uba,
especially the well-known Barbadoes tar; and the petroleum springs
of the mainland, described by Humboldt, at Truxillo, in the Gulf of
Cumana; and 'the inexhaustible deposits of mineral pitch in the
provinces of Merida and Coro, and, above all, in that of Maracaybo.
In the latter it is employed for caulking the ships which navigate
the lake.' {145} But the reader shall hear what the famous lake is
like, and judge for himself. Why not? He may not be 'scientific,'
but, as Professor Huxley well says, what is scientific thought but
common sense well regulated?

Running down, then, by steamer, some thirty-six miles south from
Port of Spain, along a flat mangrove shore, broken only at one spot
by the conical hill of San Fernando, we arrived off a peninsula,
whose flat top is somewhat higher than the lowland right and left.
The uplands are rich with primeval forest, and perhaps always have
been. The lower land, right and left, was, I believe, cultivated
for sugar, till the disastrous epoch of 1846: but it is now furred
over with rastrajo woods.

We ran, on our first visit, past the pitch point of La Brea, south-
westward to Trois, where an industrial farm for convicts had been
established by my host the Governor. We were lifted on shore
through a tumbling surf; and welcomed by an intelligent and
courteous German gentleman, who showed us all that was to be seen;
and what we saw was satisfactory enough. The estate was paying,
though this was only its third year. An average number of 77
convicts had already cleared 195 acres, of which 182 were under
cultivation. Part of this had just been reclaimed from pestilential
swamp: a permanent benefit to the health of the island. In spite
of the exceptional drought of the year before, and the subsequent
plague of caterpillars, 83,000 pounds of rice had been grown; and
the success of the rice crop, it must be remembered, will become
more and more important to the island, as the increase of Coolie
labourers increases the demand for the grain. More than half the
plantains put in (22,000) were growing, and other vegetables in
abundance. But, above all, there were more than 7000 young coco-
palms doing well, and promising a perpetual source of wealth for the
future. For as the trees grow, and the crops raised between them
diminish, the coco-palms will require little or no care, but yield
fruit the whole year round without further expens