FOREWORD
Trinidad is a small Caribbean island, less than two thousand square miles in size, although it is large in comparison to neighbouring islands.
It is a well-endowed island, with abundant oil and asphalt, fertile soils and a rich culture. It is the proud birthplace of what are universally accepted as West Indian art forms – the calypso, the steelband, the limbo, West Indian-style carnival.
Its peoples are drawn from many races, and indeed today the twin-island republic of Trinidad and Tobago prides itself on being an exceptionally cosmopolitan and racially harmonious nation. The early history of Trinidad has contributed greatly to its cosmopolitanism and also to its rich outpourings of art, for even in the dawn of its modern-day period (the late Eighteenth Century), it was a haven of liberalism and racial and cultural tolerance. I have set my fairy-tale of the beautiful native girl and her Georgian beau, a young Corinthian, at this early period in the island’s history, a period when its liberalism was being sadly shaken.
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