SOUTH NAPAUTMA. 307 



of rank weeds ; from three to four annual weedings only are 

 required to keep the cane-fields clean and in good condition. The 

 canes generally do not grow to a very large size ; but from 

 twenty to thirty shoots from the same stool ; and the richness of 

 the juice varies from sixteen to twenty-two per cent, of sugar. 

 The zapatero soil, though good, is not of the same extreme 

 fertility. The white soil forms, in a manner, the substratum of 

 the whole district ; it is a magnesian marl. Wherever it pre- 

 dominates, the canes are liable to wither from drought during 

 the dry season, but they grow and thrive during the rainy 

 weather. The principal defect of this soil seems to result from 

 its colour, which acts in checking the free absorption of heat, 

 while its power of reflection acts injuriously on the foliage of the 

 cane. Stable manure is the best corrective of this defect. That 

 the magnesian marl forms the substratum of a large tract 

 becomes evident wherever the superstratum has been removed by 

 one cause or another. Patches of this substance are met with 

 both on the brown and black soil. 



The river Cipero, which may be taken as the natural boun- 

 dary between North and South Naparima, is a small brook, muddy 

 and dried up during part of the year; it is formed by the 

 accumulation of waters that collect in the depressions of the 

 undulating land on both sides ; its bed is deep and the bottom 

 muddy. It is a tidal stream and, at high water, becomes navi- 

 gable for canoes and flats for about a mile from its entrance. It 

 has its outlet a little southward of San Fernando. The e?nharca- 

 dere, or shipping-place, is at the extreme end of the navigable 

 part, with storehouses for receiving the sugars from many estates 

 in the interior, ready for shipment. There are, besides this, two 

 other shipping-places which can also be approached at high tide, 

 viz., Aly's Creek on the Bel-air estate, at the mouth of a small 

 ravine; and Mosquito Creek, at the northern entrance of the 

 Oropuche lagoon. This lagoon — known also by the name of the 

 Great Lagoon — may be considered, as I have already stated, as 

 the main draining reservoir of the western division of the 

 southern basin. Many small streams bring down, from the 

 adjoining districts, the tribute of their water to the lagoon ; part 

 of this flows from the hills in the vicinity of Savanna Grande, 

 and part from the district of Siparia and the southern range. 

 The lagoon is about twelve miles in length, from east to west, 



