The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-08-01
THE LAND OF ASPHALT.
An Island From Which Nearly All
OF This Useful Material Is
Taken.
THE Principal Wonder and Attrac-
ton Is a Great Lake Of
Pitch.
70 Trinidad M tho People Who
Live There.

IAvs There.
The asphalt banks from the West Indies
are about the only vessels outside the coast
ing sohooners that sver favor Washington
with . visit, says . writer In the Washing
ton Star. Two Of them are now lying Oh
the wharf 1t tho foot Of New Hampshire
avenue, and ara we'll worth = visit.
Down in the hold the cargo looks like
the edge Of a dead Laws field, black and
scanned. and apparently a. hard ~ rock;
but tho hardness Ia deceptive. Break mp 4
bushsl Of the ''pitch." ~ 1t il known to the
trade, and pile the Fragments on top of tho
big asphalt field which hlls this whole Of
the lower dock, and BY to- morrow morning
they would disappear, sunken slowly back
into the parent mass. This s~low-runninR
quality makes the cargo one of the most
detested among the captains in the island
trade. for whom tho ship has been listed
over to port or starboard for = couple Of
days, while running before q strong wind,
the whole cargo will quietly shift otski, and
have to be broken up and trimmed back to
it, proper position to keep the ship on even
keel.
Trinidad, the island from which practi-
cally al the asphalt Of the world 10 now
drawn, 10 a British possession in the West
Indies. II WAS one Of the little spots of
terra firma against which Columbus ran,
whom, in 1893. he pushed his explorations
farther westward in search of that mari
ner's phantasn. the northwest passage.
The island was then inh abited solely by
/ ~ .sl,a = mild or1 rvnr1ikn h,% u;ALnl L.
telligent race, not unlike the North Ameri-
can Indians. peculiar in their language,
which, like the Choctaw of our own western
tribe, has been mastered by few If any white
men. For many years the island remained
4 neglected dependency of Spain. with a
constantly dwindling population. mostly
natives aud imported negross. In 1897 it
passed into the hands of the British gov
eminent and has remained an English col
ony since.
There are but two towns Of Importance
on the island. Port Of Spain and San Fer
nando. These live mostly by their imports,
the chief productions of the island beyond
its own necessities being asphalt and cocoa
nuts. The sugar crop is large. but at the
present prices it does not pay to export it.
The population Of the towns 10 mixed. Eng
lish is the court language. but the majority
of the people are negroes. descendants of
the old slave stock. who talk a patois of
Juluk16O l. I6ADAt oRdlASA AAA AIAkAIoA UA0k
ia described az the most back-handedest
lingo any heather ever invented. The
negroes are, like those Of the United States,
beginning to feel their freedom, and on the
strength Of it getting tho biR-head in the
second or third generation. The resident
whites designate them as sassy" and as a
class unbsarablc when they have risen above
the stage of picking asphalt. This is true
Of all but the French negroes from Mar
Unique and the tricolor provinces. who BY
long association have acquired the suaye
manner of their former owners, and are all
Of them fit instructors for an ordinary
danoing-mastsr. Among them impolite-
ness is unknown.
Some of the original Caribs are still to be
found among the island people, but they are
rapidly disappearing, and IN their place Is
now seen the imported coolie. ,Jhe coolie
trade, which was originally instituted to
furnish cheap labor for the plantations. was
in former times a terrible disgrace to the
islands and partook OF more than all the
horrors of the African slave trade. Thou
sands of miserable Asiatios were sacrificed
in the business by the greed and inhuman-
ity Of the masters who brought them over.
and, although imported under guise of labor
contract. not one in hundreds of them ever
lived to return home. Stringent laws gov
erning the traffic are now enacted, however,
and. what is more to the purpose, are we'll
enforced, and many of the coolies by the
time they have served their eight years. con-
tract out are well-to-do citizens. being paid
for their work by the piece and saving near
ly all they earn.
The great pitch field. which is the chief
wonder and attraction of the island. is sit
uated in a low, sandy stretch Of the south
west coast. near Cape Corbaray. The sur
rounding country is low and malarial. in
striking contrast to the high hills and rich
lake is owned by the British government
and leased by it to the Barber Asphalt COM
pany. an American firm of immense capi-
tai. which controls the trade for the United
States. Their present lease has forty-two
years yet to run. The laborers are all ne
and low fevers of the place. The lake
itself is about a mile in diameter, hard at
the edges, and softening toward the middle.
The surface is continually changing, ap-
parently from some 6ubteiranean action,
and little GASES of dry land, and even trees
and shrubs will disappear in a single night,
and fresh islands or soil will be reared in
other places.
The lake is in all probability merely an
unusually large deposit Of bitumen or soft
coal that has undergone a Transformation
from deoaying vegetable matter in contact
with water. and too near the surface for the
earth pressure above to harden it thor
oughly. Hundreds of negroes the year
round toll at the lakes edge, taking out
cargo after cargo from the supply that
seems never to diminish. They work under
overseers of their own color, and are paid
at the rate of ~ cents a day. The asphalt
crust is broken up with picks and crowbars,
ind is loaded on dumpcarts, drawn BY u
single sun-dried mule, in whom the CON-
slant boiling temperature seems to conoen-
trated all the native meanness of his spe-
cies. The carts crunch through a long
sandy road Town to the wharf at the watet's
edge. where the load is dumped and carried
by wheelbarrows on board the lighters,
which in turn carry it out to the ships, ~
ing a half-mile out in the shoRl water. The
rough Jumps of piokings are hoisted on
board in baskets and piled in the hold,
where they sink down into a compact mass,
requiring a fresh filling tho next day, and
so on till the solid cargo is completed.