in 

 covering the distance, which cannot be more than three miles 

 is busily employed in getting cartridges ready and arranging a 

 cunningly devised wire snare on the end of an eighteen foot 

 bamboo. The estuary of the Caroni is almost imperceptible to 

 the stranger owing to the many bends in the river and the long 

 stretch of mangrove swamp through which it meanders, presen- 

 ting an apparently almost unbroken coastline for many miles. 

 It is, however, sutiiciently well marked out to the boatmen Avho 

 take shooting j^arties thither and to the mangrove woodsman 

 whose search for daily bread induces him to pass half his days 

 in the swamps cutting lire-Avood and making the charcoal indis- 

 pensable to Trinidad cookery. These people steer by the marks 

 afforded by the mud stranded logs and tree trunks, the bare and 

 weather beaten branches of which afford comfortable resting 

 places to gull and pelican gorged with fish caught about these 

 mild banks. Such a scene as this is rather dispiriting but it is 

 soon left far behind as our oarsmen row straight for the shore in 

 which an opening gradually appears and, suddenly almost, we 

 find our boat has entered a smoothly llowing muddy stream 

 about twenty yards wide, the banks of which are invisible 

 for the mangroves Avhich grow in the shallow water. Up 

 this stream we slowly but easily make our Avay. The sun is 

 shining brightly and now and again his rays are reflected 

 from the scaly sides of huge fish*-' as they leajD out of the water 

 and descending Avith resounding splashes send little wavelets 

 rippling over the muddy Avater in far extending circles. Again 

 and again the fish leap as if in mere playfulness and joy, inspired 

 by the freshness of the morning, or are they feeding on the 

 numerous insects Avhich are flitting oA^er the surface near the 

 banks '? " Could they not be taken Avith a fly ?" I ask, "such 



Called by the French Creoles Grande Ecaille. 



