Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 288
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[Page 288]
afloat she was probably well hidden up the Orinoco or Amazon doing a refit. Still, this ship was the reason for our presence in those waters and our lawful prey, and we were bound to follow up every scent. The scent led us many trackless and fruitless miles, as the story will show.
On the way to Trinidad the Sydney searched the coast of Venezuela, looking into the numerous inlets, and explored the backwaters at the mouths of the Amazon and Orinoco; but there was no sign or tidings of our enemy. The mouth of the Amazon is a dreary wasste of muddy water surrounded by marshes, and the Sydney on more than one occasion went perilously near to running ashore in the shallows. After combing the coasts of the neighbouring islands and looking in at Maraca, we arrived in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on February 10th.
The harbour here is not good, and deep-sea ships lie a mile and a half off the town. Trinidad, as everybody knows, is a biggish island off the mouth of the Orinoco and near the Venezuelan coast; and across the intervening strip of water a live and bustling smuggling trade is carried on, by means of which some of our coloured brethren earn their daily bread. The island has gone ahead enormously lately, owing to the discovery and exploitation of oil and pitch wells which are rapidly making Trinidad, for its size, one of our richest possessions. The town is just a West Indian town like so many others, with two or three rows of up-to-date shops and a few good public buildings and the rest given over to the inartistic dwellings of the col-