GEOGRAPHY 13 



The northeast trades blow so constantly that each of the Lesser 

 Antilles has two climatic regions, the windward and the leeward. 

 The direction of ocean currents has brought it about that, biologi- 

 cally, the islands are connected with South America, and we may 

 suppose the original peopling of the majority of them was from that 

 continent. The great river, Orinoco, which discharges a volume of 

 fresh water sufficient to render the Gulf of Paria, Venezuela, brack- 

 ish, has had an important influence on the migration of plants and 

 animals. Drifting logs that have floated from its delta to Barbados 

 have no doubt carried reptiles, insects, seeds, and even higher mam- 

 mals. Paddles from Indian tribes dwelling in the Orinoco delta 

 are from time to time found on the east coast of Trinidad. But in 

 the Greater Antilles, as Cuba, it is different ; there the ocean currents 

 set from the west, eastward, rendering these islands biologically 

 allied to Central America rather than to South America. The peo- 

 pling of islands by man in early colonization follows much the same 

 laws as that of plants and animals. 



Columbus found a different tribe, the Caribs, possessing a distinct 

 language and an entirely different culture, occupying the Lesser 

 Antilles. He observed what he thought unmistakable evidence of 

 cannibalistic practices at Guadeloupe and Dominica on his arrival 

 in the West Indies during his second voyage. What he observed and 

 thought to be cannibalism may in truth have been endocannibalism, 

 a much more likely explanation. He thought he had discovered 

 representatives of the same cannibalistic Caribs at Samana during 

 his first voyage. In this, of course, Columbus was in error. His 

 fantasy and imagination distorted his vision and many of his ob- 

 servations must be disinterestedly checked with data that have not 

 suffered by his zeal for discovery. 



The islands of the Lesser Antilles are of marine formation, or, 

 as is the case of Grenada and Dominica, are volcanic in origin. 

 Peaks of an elevation sufficiently great to make them visible at a 

 distance of many miles were landmarks to the aboriginal sailor. 

 Gaps between islands of the Lesser Antilles are many ; one, between 

 Sombrero and Anegada Islands, is about 50 miles wide. Mona 

 Passage, separating Porto Kico from Santo Domingo, is 64 miles 

 wide but is divided in mid-channel by Mona Island, which affords 

 a shelter, though barren and inconvenient. As late as the sixteenth 

 century, Arawak sailors traversed this passage. The same is said 

 for the Florida boatmen of the sixteenth century, who regularly 

 traveled from the Florida kej^s to Havana, long after the arrival 

 of the Spanish in the New World. 



The West Indian Archipelago in recent times has undergone 

 subsidence, although recent uplifted strata extending over limited 

 54291—31 2 



