THE GRAND SAVANNAH. 295 



the Montserrat hills. The prisoners are employed in cutting 

 wood, hauling timber, and conveying logs to the railway 

 station. A tramway, about six miles long, from the depot 

 to the sea, has been established, and is maintained partly by the 

 Government and partly by the planters, for the transport of 

 timber, supplies to the estates, and produce. Chaguanas owes 

 its prosperity — nay, its very existence as an agricultural district — 

 to this tramway. Cartage by the road during the wet 

 season was simply impossible. There is a station at Chaguanas, 

 seventeen miles from town. 



From the south-eastern boundary of Port-of- Spain to the 

 ward of Chaguanas included, for about eleven miles along the 

 sea- shore, and from three to five miles in depth, extends an 

 immense mangrove swamp, and further inland the Grand 

 Savanna. This latter covers an area of several miles, say 20,000 

 acres. It is more or less completely submerged during the rainy 

 season, and to such an extent at times as to preclude communica- 

 tion across. Some portions are boggy, so that a sort of undu- 

 lating movement is communicated to the entire surface by a 

 person walking or even treading on the treacherous crust. The 

 savanna may be said to commence a few hundred yards from the 

 river Caroni. 



About two miles south of the river is a large pond of fresh 

 water, called the Bejucal ; this pond swarmed with fish, and 

 immense quantities of Cascarduras (Callichthys) were taken in it 

 annually. The quantity has lately greatly diminished, the 

 coolies damming out or even poisoning the streams for the 

 purpose of securing even the smallest fry. The manner adopted 

 for fishing in the Bejucal was as follows : The fisherman made 

 a sort of raft of rushes, and then anchored out in the deep 

 water, throwing his cast-net, which he generally withdrew fully 

 laden with fish. It is from the Bejucal that Dr. Court procured 

 the two specimens of the Pipafrog, which can be seen at the 

 council-room. Westward of the Bejucal is the Cascarduras 

 hole, in the centre of a bog. 



The savanna extends westward to the river Chaguanas, or 

 Madame Espagnole. Westward of the savanna, and along the 

 sea-board, is that extensive mangrove swamp, already mentioned, 

 dotted over with ponds of salt or brackish water — some of them 

 pretty large — and cut up by a network of canals. Cipriani's canal 



