Then to church at Savanna Grande, riding of course; for the mud was abysmal, and it was often safer to ride in the ditch than on the road.

Then on through Savanna Grande and village again, and past more sugar estates, and past beautiful bits of forest, left, like English woods, standing in the cultivated fields.

For across the Savanna wandered a deep lagoon brook.

CHAPTER XII: THE SAVANNA OF ARIPO

the company of my host, was to the Cocal, or Coco-palm grove, of the east coast, taking on my way the Savanna of Aripo.

My days in the island were growing short; and the most I could do was to see at Aripo a small specimen of that peculiar Savanna vegetation, which occupies thousands of square miles on the mainland.

But those who are interested in the vast changes of level and distribution of land which have taken place all over the world since the present forms of animals and vegetables were established on it, may possibly find a valuable fact or two in what I thought I saw at the Savanna of Aripo.

When we arrived, the sun was still so high in heaven that the kind owner offered to push on that very afternoon to the Savanna of Aripo, some five miles off.

The soil of the Savanna was a poor sandy clay, treacherous, and often impassable for horses, being half dried above and wet beneath.

The Savanna itself, like those of Caroni and Piarco, offers, I suspect, a fresh proof that a branch of the Orinoco once ran along the foot of the northern mountains of Trinidad.

With these words in my mind, I could not but look on the Savanna of Aripo as one of the last-made bits of dry land in Trinidad, still unfurnished with the common vegetation of the island.

The latter sport is certainly blameless; nay, in the West Indies, laudable and even heroic, when played, as on the Savanna here, under a noonday sun which feels hot enough to cook a mutton-chop.

I had reason to ask the same question that evening, as we sat in the cool verandah, watching the fireflies flicker about the tree-tops, and listening to the weary din of the tom-toms which came from all sides of the Savanna save our own, drowning the screeching and snoring of the toads, and even, at times, the screams of an European band, which was playing a 'combination tune,' near the Grand Stand, half a mile off.

Plain N. plain, table-land, face of the country; open country, champaign country^; basin, downs, waste, weary waste, desert, wild, steppe, pampas, savanna, prairie, heath, common, wold^, veldt; moor, moorland; bush; plateau &c (level) 213; campagna^; alkali flat, llano; mesa, mesilla

The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savanna, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating: she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker.

And besides these there were catbirds, ground doves, red-eyed chewinks, white-eyed chewinks, a song sparrow (one of the few that I saw in Florida), savanna sparrows, myrtle birds, redpoll warblers, a phoebe, and two flickers.

In addition to the birds already namedthree of them new to mewe had seen great blue herons, little blue herons, Louisiana herons, night herons, cormorants, pied-billed grebes, kingfishers, red-winged blackbirds, boat-tailed grackles, redpoll and myrtle warblers, savanna sparrows, tree swallows, purple martins, a few meadow larks, and the ubiquitous turkey buzzard.

Here we found the savanna sparrows; here, too, the meadow larks were singing.

These animals pass their morning in the woods, which cover the foot of the Cordillera, and come out only about two in the afternoon to feed in the savanna.

As the English army was passing towards Quebec along a soft savanna between a mountain and a lake, one of the petty chiefs of the inland regions stood upon a rock surrounded by his clan, and from behind the shelter of the bushes contemplated the art and regularity of European war.

IXTLAHUATL, n. Open field, savanna, desert.

[Footnote A: Savanna was a Haytian word spelt and pronounced by Spaniards.

Finally, a Prairie differs from a savanna only in being under a zone where the seasons are not marked as wet and dry, but where the herbage corresponds to a variable moisture.]

[Footnote C: When the English were meditating a descent upon the coast of Gonaive, a negro happened to see a prodigious number of these red-coated birds ranked on the savanna near the sea, as their habit is, in companies.

"The English, they are after coming, they are drawn up on l'Hôpital savanna!"

Some sixteen powerful steamers were running between Savannah and New York; an equal number were on the line to Charleston; steamers and flat-boats in countless numbers were bearing down the Mississippi their tribute of flour, lard, and corn.

As we come on toward the North, we find the shops of Savannah nearly empty, with shoes and boots quoted at thirty dollars per pair.

(Savannah, 1842.)

(Savannah, 1894.)

The stream then deployed, for a distance of some eight miles, into a savannah or plain, with narrow grassy borders in which its width was doubled, its depth decreased, and the current less furious.

The first exhibition of him was given, I think, in Savannah, Georgia; thence he was taken to Charleston, Richmond, to all the principal cities and towns in the Southern States.

From the "Savannah Georgian," Jan. 17, 1839.

Abram has a wife at Colonel Stewart's, in Liberty county, and a sister in Savannah, at Capt. Grovenstine's.

Frank has a wife at Mr. Le Cont's, Liberty county; a mother at Thunderbolt, and a sister in Savannah.

" From the "Savannah Georgian," July 8, 1837.

" From the "Savannah (Ga. ) Republican," Sept. 3, 1838.

It is probable he will aim for Savannah, as he said he had children in that vicinity.

" From the "Savannah (Georgia) Republican."

Ran away from the subscriber in Savannah, his negro girl Patsey.

" Y.S. PICKARD, Jailor, Savannah, Georgia, gives notice in the "Georgian," June 22, 1837, that he has taken up for a runaway and lodged in jail Charles, 60 years of age.

In the Savannah "Georgian," April 12, 1837, Mr. J. CUYLER, says he will give five dollars, to anyone who will catch and bring back to him "Saman, an old negro man, and grey, and has only one eye.

Savannah was captured, Georgia was conquered, and the royal governor reinstated.

Later, in 1779, General Lincoln, with a French fleet to help him, attempted to recapture Savannah, but was driven off with dreadful loss of life.

Leaving the enemy at Wilmington, Greene went back to South Carolina, and by September, 1781, had driven the British into Charleston and Savannah.

Gates then took the field, was defeated, and succeeded by Greene, who after many vicissitudes drove the British forces in South Carolina and Georgia into Charleston and Savannah, during 1781.

Savannah captured and Georgia overrun.

Lincoln attacks Savannah. 1780.

Savannah, Wilmington, Alexandria, Norfolk, and Richmond were small towns.

A merchant had but to load his ship at New York or Philadelphia, go to some port in the French West Indies, take on a new cargo and bring it to Savannah, enter it at the customhouse and pay the import duties.

" Washington had to submit to senatorial dictation almost at the outset of his administration, the Senate refusing to confirm his nomination of Benjamin Fishbourn for the place of naval officer at Savannah.