274 



Cacao, chopping branchwood for faggots or fuel, &c., without which light 

 and handy implement no one here would think of entering the forest or any 

 bush land. It is in the form of a broad bladed sword without guard, plain 

 wooden handle rivetted with a slightly recurved acuminate point, scab- 

 bardless and is sold by the importing ironmongers at from i8c. to 40c. 

 each. 



{e.) Lance. The usual lance of the Trinidad bush-hunter, the most 

 effective known to him, than which he wishes no better, is the bayonet of 

 an old Brown Bess mounted on a straight five feet pole of tough hard 

 wood, cut in the forest, and shaped and fitted at leisure in his Ajoupa or 

 cabin home. 



(/.) Coffee-Digger.. This straight, narrow, strong, flat-bladed imple- 

 ment [luchette in patois, chicuara of the 'panyoles) made originally perhaps 

 in England for drain-cutting, is employed here for digging coffee-holes and 

 for transplanting young coffee, loosening and lifting the plant with a ball of 

 earth attached as much as possible with unexposed or unbroken roots. 

 This grubbing spade is alway.s taken by the hunter who hopes to meet a 

 lapp or tatou (armadillo or hog-in-armour of the 17-18 century planters). 

 With it he digs down to the game in the tunnel he has burrovv^ed and 

 retreated into. When the back of the animal is exposed to view, the 

 digger is thrown aside to give the coup de grace to the poor beast by the 

 lance (the old bayonet) ; then the hole is widened to draw it to grass. 



{g.) Peon. A very useful class of men, who entered the colony from 

 the western side of the Gulf in considerable numbers during the desperate 

 struggle for independence from the hated rule of Spain by the Creoles of 

 Venezuela in the early part of the century. They appear to have settled 

 largely in the Quarter of Couva, spreading gradually North, South, and 

 East into Montserrat. Being good woodmen, they were muc'h employed 

 by the proprietors of that day in throwing down forest and opening land 

 for new estates. Squatting in the wild and neglected backlands, they 

 carved out conucoes in the woods, growing roots, corn and plantains for 

 daily provision, and cacao for a permanent crop. They, I should now 

 rather say the descendents of the original peons, are unequalled in the 

 speed and neatness with which they underbrush and establish a cacao- 

 piece. The peonaje of the main are descended from Indian (aboriginal) 

 mothers by fathers of the early Spaniards. 



(/;.) Quank. Dicotyles Tajacii, or Collared Peccary of naturalists, called 

 here (to distinguish it from £J. /ay/a/j/s Cuv. or White lipped Peccary of 

 literature, the ' Small Red Quank' of our swamps) ; the ' Big Gray Quank' 

 (Cuenco) being gray all over, collar included. 



(/.) Lapp. (Labba of Demerara)'Ci?/oo'i,';;3's Para L. In general estima- 

 tion, the best mammal flesh in the Island. Still abundant in many parts 

 of the Island, disappearing by degrees in the settled Wards. 



{].) The hnmortel (more commonly shortened to 'Mortel) Tree. Two 

 species are used by the Trinidad planter, to shade the delicate cacao-tree : 

 the Anauco {Erythrina velutina Willd.) the tall clean stemmed tree with 

 a small head of branches high above the tops of the cacao and the low 

 branching Bucare [Erythrina umbrosa L.) which shades the tender cacao 

 much better in its early years, but gives much trouble in trimming 

 to reduce the shade when too umbrageous, done also to avoid the need 

 there would otherwise be to remove the lower branches when they had 

 grown so large and heavy that their fall at that stage could not be effected 

 without breaking the cacao branches beneath them. Yet despite the 

 increased labour and and cost, many planters in low grounds prefer the 

 bucare to the anauco. In character and appearance of wood and seed, these 

 two species differ but little from each other to the common eye. 



(A.) Silk Cotton tree. Eviodendron anfractuosiim D.C. An immense tree 



