164 



TRINIDAD .* THEN AND NOW 



its boundaries. But it is still a wonderful thing for a 

 "West Indian town to have the mileage of its streets 

 extended from 32 to 58 miles in the space of 37 years. 

 In the same time the population of Port-of-Spain has 

 increased from 30,000 to 59,658, or nearly double. 



The streets at the time of my arrival, and for 

 many years afterwards, were in a wretched state, es- 

 pecially in the rainy season. Then some of them 

 were literally mire tracks, and as for the footpaths, 

 you could see where they ought to be, but otherwise, 

 they were grazing fields for goats, of which there was 

 an abundant supply always visible. To call them 

 footpaths for the use to which footpaths— as their 

 name indicates — ought to be put, was ridiculous ; 

 they were, if you like, man-traps with well concealed 

 holes. Fortunately there were no motor cars or 

 motor lorries then running wild about Port-of-Spain 

 as there are now, for if there had been no one's life 

 would have been safe, because all pedestrians had to 

 walk in the road proper as distinct from the foot- 

 paths. 



The side gutters, or street drains, were in a 

 wretched condition. They were paved with all sizes 

 and shapes of stones, simply laid down on the natural 

 soil, as it was called, over which the waste water — 

 and there was plenty of it — flowed continuously, af- 

 fording a comfortable resting place and singing 

 ground for the nice little frogs which so frequently 

 enliven the place of their habitation by their melo- 

 dious ( ?) piping. The overflow of this waste water 

 had a useful effect ; in the first place it kept down 



