Note 9 — Chapter II · TRINIDAD AND THE ORINOCO

I have said nothing of La Brea, the wonderful pitch lake for which Trinidad has been celebrated since the time of Raleigh,9 and which for some decades past has supplied us with much of the asphalt used in the United States. This curious phenomenon has been described so often that there is no call for further comment. Suffice to say that it, together with the sugar plantations and the cacao groves, constitutes the chief source of the revenue of the island.