Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-08-22
A CARGO OF ASPHALT,
\ STICKY SUBSTANCE THAT IS
IMPORTED FOR OUR ROADS.

rrinidad's Lake of Boiling Pitch which
Is Used in Making Asphalt-Som ething
About the Island and It's Workers.
How the Stuff Is Handled.
The asphalt barks from the West Indies
are about the only vessels outside the coast
ing schooners that ever favor Washington
with visit. Two of them are lying of the
wharf at the foot Of New Hampshire ave
nue., and are well worth a visit.
Down in the hold the cargo looks like
the edge of dead lava field, black and
scanned, and apparently as hard as rock;
but the hardness is deceptive. Break up
bushel of the pitch, - as IL is known to the
trade, and pile the fragments on top of the
big asphalt field which fills the whole of
the lower deck, and By tomorrow morning
they would disappear, sunken slowly back
into the parent mass. This slow running
quality makes the cargo one of the most
detested among the captains in the island
trade, for when the ship has been listed
over to port or starboard for a couple of
days, while running before strong wind,
the whole cargo will quietly shift over and
have TO be broken up and trimmed back
to its proper position TO keep the ship on
even keel.
Trinidad, the island from which prac-
tically all the asphalt OF the world is now
drawn, is a British possession in the West
Indies. It was one of the little spots Of
terra firIna against which Columbus ran,
when in f49S he pushed his explorations
farther westward in search of that mari
ners' phantasm, the northwest passage.
The island was then inhabited solely by
Caribs, a wild and warlike but withal in
telligent, race, not unlike the North Amer
lean Indians, peculiar in their language,
which, like the Choctaw of our own west
ern tribe, has been mastered by few il any
white men. For many years the island
remained a neglected dependency of Spain.
with n constantly dwindling population,
mostly natives and imported negroes. In
1891 it passed into the hands of the British
government and has remained an English
colony since.
There are but two towns OF Importance
on the island-Port OF Spain and San Fer
nando. These live mostly by their inn
ports, the chief productions OF the island
beyond its own necessities being asphalt
and cocoanuts. The sugar crop is large.
but it does not pay TO export it. The pop
ulation OF the towns IS mixed. English is
the court language, but the majority OF
the people are negroes, descendants of the
old slave stock. who talk a pacois of min
gled French, Spanish and English that is
described as the most back handedest
lingo any heather ever invented.
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 cody. The
cody trade, which was originally insti-
tuted to furnish cheap labor for the plan
tations, was in former times a terrible dis
grace 70 the islands and partOok of more
than ali the horrors of the African slave
trade. Thousands of the miserable Asiat-
les We're sacrificed in the business by the
greed and iuhumanity of the masters who
brought them over and although imported
under the guise of a labor contract not
one in hundreds of them ever lived to re-
turn home. Stringent laws governing the
traffic are now enacted. however, and, what
is more to the purpose, are well enforced,
and many OF the coolies by the time they
have served their eight years contract out
are well TO DO citizens, being paid for their
work by the piece and saving nearly all
they earn.
The great pitch lake, 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 malariai, in
striking contrast to the high hills and rich
woodlands of the coast farther back. The
lake is owned by the British government
and leased by it to an American firm which
controls the trade for the United States.
Their present lease has forty-two years yet
10 run. The laborers are all negroes, even
the coolies shrinking from the heat and
low fevers of the place. The lake itself
is about mile in diameter, hard at the
edges and softening toward the middle.
The surface is continually changing, APP
parently from some subterranean action,
and little GASES of dry land and even trees
and shrubs will disappear in a single
night and fresh islands of soil be reared in
other places.
The lake is in all probability merely an
unusually large deposit of bitumen or soft
coal that has undergone its transforms
ton from decaying vegetable matter in
contact with water, and too near the sur
face for the earth pressure above to harden
it thoroughly. Hundreds of the negroes
the gear around toll at the lakes edge,
taking out cargo after cargo from the sup
ply that seems never to diminish. They
work under overseers of their own color
and are paid at the rate of seventy-two
cents a day. The asphalt crust is broken
up with picks and crowbars, and is loaded
on dump carts drawn by Il single sun dried
mule, in whom the constant boiling tenn
perature seems to have concentrated all
the native meanness of his species.
The carts crunch through IL long sandy
road down to the wharf at the waters
edge, where the load is dumped and carried
by wheclbarrows on board the lighters
which in turn carry it out TO the ships, ly-
ing half mile out in the shoal water.
The rough Jumps of pickings are hoisted
on board in baskets and piled i'll the hold,
where they sink down into Il compact mass,
requiring fresh filling the next day, and
SO on till The solid cargo is completed.
When the vessel reaches its port of dis
charge the asphalt has to be broken up
again before it can be removed from the
hold. Owing TO the viScuS quality of the
native pitch it has in the course of ages
filtered through the sandy soil around the
lakes, and of late the company has been
threatened by a rival which has bepun