What We Saw in the West Indies Part
V
THE
DIARY OF TWO REAL GIRLS ON A REAL TRIP
By
Lola and Valerie
From Everyland magazine, May 1917; researched
by Alan Schenker; digitized by Doug Frizzle, Mar. 2012.
WE
came to anchor nearly five miles from
shore, for the water is so shallow
large ships cannot go close in to the
town. Trinidad looks very beautiful, and the town seems large and pretty. The company has a steam-launch which takes the passengers back and forth, and we are going
ashore right away. We are surprised to see what a beautiful, big city Port of
Spain
is. It looks like any other big city
except for the bright colors of the buildings, but it's very damp and hot and feels
like being in a hothouse or conservatory, especially as all the houses are surrounded with beautiful gardens
full of wonderful tropical flowers.
Up-to-date
electric trolley lines run everywhere about the
town, and we took a long ride out to the
coolie or Hindu quarter. The roads are so smooth and hard and so different from those in the
other places where we've been that
we were surprised, until we remembered that there
is a pitch lake on Trinidad and that asphalt
from the
lake is used for making the roads.
The
ship is sailing this evening for a place forty miles up the
coast called Brighton. That is where the pitch lake is situated, and the Maraval will be there
for three or four days loading asphalt.
We
woke up this morning to find the
ship tied to a long steel pier extending far out from
the shore. It is the most interesting thing we've seen yet, for all
along the pier is a row of moving
iron buckets that look like bathtubs, and each of these,
as it reaches the ship, is tipped
up, and a load of asphalt goes tumbling into the
hold.
We
are going to see the pitch lake as
soon as we can, for it is a very, very hot spot—bearably cool only in the early morning. Valerie wanted to ride up in one
of the empty buckets, but the captain says it would be too dangerous, so we
have decided to walk up.
It
was ticklish walking along the dock,
for there was just a narrow plank
for a footway, but we reached shore safely and passed all the pretty bungalows where the
employees of the asphalt company live, and climbed over the
hill. It was easy to find our way, for the
buckets of asphalt ran right over the
hill from the
pier to the lake and all we had to
do was to follow.
At the
top of the hill were the machine-shops and a big building where the asphalt is refined, and all about were great
black oil-tanks, for there are huge
oil-wells here as well as asphalt. When we first saw the
lake we were disappointed, for it was not a real lake at all, but just a big
flat place with pools of water among the
coarse grass, and black, muddy-looking asphalt. Little railways ran over the lake, and we walked out on one of these and watched the
men digging the asphalt from the
lake. It is quite hard, but as fast as it is dugout, fresh asphalt is pushed up
from below, so the lake is never exhausted. It was so hot that we
didn't stay long, and after going over to see where one of the oil derricks was pumping up oil, we went back to
the ship.
We were very hot and tired,
and the mate suggested we should go
in bathing. The water was lovely and warm, but the
beach was all made of bits of asphalt, and so much petroleum oil came up
through the bottom of the
sea that we felt as if we'd been bathing in kerosene instead of in water.
We had a fine trip across the gulf on the
steamer and found San Fernando
a very funny little town built on the
side of a hill and full of coolies. We didn't stop long in the town, but took an automobile
out to the estate, which is the largest sugar mill in the
British West Indies. The cars are marked U. S.
M., and we thought at first it stood for United States Mail, but it really
meant Usine Saint Madeline, which is the
name of the estate.
We went all through the mill and saw the
sugar-cane made into sugar and watched every step of the
process from start to finish. It was
very interesting to see the canes
crushed and the juice boiled down to
molasses and then crystallized and
changed into brown and white sugar. We stayed all night and left early the next morning to go back to Brighton
by land in an automobile.
It was a beautiful ride. For
many miles we ran along roads through groves of cocoa trees, which are cool and
dark, while at other times the way led across cane fields, which are bright and
sunny. The roads everywhere are perfect,
and the scenery, with all the native huts, is very interesting. Children were
everywhere, and everybody seemed happy and contented and waved hands and called
to us as we passed.
We
left the same night for Port of Spain, and now we
are once more off the town and just
waiting for the mails and
passengers. The ship is very deeply loaded, and the
captain says she'll be as steady as a rock.
Grenada, our last stop,
is just in sight, and from the ship the
island looks very much like the
upper islands with its high, green mountains and beautiful blue water.
We
thought the island looked like the others
until we neared the port, but when
we saw the town of Saint George, we found it very different from any other
place. We had to take on a pilot, and then
the ship headed in for a little
group of houses and buildings on the
shore. We didn't land there, but ran
past a funny old fort on a point of land and turning around a corner, came into
a tiny little harbor tucked away among the
hills and with the prettiest,
neatest little town stretching up the
steep hills from the water on every side. The harbor is so little and
the ship so big that she stretches
almost right across from shore to
shore, and from the stern one could jump right onto the smooth street with the
stone houses and buildings along it.
The
town was even prettier and stranger when we were ashore than when seen from the water,
for the streets are so narrow and
run up and down such steep hills that in many places they
are built like flights of stairs, and in one place a tunnel has been cut right
through a hill to make the way
easier from one part of the town to the
other. We had lunch ashore with our
friends and among other things had some lovely nutmeg jelly. This is made from the
nutmeg fruit, for the nutmegs are
one of the biggest crops in Grenada.
After lunch we started out for our ride and climbed right up a steep hill until
we could look straight down onto all the
toy-like houses and the little
harbor with the big Maraval across
the entrance.
The
scenery was lovely—beautiful valleys and grand mountains, and palms, cocoa, and
nutmeg trees everywhere. The first and most interesting things we saw were
nutmegs growing. They are very pretty, and the
fruit looks just like salmon-colored peaches or apricots. When ripe, the fruit splits open, and between the two sides you can see the
nutmeg, which is a shiny black seed covered with beautiful, scarlet, lacelike
material. This scarlet part is mace, and when dried it turns brown, and the real nutmeg is a kernel inside of the black shell. From
the yellow outside covering, which
is soft and pulpy, the people make a
very nice, spicy-tasting jam or jelly.
We
took a big branch of the growing
nutmegs with us and also some bright
red and yellow cocoa pods, which we picked from
the trees along the road. The cocoa pods look very funny when they are growing, for they
sprout right from the bark of the
trees on the trunks and branches. We
watched some men opening the pods and taking out the
seeds, for the seeds are the part used in making cocoa. They have to be
fermented and then dried, and they look like reddish-brown beans. While they are drying, men and women
shuffle them about with their bare feet, but all the outside
skin and dirt is removed before the
beans are ground up into cocoa and chocolate.
We have left Grenada behind and are now on the way direct to New York. We left Grenada about sunset, and our last
view of the lovely island was like a
beautiful picture. Now it is but a little gray cloud above the blue sea, and we'll stop nowhere else until we
reach home.
We have just passed Saba. It is a Dutch island and is just a single peak
sticking up out of the sea. It seems
dreadfully cut off from the world, as the
captain says there is no harbor or
anchorage. We saw a few little red-roofed houses among the
foliage on top of the island, but the town itself is hidden away in a hollow which was
once the crater of a volcano and is
called Bottom. It was so still and
calm as we passed close to this place, that we could hear the sound of the
church bells. It seems funny to think of people living there,
but the captain says the people love their
little island and that many of the
men are sailors and go all over the
world but always come back to Saba
to spend their old age. He also told
us that the people have to climb from the
shore up to the town by a steep
stone stairway a thousand feet high. We'd love to go and visit such a strange
place, but it is only reached by small boats from
Saint Kitts.
Two days at sea now and still
smooth and pleasant. Every day we have wireless news from
the United States, which is printed in
a bulletin, so we know all the
important things which are happening.
We are now in the Gulf Stream and in two days more will be in
sight of land, the coast of New Jersey. Yesterday we
saw a wrecked, forsaken ship tossing about in the
waves. The captain called it a derelict and said it was very dangerous, for some ship might run into it in the
darkness. He sent a wireless message to the
government authorities in New York, telling them where the
wreck is, and says they'll send out
a warship to destroy it.
This morning we got up early,
for the captain told us we'd sight the land to-day. We couldn't see anything until
after breakfast, for it was quite foggy, and the
water, we found, had lost its blue color and was dull green. Soon after
breakfast the fog lifted, and the sun came out, and we saw a low line of gray to the west which was land. Every one was terribly
excited, and no one wanted to do anything but stand by the
rail and watch the shore, which grew
plainer and plainer all the time.
Before noon we passed Asbury Park and could see the houses and hotels quite plainly. Then we saw the Highland lighthouse and the
lightship off Sandy Hook,
and then we stopped for the pilot to come
on board. He brought out a lot of papers, but we were so anxious to see New York
that no one more than glanced at them.
Frank, a boy who came from Demerara with us to visit his sister in New York,
is filled with wonder at everything as we go up the
harbor, and he keeps running from
one side to the other, trying to see everything at once. We wonder
what he'll think when we get to the
city and he sees the Brooklyn Bridge and the
skyscrapers and the elevators and the
subway and the lights and people. I
know he will enjoy all these things
up here as much as we did his country.
We've
passed quarantine and are turning up the
East River.
Two fussy little tugs are pulling and hauling the
Maraval about, trying to get her into her dock, and the ferryboats and steamers are tooting their whistles, and the
people on their decks arc staring at
us, for they know we've just arrived
from some
far-away place.
Now
we're close to the dock; we can see
crowds of people on the wharf
waiting for friends, and among them
I can see my big sister waving her hand to us. It does seem nice to be home again, even if we have had such a splendid trip,
and now it's time to bid good-by to the
good old ship and all the nice
officers and the people we've met
and to say the last words in my dear
old diary. I thought writing it was going to be a tiresome
task, but it has proved a real pleasure and, I hope, will win for me many new
friends among the readers of Everyland.
The
End
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