l tree: how else did
the Ant-eater, the Coendou, the two Cuencos, the Guazupita deer,
enter Trinidad? Humboldt--though, unfortunately, he never visited
the island--saw this at a glance. While he perceived that the
Indian story, how the Boca Drago to the north had been only lately
broken through, had a foundation of truth, 'It cannot be doubted,'
he says, 'that the Gulf of Paria was once an inland basin, and the
Punta Icacque (its south-western extremity) united to the Punta
Toleto, east of the Boca de Pedernales.' {262} In which case there
may well have been--one may almost say there must have been--an
outlet for that vast body of water which pours, often in tremendous
floods, from the Pedernales' mouth of the Orinoco, as well as from
those of the Tigre, Guanipa, Caroli, and other streams between it
and the Cordillera on the north; and this outlet probably lay along
the line now occupied by the northern Savannas of Trinidad.

So much this little natural park of Aripo taught, or seemed to teach
me. But I did not learn the whole of the lesson that afternoon, or
indeed till long after. There was no time then to work out such
theories. The sun was getting low, and more intolerable as he sank;
and to escape a sunstroke on the spot, or at least a dark ride home,
we hurried off into the forest shade, after one last look at the
never-to-be-forgotten Morichal, and trotted home to luxury and
sleep.

CHAPTER XIII: THE COCAL

Next day, like the 'Young Muleteers of Grenada,' a good song which
often haunted me in those days,

'With morning's earliest twinkle
Again we are up and gone,'

with two horses, two mules, and a Negro and a Coolie carrying our
scanty luggage in Arima baskets: but not without an expression of
pity from the Negro who cleaned my boots. 'Where were we going?'
To the east coast. Cuffy turned up what little nose he had. He
plainly considered the east coast, and indeed Trinidad itself, as
not worth looking at. 'Ah! you should go Barbadoes, sa. Dat de
country to see. I Barbadian, sa.' No doubt. It is very quaint,
this self-satisfaction of the Barbadian Negro. Whether or not he
belonged originally to some higher race--for there are as great
differences of race among Negroes as among any white men--he looks
down on the Negroes, and indeed on the white men, of other islands,
as beings of an inferior grade; and takes care to inform you in the
first f