140 



TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



others in cultivating, the beautiful, and so improving 

 our beauty spots ? Tourists — and they ought to be 

 encouraged — who come to visit our country and en- 

 joy its climate do not come simply to see two pods 

 of cocoa grow where only one formerly grew, but 

 they come to appreciate and enjoy our suuny, healthy, 

 genial climate ; new and ever varying scenery ; our 

 curious fruits and produce ; our rare flowers and 

 plants ; the glory of their bloom ; the great diversity 

 of their colour and the hitherto undreamt of beauty 

 of all combined. 



But instead of this natural expectation being ful- 

 filled when they come they see our beauty-spots— or 

 what might have been our beauty-spots, if attended to 

 — neglected, and made the home of goats and the 

 patient donkey — no matter how picturesque they 

 may appear in their surroundings — lying under the 

 shade of rare trees and shrubs, or at least rare to the 

 visitor, and for which the wealthy portion of them 

 would willingly give a small fortune to have growing 

 in such luxuriance in the grounds surrounding their 

 homes. 



If these visitors miss seeing the things which 

 they expect to see, and find our squares kept in this 

 disgraceful condition, they will go away and com- 

 pare us to Goths or Ostro-Goths, untamed tribes of 

 whom they read in their school days, who descended 

 in hordes on the fair spots of Europe, devastating all 

 before them. If they have to compare you to these 

 or something worse, they will turn their backs upon 



