248 



TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



tion in saying they are the best men of their sort I 

 have ever seen ; but of this later. When landed we 

 stroll up to an interesting village high up a gently 

 sloping hill from which a magnificent view can be 

 obtained. Toco is one of the places in Trinidad 

 which has progressed in a wonderful way ; it pos- 

 sesses some of the finest cocoa plantations in the 

 colony. 



In the old days, before Tobago was a ward of 

 Trinidad, I generally landed at Toco where the 

 steamer first touched before calling at Tobago, and 

 from thence rode along the range of steep hills to 

 Grand Eiviere and thence on to Matelot. I will here 

 describe one of these rides and relate an incident 

 connected with it. Mr. Bulmer, then Postmaster- 

 General of the colony, and I landed at Toco and in- 

 formed the captain of the steamer that we would 

 pick him up the next day at Matelot. Having 

 finished our respective inspections in our depart- 

 ments and the afternoon being yet young we deter- 

 mined to ride on to Grand Riviere and there pass the 

 night, which we did, and rode on the next morning 

 over a very interesting, although by no means com- 

 fortable, road and arrived in Matelot about 10 

 o'clock. Having inspected our separate depart- 

 ments and taken our breakfast, we found that we 

 had many hours to spare before the arrival of the 

 steamer to take us on board on our homeward jour- 

 ney. We were pretty tired, for, as I have said, the 

 ride is by no means an easy one. There was no 

 room in the police station, which was a very small 



