CHAPTER XXXIV 



THE SOUTH AMERICAN ISLANDS 



Trinidad, Tobago, and Curasao. The peculiar geographical features of 

 Trinidad. Port of Spain. Political conditions. Population and peo- 

 ple. The island of Tobago. Curasao, the capital of the Dutch West 

 Indies. 



GRENADA is the most southern of the Caribbean chain. 

 The other islands of the Lesser Antilles to the south- 

 ward, and adjacent to the north coast of South America, 

 are, in their natural features, fragments of the latter con- 

 tinent which have become detached from the mainland by 

 the processes of time. They are continental in their diver- 

 sity, and, were they not insular in outline, they would be 

 considered as belonging to the South American rather than 

 the West Indian realm. Only a few words can be said 

 concerning them. 



These islands succeed one another in elongated arrange- 

 ment like those of the other greater groups, but trend in 

 an east-and-west direction, parallel to tin' adjacent con- 

 tinental coast, extending through seven degrees of longi- 

 tude, from Tobago, on the east, to tic reeky islets known as 

 the Monks, al the entrance to the great Gulf of Maracaibo, 

 on the west. 



Of this group Trinidad is by far the largest and most 

 interesting, although Tobago, Margarita, Tortuga, Los 



