TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



11 



angostura, yet it has nothing to do with the name or 

 manufacture of the compound about which we havte 

 been speaking ; it derives its name exclusively from 

 the old town of Angostura, on the banks of the 

 mighty Orinoco which finds its source away up in 

 the interior of South America till it, in some places, 

 joins the still mightier Amazon in the same vast 

 continent. This town of Angostura changed its 

 name to Bolivar in honour of General Bolivar, after- 

 wards called ' El Libertador,' who with the help of 

 a gallant band of English, Irish and Scotch generals 

 rescued the present 6 Estados Unidos de Venezuela 9 

 from the rule of Spain, some years after Trinidad 

 was conquered by the English, and it now forms a 

 not insignificant republic. In honour of that event 

 Bolivar created an order which he called ' el Busto 

 del Libertador,' a decoration which I had the hon- 

 our of having had bestowed on me in May 1889 as a 

 recognition — which the then President, Rojas-Paul, 

 deemed that I had merited — for services rendered to 

 the government of that republic. Dr. J. G. B. Siegert, 

 the inventor of the celebrated 6 bitters,' built a 

 large factory for its manufacture in the old town 

 of Angostura and named his celebrated compound 

 after that town. His heirs carried on the busi- 

 ness there until a short time before my advtent 

 to Trinidad, when, for some reason which I do 

 not know, they removed it to Port-of-Spain, the 

 capital of Trinidad, where it is now carried on 

 by his successors under the same name and flour- 



