92 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



Company, which had done so much to develop the Pitch 

 Lake, followed by the arrival of the Venezuelans appointed 

 by the Government men who knew just about as much 

 about managing a great Pitch Lake as they did about guiding 

 an aeroplane. We were told of the time long before the 

 advent of the Lugo family when for weeks it was necessary 

 to live always on the alert, with revolver ever ready for defence; 

 when the very men with whom one sat down at table were 

 capable of attempting to poison the food, in order to free 

 themselves of English-speaking men, who might perhaps 

 witness some ugly deed of treachery or defalcation. 



This is the very long story in a nutshell. We began then to 

 understand why the house was so fort-like in structure. It 

 had been built to withstand assault. Only a few months 

 before our visit it had been attacked by a party of Revolu- 

 tionists who hoped to find money in the company safe; and 

 five men had been killed and several injured. 



This thrilling tale was told in the emotionless matter-of- 

 fact way in which one might describe the moves in a game 

 of chess. 



From the moment our sloop sailed out of the harbor of 

 Port of Spain the memory of the old familiar every -day world 

 had seemed to grow dimmer and dimmer. Was it possible 

 that there really was such a place as New York City, with 

 its clanging street-cars, its trains and subways and elevated 

 roads thronged with people, en masse all as much alike as an 

 army of ants? At that very hour the New York Theatres 

 were pouring their gay crowds into the brilliantly lighted 

 streets. How far away it all seemed, down there in the great 

 primeval forest of another continent! We walked out under 

 the stars to the edge of the forest, black and mysterious, 

 teeming with the hidden life, which we were so eager to 

 study. Our world, for the present, was this forest wilder- 

 ness, stretching unbroken for mile upon mile, with only the 



