The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-04

1 lighttuI Voyaging anywhere than the | approach to Trinidad Passing through | the narrow channel called Boca del l Draga C'Dragon's Mouth'), between tall, dark cliffs crowding clcse on either side, you entre the magnificent Paria. 1 Gulf-the great embrochure of the Orinoco, itself a land-locked harbor,
 ninety by forty miles, shallow enough for ships to anchor anywhere. Imagine
 ninety miles of the bluest blue that Na- ture ever painted-an ultramarine so vivid that the summer sky above it looks pale and faded. Imagine on one
 side the Venezuelan mountains of
 Cumara-rugged, mysterious, im-
 penetrable, their summits lost in the , clouds; on the other side the towering
 cliffs of Trinidad, crowned with wr5aths
 of vapor and covered to their tops with
 gigantic trees of darkest verdure, ex-
 cept where flushed in places with the
 crimson bois immortelle. Sunny valleys
 unfold between the mountains, golden
 with Sugar-cane or green with cocoa
 palms and tropical jungles. Mangroye
 thiclets outline silvery beaches, the
 aces standing knee-deep in the water,
 at their old tricks of turing oysters out
 of the depths when the tide is in, to
 cling to the submerged branches and
 be left high and dry when the tide re-
 cedes. You remember that Columbus
 wrote of the curious phenomenon he
 found here of ''oysters growing on
 trees'
 The celebrated "Draga' has four
 mouths. each with craggy islets scatter
 ed through it like br oken teeth-all
 tufted with cacti and draped with 'blos-
 soming creepers, and silent as the grave
 except for the cries Of boobies and
 plover-the only inhabitants of these
 miniature Edens. There are other pas
 sages in and out of the Gulf of Paria-
 notably the Boca del Sierpe, (Sergents
 Mouth) and the Mouth of the Mon
 key" Columbus sailed his caravals
 through every one of them, that sum-
 mer of 149S, and finally returned to the
 open sea through the Dragons Mouth.
 On that memorable fourth trip to this
 side of the world he met with many dis
 couragements After being buffeted by winds and waves and delayed by calms for several months, he became reduced
 to the utmost extremity There was
 only one small cask of fresh water on
 the ship, and the sailors had long been
 on half rations. The heat of the
 doldrums-as belt of windless area along the equator is called-had opened the seams of his caravel till it leaked so badly that two-tlirds of his men were kept constantly at the pumps. In these dire straits the prayerful old admiral promised his patron Saint that if any new land was discovered he would name it in honor of the Holy Trinity. A few hours later the triple peaks that mark the south eastern corner of this island sprang suddenly into'view, and of course Columbus regarded them as a heaven-sent confirmation of his pious intention Soon as land was reached he knelt upon the sands with all his crew and redeemed his promise, solennly consecrating the island to the blessed Trinity, to whom he attributed his salvation. He tarried here a long time, finding needed rest for himself and his men, and they were able to re- pair their ship, ealing the seams with the natural pitch of the island. The old Spanish system of nomenclature, though liable to monotony, had the ad- of compelling nobody to cudgel his brains for original ideas. Whenever new territory was discovered, or a city ] they had only to consult the and find the name of the Saint or Saintess whose day" chanced to fall on the same date The result was con- siderable repetition. and the modern traveller who follows in the Spaniards' wake, however anti Catholic his relig- i ous views may be, finds himself repeat ing perpetual litany of the Saints in | the names of the places visited.
 After a little more than four hundred | years. the outlook from a vessel an- r ehored in the Gulf of Paria, must be about the same as when Columbus first saw it. The easy-going people of the tropics do not obliterate ancient land marks, nor move mountains, nor change the course of rivers with the tireless energy of northerners in their destruc- | tive march of improvement" History .tils us that Columbus was astonished -o see such a green and beautiful coun- ny so near to the educatorial line, ex- oecting the soil to be dry and sterile, ike the deserts of corresponding lati- .ude on the other side of the world Trinidad is traVersed b.y three noun ain ranges, between which lie a series If lovely valleys, many of the latter ike little green pockets being crossed 1y traverse ridges, or hill-spurs sent town from the mountains. There are streams and a soil of such marvellous fertility that, though the population is small and three-fourths of he island is yet covered with primeval orests, quantities of coffee, cotton, CO., 'oa, sugar, rum, molasses and a few ,ther products are annually exported, to England-to say nothing # the inexhaustable supply of asphal- um, which has been sample by nearly very city of the world. The sugar plantations are mostly owned by Eng ishmen and worked by ooolie labor There are many short, narrow -guage ailway lines, built for transporting the rops to market, and as each carries also there is no difficulty in ,etting about the island. There are sew ral important towns besides the capi- oI, all of them reached by railway. trange to say the harbor of Port-of- ;pain-one O the largest and hand