ARIMA. GUANAPE. 299 



the cacao. The soil of the plain consists, in most parts, of a coarse, 

 yellow clay, very retentive, and consequently cold : cortaderas, 

 melastomaceae, and timites grow in abundance, as also fine poui 

 and balata timber. Between the Guanape and Aripo, the soil is 

 of the worst description ; wild pine-apples, cortaderas, and timites, 

 are particularly abundant some of the timitales or timite-groves 

 resembling marshes. A small section of Guanape is covered over 

 with siliceous pebbles and a meagre vegetation. Arima and Gua- 

 nape are almost exclusively cultivated in cacao ; they also produce 

 some coffee; but the growth of provisions is much neglected, though 

 maize, plantains, yams, manioc, &c., grow to perfection in the best 

 tracts. There is also a great abundance of good timber, such as 

 carapa, yoke, olivier, and tapana, besides poui and balata, already 

 mentioned. These two wards are sparingly cultivated, and the popu- 

 lation scanty, on account of their bad soil. Guanape, Arima and 

 Tacarigua form, perhaps, the most healthy districts of Trinidad, and 

 newly arrived Europeans are not therein subject to the usual country 

 fevers, unless imprudent or addicted to intemperance. Several 

 natural savannahs are found in the ward of Arima viz. , Piarco, 

 Piarquito, Arima, and O'Mara : they produce but a coarse grass 

 upon which animals do not thrive. There is, in the ward of Guanape, 

 the small village of Maturita, on the banks of the Maturita 

 river, and skirting the Royal road ; also d'Abadie's village, and 

 that of Arima, in the ward of the same name. The latter village, 

 situated at the foot of the northern range, on the right bank of the 

 river Arima, and at the head of an extensive plain, sixteen miles 

 from Port-of- Spain, is well laid out; its streets are wide, and 

 intersect each other at right angles, a large square also being in 

 the centre of the village. It has its gaol and police station ; and 

 at the eastern side of the square stands the catholic church, built 

 of wood and tapia : the inhabitants are poor, the houses built of 

 hardwood and tapia, thatched with timites, and whitewashed, both 

 out and inside, with white clay. 



The village of Arima was, for a long time, an Indian mission. 

 Soon after the settlement of the colony, these Indians had been 

 formed into two missions, at Tacarigua and Arima. But as the 

 formation of ingenios, or sugar estates, was proceeding eastward, 

 they were removed to the quarter of Arima, where a village was 

 formed, and houses built by them, on about one thousand acres 

 which had been granted for the formation of a mission, along the 



