88 
TRINIDAD. 
from wind and rain by a leaning roof. I have seen 
some of these tents, and really they are strange looking 
places for men to pass three or four nights in. A fire 
is ever kept burning, both to smoke the meat when the 
animal is caught, and to keep away the mosquitos and 
sand-fiys, wdiich are very tantalising, and but for the 
smoke no sleep could be obtained. Fortunately for the 
hunter these small folk cannot stand the smoke, while 
the men can. The men who go into the woods must be 
butchers and curers as well as huntsmen, for if their 
game were not cleaned, laid open, the bones almost 
separated from the flesh, salted and smoked, all their 
quarry would be spoilt and their labour lost; the 
object of the hunter being to remain sufficiently long to 
enable him to catch, kill, and cure as many cuencos and 
lapos as he can carry home in his wire. The wild meat 
when thus cured sells from 15c. to 20c., that is, from 7|d. 
to lOd. per lb. 
During the day the men hunt the cuenco, which is a 
somewhat ferocious animal, and when a large band of 
them is met, our hunters must beat a retreat, or climb a 
tree, or these infuriated hogs will rend them in pieces. 
The deer and lape, having no tusks, trust to their speed 
for safet}', but a dog, or a bramble, or'a gun, often settles 
tlie matter. 
As we are now on the subject of hunting, it may be 
as well to speak of the sister craft of fishing. Fishing 
is a sport that extends from catching minnows in a brook 
to harpooning whales in deep seas, at the risk of life. 
It is of the latter sport, or rather serious business, we 
would speak. 
On the islets forming the “bocas,” which stand as 
sentinels to guard the entrance into the gulf of Faria, 
are established several whale fisheries. In search of 
health I went as far as these islets, and saw on several 
occasions the dangerous Avork of the whalers. The life 
of a whaler is a hard one eA^erywhere, but under a tro- 
])ical sun it must be excessively fatiguing. They haA^e 
