GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION. 79 



navigation. More than once vessels beating up for Port of Spain 

 have run aground on its mud-bank. These shallows are formed 

 by the gradual accumulation of stumps, branches, and even entire 

 trees, carried down the stream during the rainy season, and 

 which, sticking in the soft ground, remain to form an embankment 

 with the alluvial deposits; such accumulation and deposits are 

 greatly aided by the nearly constant direction of the prevailing 

 winds, there being no surf at all along the western coast to dis- 

 turb the formation* of such deposits. On the other hand, to the 

 eastward, where a heavy surf incessantly rolls over the beach, 

 also to the northward and southward, where the coast is generally 

 bluff and the shores steep, all the rivers, with the exception of the 

 Labranche, which empties itself under the cover of a rocky hill, 

 have, across their mouths, bars of sand, resulting from the an- 

 tagonism of the waves and the currents of the streams. The 

 consequence is, that such of our rivers as are of a depth sufficient 

 to admit small craft can be entered only at high tide, when 

 there is a sufficiency of water on the bars and shallows to allow of 

 their being crossed. During the dry season, some of the rivers 

 thus obstructed by bars, become lost in the sandy beach, and may 

 be said to ooze into the sea ; of this, the Oropuche is an instance. 

 The shallow at the mouth of the Caroni sometimes forms a species 

 of dyke from one to two feet high. The beds of many of these 

 rivers are so much beneath the level of the sea, through the 

 greater part of their courses, that, in the dry months, they are 

 quite salt ; in the wet season, however, the torrents of rain pour- 

 ing into them force out the salt water, and they become perfectly 

 fresh. The Guataro is said to be salt, during the dry season, for 

 eighteen miles upwards. 



The above brief and general view of the geography of Trinidad 

 shows that the island is of a nearly rectangular form, and that it 

 is divided, by nature, into two great valleys running east and 

 west, and of almost the same form and extent. As a result of 

 the direction of the middle range, the northern valley is more 

 contracted at its eastern, and the southern at its western, 

 extremity. Each of these two valleys is subdivided into two 

 secondary basins of unequal areas the Caroni basin being more 

 extensive than that of Oropuche, and the Guataro basin than that 

 of Sipero. 



Well marked is the contrast between these two portions of 



