V 



HOME BY THE ISLANDS 



The remaining two ports of call are once more 

 insular, though Trinidad, the first of them, is no 

 part of the Antilles, either Windward or Leeward, 

 but a detached fragment of South America. Hardly 

 has the Tagus won clear of the Venezuelan shallows 

 before, ploughing her way through mud sent down 

 by the mighty Orinoco, she finds herself at rest off 

 Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad. 



It is a lovely island ; sugar and pitch are its 

 wealth, and colour is less in the ascendant than in 

 Jamaica, though the groups of Hindoo coolies on the 

 countryside, and even in the capital, lend an Asiatic 

 touch to the picture, accentuated by the apparition 

 of Indian cattle grazing in the shady savannah. 

 We are almost out of the trade-winds here, and 

 the steamy climate recalls the lowlands of Ceylon. 



Dinner at the Queen's Park Hotel is followed 

 by a walk round the savannah, with clouds of fire- 

 flies rising before our feet. A sharp downpour of 

 rain drives us back to the hotel. It generally rains 

 at Port of Spain, and the damp and heat combined 

 make a very trying climate, as a relief from which 

 residents take their short leave at Barbados. 

 There is no harbour to speak of; merely an open 

 roadstead, and the R.M. vessels lie two or three 



miles from the landing. 



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