CHAPTER XXIII
A STOP AT TRINIDAD
“Off for the Orinoco at last! Now for some real fun and excitement Mark, aren’t you glad that we have left Caracas and La Guayra behind?”
“I am Frank, and I hope the trip up the Orinoco proves all we anticipate,” answered Mark, as he threw himself into a steamer chair beside his chum. “But as for excitement, I don’t think we have any reason to complain. We’ve kept a-going pretty well since we arrived.”
“So we have,” put in Darry, who was close at hand, watching the last speck of land fade from sight. “But we haven’t had any fun, in the shape of hunting, and I suppose that’s what Frank means.”
“To be sure—and fishing, too, and camping out. It’s all well enough to see the cities and towns, but I want to see more—the great river and the wonderful mountains and waterfalls, and all that.”
“I want to see the wild horses,” came from Sam. “They tell me they have any quantity of them down on the llanos, and that you can buy a horse for a dollar or two any time you want him.”
“A wild horse wouldn’t be of much account until he was broken,” said Mark. “And in trying to break him you might break your own neck. You can be sure they are not so easy to tame as our own domestic horses.”
“I want a shot at a puma or something like that,” continued Darry. He had had it all planned out for a long time—how he was going to send the skin home for a rug to place in the parlor.
They were on a British steamer bound for Port-of-Spain, on Trinidad Island, which lies off the north-east coast of Venezuela. From Port-of-Spain they expected to catch another steamer bound directly up the Orinoco to Ciudad Bolivar, the head of navigation for large steamers, especially during the dry season.
“It’s a great coast,” said Mark, as he gazed back, where the mountains were now lost in the distance. “There ought to be splendid chances for mining there.”
“There are splendid chances,” said the professor, who overheard the remark. “The mountains are full of minerals. But at present most of the mining is done in the interior. We will visit some of the camps along the upper Orinoco.”
The run to Port-of-Spain was a hot one, despite the breezes which blew, and the boys were glad enough when, one morning, the steamer turned into the Gulf of Paria, a great land-locked harbor in which a vessel can anchor anywhere with ease.
“To the westward is the eastern shore of Venezuela,” said the professor, “and on the east is the island of Trinidad, which, as you all know, is a very valuable British possession. Trinidad is known all over the United States for it gives to us something which is used on the finest of our streets. Do any of you know what that is?”
“Asphalt,” replied Frank. “I have heard that there is a regular lake of it on the island.”
“There is, ninety-nine acres in extent, and the asphaltum flows over its banks in all directions, making natural walks which are almost as hard as stone. At the center of the lake the pitch is boiling hot and bubbles up with an odor which is far from pleasant.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing the place,” said Hockley.
“We may get a chance to view it from a distance. To get too close would not be pleasant. The job of getting the asphaltum out is one of the meanest on earth. The stuff is chopped off the surface in spots where it is cold, and no matter how deep a hollow is made, nature soon fills it again. How the Pitch Lake, as it is termed, originated, has bothered scientists since its discovery.”
“Do you notice the difference in the appearance of the water,” remarked Sam. “It was blue before, now it is a dirty brown. Has that anything to do with that Pitch Lake?”
“No, Winthrop, the dirt you see is washed into the Gulf from the Orinoco, which has a number of mouths in this vicinity, as well as mouths emptying directly into the Atlantic.”
Before nightfall they came in sight of the port and dropped anchor in the roadstead, for the harbor of Port-of-Spain is too shallow to admit the passage of large vessels. Soon a small craft came alongside and took them ashore.
“We are in an English country sure enough,” declared Mark. “See how many English there are. It does one good to hear the language spoken again.”
“I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed in the town,” said Professor Strong. “It looks so beautiful from a distance. It is very dirty, and many of the houses are little better than huts. Of course the English that are here live well enough. It is the native element that is away behind the times.”
Nevertheless, the party managed to find a comfortable hotel, kept by a whole-souled son of Great Britain, who rejoiced in the name of Wellington Cunningham.
“Glad to know you,” said Wellington Cunningham. “Make yourselves at ’ome. So you are bound for the upper Orinoco, eh? Take my hadvice and stay away from the bloody country. Hi know hall habout it, Hi do. Went there in ’87 and halmost died of the bloody fever. Hit ain’t fit for a white man. If the fever gets you you’re a corpse.”
“That’s cheerful,” was Mark’s comment. “But we are not going to stay very long.”
“Better not go. Hif you want to see the world visit Hold Hingland. No better country on the globe.”
“No better?” queried Frank, with a wink at his chums. “What of the United States?”
“Too green, lad, too green. ’Twill be hall right henough when you ’ave the age,” responded Wellington Cunningham, solemnly.
“It suits us—we wouldn’t want anything better,” said Mark, dryly.
The hotel was crowded with people, and among the number was a Colorado gold miner named Andrew Hume, who was bound for the upper Orinoco on a prospecting expedition. The miner was both good-hearted and talkative and was soon on first-class terms with our friends.
“That Englishman makes me snicker,” said Andy Hume, as he wished himself to be called. “He talks about the States, and what he don’t know would fill the Colorady river basin. Asked me if the Injuns interfered with the mining, and if the miners and other folks out west wasn’t afraid the bears and buffaloes would eat ’em up! When I told him I hadn’t seen a bear nor a buffalo for years, and told him the only Injuns in our camp was three good-fer-nuthin scamps who laid around the saloons all day soaking firewater, he looked at me as if I was crazy. He must think Colorady and Californy are howling wildernesses.”
“No doubt he does think that,” said Mark. “But then, you must remember, we have some queer notions of South America and South Africa. I didn’t dream that everything in Venezuela—I mean in the cities—was so up-to-date,—telephones, electric lights, street cars, and all that.”
“Well, I’m with you there, lad, I didn’t dream of ’em myself. And I heard of something yesterday that kind of stumped me, too. They have mines and mining machinery away up back in the country just as good as any in Colorady or Californy. Some syndicates running ’em and making millions out of ’em, too, I reckon.”
It was found that Hume intended to take a steamer for Ciudad Bolivar on the following Monday, and the professor succeeded, after some difficulty, in procuring passage for his party on the same vessel. This pleased the old miner, and he said he trusted they would have a good trip and become firm friends.
Although the town of Port-of-Spain is far from beautiful, the country back of the city is all that one’s heart could desire. There are fine highways running in all directions, lined with the most beautiful of tropical trees and shrubbery. Flowers grow in Trinidad in endless profusion and birds and butterflies are equally numerous, not to mention the monkeys and parrots.
“It’s a Paradise in spots,” observed Darry. “But only in spots. I don’t think I would care to live here.”
On Sunday they visited the cathedral of the city, and here heard not only an excellent sermon but likewise some fine music. In the afternoon they visited the botanical gardens, the pride of all Englishmen residing in Trinidad. The collection of flowers, ferns and trees were certainly remarkable and one not easily forgotten.
The boys were up bright and early Monday morning, and by nine o’clock were on the steamer, bag and baggage. At Port-of-Spain the professor had visited a number of establishments and procured such additions to their outfit as he deemed necessary.
“We will have to go well equipped,” he said. “For I know but little of the towns in the interior. At the time I visited here before they amounted to but little, so far as being able to buy what one wished was concerned. They kept plenty of goods for the native trade, but those things wouldn’t suit you.”
“No, I’d rather stick to what I’m used to,” said Sam. “It’s enough to go into a strange country among a strange people, without putting up with things to wear and use with which you are unacquainted.”
At Port-of-Spain the boys all received letters from home and sent long communications in return. They related all their various adventures but touched lightly upon the perils encountered.
“It’s no use of scaring the folks to death,” was the way in which Mark put it. “What’s past is past, and let that end it.”
“That’s true,” said Darry. “Besides, if we said too much our folks might write to us to come home on the next steamer.”
The only one of the party who was at all downcast was Hockley. This youth had hoped to meet Dan Markel and get back at least some of his property. Now he felt that the chance of doing this was slipping away forever.
“By the time we get back to the coast he’ll be gone for good—and nobody will know where,” he said.
“Well, why don’t you go back to Caracas and hunt for him,” returned Frank. “We’re not compelling you to go along.”
“Oh, don’t blow about it,” cried Hockley, angrily. “I’ll do what I please, without advice from you.”
“The man may turn up yet,” put in Mark. “I don’t think he’d come to Venezuela without he had some object in so doing.”
“I heard him say something about a gold mine once,” said Sam. “Perhaps he thought to try his luck in that direction—after he found he had to settle down.”
“His gold mine is out of somebody else’s pocket,” grumbled Hockley, and walked away, amid a laugh which could not be repressed.