TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



21 



' ' A handful of colonists cut off from all commu- 

 nication with the mother country, and consequently 

 deprived of the means of repressing their savage 

 neighbours, could not be expected to preserve always 

 their original characteristics. They would either be 

 exterminated by hostilities or driven to amalgamate 

 with the natives : probably both causes led to the un- 

 fortunate result. ' ' 



That Columbus was the first European who dis- 

 covered Trinidad, so far as we have any record, is an 

 undoubted fact ; but that he also found it inhabited 

 " by a well-formed race with long hair and fairer 

 complexion than any Indians hitherto seen," is also 

 certain. He called these places of his discovery the 

 " West Indies " because he believed them to be near 

 to India. 



The discovery of a new hemisphere, — hitherto 

 only suspected by the greater part of the inhabi- 

 tants of Europe — by Cristobal Colon, or as he is now 

 familiarly called Christopher Columbus, and the 

 progress of the Spaniards in the conquest of it, 

 has been deservedly the theme of a long series 

 of histories in the several languages of Europe. 

 This subject has from time to time been resumed 

 and illustrated by a host of writers, some of 

 eminence and some not ; some from their personal 

 knowledge but the majority from books which they 

 have either read or copied from as they wrote. 

 Others have also written after a residence of a few 

 months or as many days — in some cases, after pass- 

 ing through, as a tourist might. And it has been 



