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[Page 15]
18 April 16
Got leave & left the ship at 9 a.m.
There were a party of 6 of us & we went to Pitch Lakes. Pitch Lakes, which is one of the worlds wonders, is situated 57 miles from Port of Spain. We went by motor & the scenery along the road was lovely. We saw some large sugar mills too, & donkey carts loaded up with sugar cane were along the road in great numbers.
The process of getting the pitch out at the Lakes is very simple. It is merely picked out with a long handled pick axe & it comes away in lumps. The place where it is extracted from keeps filling up with fresh pitch, so they work for months at the same place, & there is just as much pitch there as when they started.
It is a sort of volcanic formation. When the lumps are picked out they are loaded on to trucks & is drawn by an endless rope up to the top of the cauldrons & melted into a