352 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
thousands of acres of land of the highest character, a great deal 
of which has been already purchased, and is merely waiting tor 
a few bridle tracks to be laid out, to give the people an oppor- 
tunity to settle on them and cultivate them. But with regard 
to the basin of the Nariva, I can speak with more certainty, 
because for upwards of twelve months I was constantly camping 
out in that district, and travelling over it in etfery direction. 
In a few words I will describe the main features. The fertile 
soil of Tamana extends also in fingers and toes some way down 
to the south, but there are stretches of rather hard gravelly soil 
in between. But more to the south you find the broad vegas of 
the Nariva, the Cush and the Charuma. Here there are again 
thousands of acres of most fertile vega soil in the broad valleys 
of these rivers, capable of growing cacao in abundance, and 
these vegas extend to the Nariva swamp. But it is rather to 
the country lying still more to the south that I would direct 
vour attention; there we find large tracts of country in which 
hills and dales are all fertile to the highest degree. This district 
is the El Dorado of Trinidad and a considerable quantity of land 
along the Mayaro trace has been taken up. The railway 
was designed to pass through the fertile Nariva valley 
and along the outskirts of the fertile undulating country. 
To the south of this in the valley of the Ortoire, and to the 
cast of it towards Mayaro, the land" becomes sandy, stony and 
comparatively barren, to improve again as you actually arrive 
near the sea-coast of Mayaro. The vega of the lower Ortoire 
seems to be too sandy to allow of cocoa cultivation. At 
the present time this vega is covered with forests of Mora 
timber, and it is possible that timber of a still more valuable 
kind might be grown in the district — but leaving out of account 
the possibility of these lands being utilized, I consider I am 
making a safe estimate in saying that omitting the Oropuche 
district, the south-east central district contains as much good 
land suitable for cocoa cultivation as all the rest of the island 
put together, and all that the planter requires to induce him 
to buy it and work it, is a hundred miles of ten feet bridle 
tracks converging on the Tabaquite terminus. In one part of 
the district the Warden of Savana Grande must have opened 
up one hundred miles of traces for roads on excellent sites, not 
always on the rigid scientific system I advocate along the 
natural lie of the country, but as well as the exigencies of the 
sale of Crown Lands permitted him — and at a mere fraction 
of the cost which I estimate as necessary to make a decent 
bridle track. These traces have been of the greatest utility to 
the planter, and have resulted in the sale and opening up of 
large districts which, without those traces would now be still 
undeveloped Crown Lands. In other districts spaces 30 feet 
