TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



181 



been impossible to go either backward or forward, 

 after the rain and thunderstorm from which I had to 

 take shelter. At " Calabash Hill " the people were 

 obliged to leave the road and pass through a cocoa 

 estate, to its great detriment. 



When Captain Baker was Inspector-Command- 

 ant of Police he made frequent excursions through 

 the length and breadth of the island. On one of 

 these journeys he, with a party, took ten days in per- 

 forming a journey from Arima to Blanchisseuse and 

 thence to Toco along the North Coast and back to 

 Arima ; it generally took five days. The small 

 wooden bridges which were to be met with on this 

 journey over ravines and small streams were in such 

 a rotten state that no less than seventeen gave way 

 under them, throwing some of the party into the 

 water. From that day forth every non-commissioned 

 officer of police in charge of a rural police station had 

 to send in a weekly report as to the state of the roads 

 and bridges in their respective districts, but that in- 

 formation was only useful to the police and Govern- 

 ment officials who asked for it ; the general public 

 had still to trust to luck. Anyway it had a good 

 effect, it sharpened the public works officials. This 

 description of the then state of the roads gives but a 

 faint idea of what were the hardships that travellers 

 and the smaller planters had to encounter in those 

 days ; many thousand pounds worth of fruit and vege- 

 tables were allowed to rot on the ground, a total loss 

 to the peasant proprietor, because he was not able to 

 get them out to the market. Compare that state of 



