254 



TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



two ago a little engine-house. Now roof, beams, 

 machinery, were all tumbled and tangled in hideous 

 and somewhat dangerous ruin, over a shaft, in the 

 midst of which a rusty pump-cylinder gurgled, and 

 clicked, and bubbled, and spued, with black oil and 

 nasty gas ; a foul ulcer in Dame Nature 's side, which 

 happily was healing fast beneath the tropic rain and 

 sun. The creepers were climbing over it, and a few 

 years more the whole would be engulfed in forest, 

 and the oil-spring, it is to be hoped, choked up with 

 mud. 



1 1 This is the remnant of one of the many rash 

 speculations connected with the Pitch Lake. At a 

 depth of some two hundred and fifty feet 'oil was 

 struck,' as the American saying is. But (so we were 

 told) it would not rase in the boring, and had to be 

 pumped up. It could not, therefore, compete in 

 price with the Pennsylvanian Oil, which, when tap- 

 ped, springs out of the ground itself, to a height 

 sometimes of many feet, under the pressure of the 

 superincumbent rocks, yielding enormous profits 

 and turning needy adventurers into millionaires 

 though full half of the oil is sometimes wasted for 

 want of means to secure it. 



il We passed the doleful spot with regret 



for the good money which had been wasted ; but with 

 a hearty hope, too, that whatever natural beauty 

 may be spoilt thereby, the wealth of these asphalt 

 deposits may at least be utilized. ' ' 



If Kingsley had been alive to-day he would have 

 seen his hopes realized to the full and he would not 



