So, foiled once again, we reascended the ravine and walked along the edge of the mountains, till we came to a projecting rock that commanded an extensive view over the cliffs. Here we sat down and discussed the problem before us. I assured the doctor that my ravine was certainly close to us somewhere, but that I altogether failed to identify it among the ravines before us, though I carried in my mind’s eye a very vivid picture of its appearance.
“Perhaps it has disappeared,” suggested the doctor. This seemed scarcely possible, but it might, I acknowledged, have been so changed by landslips as to be unrecognisable.
Being people of logical mind, we reasoned that, if the ravine still existed, we ought now to discover it without any difficulty by a simple process of elimination. There was only a limited number of even possible-looking ways down the precipices. Of these we had now tried two in vain. Again, there were several others which I remembered well to have attempted at the time of my previous visit and to have found impracticable. It followed that we had now to confine our attention to any remaining possible routes, and of these there could be very few.
Indeed, after a careful survey along the edge of the cliffs, we found that there was but one such way left to us, and that looked very ugly. Everywhere else were precipices that could obviously only be descended by a means of progression more rapid than we cared to undertake.
This way seemed as if it might afford a passage to the beach, but it was not a ravine at all. The mountain on which we stood had fallen away, leaving a precipitous step some fifty or sixty feet in height, and from this step there sloped down to a depth, I should say, of quite 1,500 feet a great landslip of broken rocks, the debris of the fallen mountain. This landslip appeared to have taken place not long since. It was composed of rocks of all sizes and shapes, almost coal black, piled one on the other at so steep an angle that it was extraordinary how the mass held together and did not topple over. It was indeed in places more like an artificial wall of rough stones on a gigantic scale than a landslip.
The pass I was searching for was utterly unlike this. I remembered well that I had found a ravine extending from the mountain top to the beach, which I described in my narrative as “a gloomy gorge with sides formed of black rocks piled on each other in chaotic masses, with a small stream trickling into it.” We had experienced little difficulty in ascending or descending it. Before us were now a sufficiency “of black rocks piled on each other in chaotic masses,” but no signs of a ravine or stream.
It did not look a tempting route, but we could see nothing else, so decided to try it. The descent was anything but easy and was certainly rather trying to the nerves. To begin with, the descent of the precipitous step I have mentioned was a very creepy business. Having accomplished this without accident, we clambered down the giant staircase of black rocks the best way we could, and also with as much speed as was consistent with safety; for the sun was low, the sudden tropical night would soon be on us, and as it would be, of course, impossible to proceed in the dark, we should be compelled to camp out in this very uncomfortable place if we did not hurry on.
We at last reached the foot of the landslip, and were on the green down we had seen from above, and which slopes gently to the beach. All our difficulties were over.
These slopes on the windward side of Trinidad are overgrown chiefly with a sturdy species of bean. This plant creeps along the ground, throwing out long tough tendrils, whose mission it evidently is to climb up something for support; but in this they are generally unsuccessful, for nearly all the dead trees have been blown down on this windswept corner of the island. A few trees are still standing, and these are overgrown with clinging creepers
