The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-04-26

and Journal)
Plymouth Tobago Island, b. w. l..
March q, 1902.
The tourist who visits Trinidad nat
urally turns his face next to Tobago-
another British possession, less than
twenty miles away and the very last Of
the Windward group. The tiny domain,
which France coded to Great Britain
nearly a century and half ago, is only
thirty miles long by half as broad, and
is seldom heard of by the world at
large except as one of the disputed
places of Robinson Crusoes exile, Co
lumbus christened it Assumption,
1893; but the name was changed by the
first Europeans who came this way, on
account of an indigenous weed which
the natives called "Tobago'' and used
Unfortunately. Everybody knows that it
was the tobacco of to-day, and we need
not go into its history here, or specu-
late whether the discovery has proved
blessing or curse.
No wonder that later visitors have
dubbed Tobago ''the Melancholy Iselei"
Approached from any direction it pre-
SCENTS the most desolate, gloomy and
forbidding aspect Imagination can con-
ccive-a mass of wild, rough rocks, ris-
ing out of the sea in towering preci-
pices; a central ridge like a colossal
back bone, with vertabrae Of jagged
stupenduous cliffs, gradually broaden
ing into valleys as they descend to the
shore and mostly filled with dark,
primeval forest Sailing around the ISL
and at little distance you can discern
scarcely break in the serried ranks of
magnificent trees, except where bare
precipices rise straight up out of the
water to the forests that crown their
SUBMITS, But a nearer view dispels
some of the gloom. Between the bluffs
are many small harbors, none of them
distinguishable until you are close upon
them. Rounding the sharp corner of
some gull-haunted cliff, against which
surf beats with ceaseless roar, you sud
denly find yourself in tranquil waters,
environed by crescent of silver beach,
with little town on its edge, and be-
yond its billowing cane-fields. or the
dense, mysterious forest, Innumerable
streams tricSle, rush or leap down the
rivulets. watering the valleys abundant
ly and making them extraordinarily
fertile wherever cultivated. Tobago is
beyond the range of hurricanes that so
often sweep the Leeward islands; but is
said to be extremely unhealthful to the
Saxon race-probably because of CEN
turtles of spontaneous vegetation decay
ing in the hot moist air of the tropics
Nothing is produced on the island but
sugar, molasses and runl-unless we in
clude black pigs and blacker picanin-
MES, rolling around together in incredi-
BILE numbers. wherever is ag roup of ma
tive huts
Scarborough, the colonial capital and
chief town, is pleasantly situated on the
shore of Rockley Bay, near the south
west angle of the island: but for some
unguessable reason the Royal Mail
Steamers (the only vessels which regu-
larly visit the place. always disembark
at Plymouth-an insignif-
cant village on the opposite shore of
the C shaped bay six miles from the
Capitol. Immediately back of Scar |
borough and almost overhangng it, is a
queer, sugar-loaf hill, springiug up to
the height of nearly five hundred feet, |
topped by the long dismantled Fort |
King George, which figured we'll in the |
wars instructions and pirate raids of |
it's prime and is now preserved as an |
honored relic. Below it, lesser hill |
spurs slope gently to the shore, ending
N a long, low, perpendicular bluff, |
fringed with thickets of wild bamboo. |
Behind this bluff and hidden from the |
sea, are lines of grap-gabled houses |
ranged in streets; and to the left are |
,ane- fields, stretching away over the |
foot hills far back TO the for
est their pale gold against the dark
green background wonderfully bright |
anng and somber landscape
In half an hour you may see all there |
$ of interest nj Tobagos' Capitol. while |
he steamer is taking on it's usual cargo |
If rum. molasses and crude sugar I |
recommend you to time the excursion in
he early morning, if possible, or in the
ate afternoon, for the hills are many
md steep and the thermometer eternal
Y sky-larkins among the nneties. The
government house is prettily situated
N an elevation half a mile or more
Jack of the city The mysteries of
english Colonial rule include a lieuten-
who acts as vice to the
governor of Barbados and receives
alary equal to about that # half a doz-
N state governors in Uncle Sans do
main; a legislative council, and a House
# Assembly, composed of sixteen elect
ID members. Although the population
las never exceeded fifteen thousand,
here are a score of churches in the
own. including nine Episcopalian. six
Wesleyan and several Moravisn. The
Whole island contains less than ten
thousand people-mostly a highly color
d mixture of African and Carib, with
ardly a white resident among them,
he owners of the planta lions preferring
o live in nearby Port of Spain, on
trinidad, leaving their properly in
barge of mulatto oversers. The
'ohagoans are q remarkably peaceahle
ous and industrious set. compared
With the majority of West India blacks, !,
nd though Englands rule is not osten-