72 SEA FISH OF TRINIDAD 



tress, firing six cents rum, or love passages with his " ma com- 

 m^re"), I strolled about Cunape village, as Sangre Grande 

 is locally called, to see what changes had occurred in four 

 years. My impressions were that business had increased, 

 judging from the nimiber of fresh "shacks" that had been 

 run up and the congested confusion of carts, barrels and 

 boxes, etc., but the proportion of loafers, that is, five to 

 every one working-man or woman, was imaltered. Every 

 provision shop, and their name was legion, held loafers of all 

 sorts who did nothing (as far as I could see), but sit round on 

 barrels or lean up against the counters and doors gossiping and 

 living seemingly on the combined smells of the shop, which 

 were undeniably strong, and afforded probably all the nour- 

 ishment these idle ones needed. Outside one of these tem- 

 ples, I saw a man, very drank indeed, and it was yet early in 

 the day, and finding his face familiar to me as that of an old 

 wood-squarer, I asked Harris, to whom he had spoken a few 

 maudlin words, if he were not in that line of business. Harris 

 answered that he was a detective, which left me furiously to 

 think over the Machiavellian methods of the Trinidad Police 

 Force. The messages having been made we got under way, 

 the faithful Harris acting as Jehu. 



Wheeling to the right, before the Court-House, passing 

 the Cunape River over the Brooklyn Bridge, we gallantly 

 breasted the hill leading to the official portion of Sangre 

 Grande. Here, near the Catholic Church I was struck by 

 one of the first emblems of progress, a large unfinished build- 

 ing which looked as if the designer had intended primarily to 

 erect a replica of the "Taj Mahal", but, having changed his 

 mind, had chopped it up into little cubicles like a Chinese 

 gambling house. Harris, who I found was brimful of 

 information, told me that the building had been designed 

 and erected by an Indian fellow citizen, a remote descendant 

 of " the Lion of the Punjaub," at least his name had the same 

 terminative Singh, who had amassed unto himself many 

 shekels and was determined to show "dem half -bit buccra" 

 of Trinidad how to build a house. Up past the houses of the 

 official dignitaries, D. M. O., Warden, etc., over the Sangre 

 Grande River, and again up the hill where the flourishing 



