Australia -- Description and travel; New Zealand -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
The Prince spent several days in Trinidad, driving through its thickly
wooded hills, past shady cocoa plantations, well-ordered coco-nut
groves, and fields of sugar-cane. He also visited the old-time Spanish
capital of St. Joseph, where an address was presented to him. He
attended in Port of Spain a state dinner and various other official
functions, besides inspecting a big gathering of children. In the course
of his remarks, replying to the toast of his health at the state dinner,
he said, "I saw a suggestion, before I left England, that the British
Empire might be willing to part with one or more of the British West
Indian Islands to a foreign power, and I should like to say here again
what I said in Barbados in March, that British subjects are not for
sale. I can assure you that the King and all of us in the old country
have very much at heart the welfare of Trinidad and all the British West
Indies, also of all other British possessions," a statement which cannot
be too often repeated in sentiment or exemplified in fact.
Visits were paid to some of the oil-wells, which are already a source of
much wealth to Trinidad, and promise to become still more important in
the future. The famous pitch lake was a sight along the coast,
forty-five miles out. It is a semi-solidified deposit, lying in a
shallow hollow, a quarter of a mile in diameter, close to the sea, where
men have been digging out black slabs of asphalt for years without
making a perceptible hole. The lake is so near the coast that ships sail
practically up to it to carry away a product which is ultimately spread
over the streets of the world. Fifty thousand tons have been taken out
of it every year for a generation, and the level is estimated to have
sunk only about nine inches. Oil underlies the pitch in the vicinity and
a forest of derricks rises a quarter of a mile away.
From Trinidad the Prince made a side trip to Demerara, British Guiana,
in the _Calcutta_, the _Renown_ being too big to cross the bar into
Georgetown harbour. All the sunny richness of this steamy sugar and
rice-growing corner of South America was in evidence when he landed at
Georgetown, immediately after the ceremonial visit of the Governor, Sir
William Collet. A fine West Indian guard-of-honour saluted him upon the
pier, and mixed crowds of Anglo-Saxons, negroes, East Indians and
Portuguese cheered in the decorated streets as he proceeded to the
Government buildings. Here more guards-of-honour were inspected,
including armed constabulary and militia. The Prince also shook hands
with a long line of returned men. Entering the building he found the
leaders of the local community assembled, including the principal
officials and their families. An address of welcome was read by Mr.
Brown, a coloured West Indian, senior elected member of the Court of
Policy. Archbishop Parry and General Rice were amongst those presented.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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