Margarita. 



A HEALTH RESORT. 



By Dr. J. F. Chittenden, C.MJZ.S., Trinidad. 



100 Lj dry, salubrious, pi6luresque, a land over- 

 flowing with all the material requirements of 

 human existence, its population industrious, 

 prosperous and most hospitaMe. Such is the description 

 we commonly get in Trinidad of this most interesting 

 island. On the other hand many will tell you that it is a 

 land of poor fisher folk, with drought, famine and desola- 

 tion continually staring them in the face, most inac- 

 cessible, unfit for human habitation except on the hardest 

 conditions ; where the fowls taste of fish, the sheep and 

 goats arc but skin and bone, and the only creatures fit to 

 exist are lizards and tumble bugs. Having recently visited 

 the island it occurred to me that a plain and unvarnished 

 description might be useful and possibly interesting to 

 valetudinarians and others in such humid and feverish 

 climates as Trinidad and Demerara, so without further 

 preamble I will ask the reader to go back to the 12th 

 06lober, 1893, and accompany me from the jetty at 

 Port-of-Spain. 



I had a choice of vessels, French and Dutch Packets, 

 and English Cargo Steamers (Tramps). I sele6led 

 one of the latter (Knott's line) because it possessed 

 the great recommendation that the passage cost half 

 the money and was twice as comfortable as on the 

 great ocean " swells." We weighed anchor at 6 p.m. and 



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