een forests blazed around; and we sat enjoying the genial
silence, not of darkness, but of light, not of death, but of life,
as the noble heat permeated every nerve, and made us feel young, and
strong, and blithe once more.

CHAPTER IX: SAN JOSEF

The road to the ancient capital of the island is pleasant enough,
and characteristic of the West Indies. Not, indeed, as to its
breadth, make, and material, for they, contrary to the wont of West
India roads, are as good as they would be in England, but on account
of the quaint travellers along it, and the quaint sights which are
to be seen over every hedge. You pass all the races of the island
going to and from town or field-work, or washing clothes in some
clear brook, beside which a solemn Chinaman sits catching for his
dinner strange fishes, known to my learned friend, Dr. Gunther, and
perhaps to one or two other men in Europe; but certainly not to me.
Always somebody or something new and strange is to be seen, for
eight most pleasant miles.

The road runs at first along a low cliff foot, with an ugly Mangrove
swamp, looking just like an alder-bed at home, between you and the
sea; a swamp which it would be worth while to drain by a steam-pump,
and then plant with coconuts or bamboos; for its miasma makes the
southern corner of Port of Spain utterly pestilential. You cross a
railroad, the only one in the island, which goes to a limestone
quarry, and so out along a wide straight road, with negro cottages
right and left, embowered in fruit and flowers. They grow fewer and
finer as you ride on; and soon you are in open country, principally
of large paddocks. These paddocks, like all West Indian ones, are
apt to be ragged with weeds and scrub. But the coarse broad-leaved
grasses seem to keep the mules in good condition enough, at least in
the rainy season. Most of these paddocks have, I believe, been
under cane cultivation at some time or other; and have been thrown
into grass during the period of depression dating from 1845. It has
not been worth while, as yet, to break them up again, though the
profits of sugar-farming are now, or at least ought to be, very
large. But the soil along this line is originally poor and sandy;
and it is far more profitable to break up the rich vegas, or low
alluvial lands, even at the trouble of clearing them of forest. So
these paddocks are left, often with noble trees standing about in
t