One can well believe the story of the northern engineer who, when brought over to plan out a railroad, shook his head at the first sight of the 'high woods.' 'At home,' quoth he, 'one works outside one's work: here one works inside it.' Considering the density of the forests, one may as easily take a general sketch of a room from underneath the carpet as of Trinidad from the ground.

However, thanks to the energy of a few gentlemen, who found occasional holes in the carpet through which they could peep, the survey of Trinidad is now about complete.
But in those days ignorance of the island, as well as the battle between old and new interests, brought lawsuits, and all but civil war.

Many of the French settlers were no better than they should be; many had debts in other islands; many of the Negroes had been sent thither because they were too great ruffians to be allowed at home; and, what was worse, the premium of sixteen acres of land for every slave imported called up a system of stealing slaves, and sometimes even free coloured people, from other islands, especially from Grenada, by means of 'artful Negroes and mulatto slaves,' who were sent over as crimps.

I shall not record the words in which certain old Spaniards describe the new population of Trinidad ninety years ago.

They, of course, saw everything in the blackest light; and the colony has long since weeded and settled itself under a course of good government.