40 
TRINIDAD. 
familiarly acquainted with Eng’lish, French, and Spanish,, 
and ninety-nine out of a liundred clerks can sell in 
these three different languages. Since the Coolies and 
Chinese have come into the country, many clerks have 
managed to learn to speak a few words of Coolie as they 
term it, meaning, of course, Bengali. They can just 
manage to count in Bengali, hut in the Tamil and 
Chinese nothing can be done. These languages are not 
very much spoken in buying, for the Chinese and 
the hladras or Tamil-speaking Coolies learn to speak 
English with much greater ease and quickness than their 
languages can be learnt by the people. I have heard some 
of the clerks speak some of the African dialects ; but 
generally there is not much occasion for this, as the 
African, especially the Yarriba, is apt in learning lan- 
guages. There are a good many Portuguese in the 
island, and many of them who speak only their own 
language. Any one, however, who is familiar -with 
Spanish can understand, and be understood by, a Por- 
tuguese. There seems to be more difference in the 
accent than in the vocabularies or structure of the two 
languages, the Spanish being both sweet and sonorous, 
while the Portuguese is to foreign ears drawling and 
nasal. 
The Chinese is, unquestionably, the most difficult of 
the languages we have here ; and the Chinese certainly 
have the advantage of understanding us, while we cannot 
hear a word they say. In such a Babel-like country inter- 
preters are needed. There are many of them, and much 
employment is found them in the courts* of law, and in 
business transactions. In the public papers French and 
Spanish correspondence is to be found; but for some 
years past the papers have ceased to appear, their 
articles printed in Englisii and French on opposite 
X>ages, as once they did. 
Ihiblic worship is conducted in three different lan- 
guages : in English by the Protestants generally ; in 
French by the Catiiolics in their discourses; and in Por.- 
