70 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



are now, under government control. By comparing the 

 value of the article in Humboldt's time and what i& 

 charged for it to-day, we see what an advance there has 

 been in the price of this necessary. 



Araya is a barren stretch of land forming a small 

 peninsula at the western extremity of that long narrow 

 strip separating the gulfs of Cariaco and Paria from the 

 Caribbean Sea. A few cacti, with here and there a patch 

 of thorny scrub, is all the vegetation the dry calcareous 

 soil can support. The whole place looks so desolate, so 

 unfit for animal life, that one is surprised to learn that 

 wild rabbits exist in such numbers that they are sold at 

 a medio, or 2^d. a piece. Large flocks of goats may be 

 seen wandering over the hillocks where the scrub is 

 thickest. It is in such inhospitable regions that we come 

 to realise to what an extent life is capable of adapting 

 itself to the most adverse conditions. To be more 

 accurate when speaking of life, I ought to have said not 

 only of adapting itself to the most adverse conditions, but 

 of thriving in spite of them. Although we do not meet 

 with many different species in a district where fresh 

 water is wanting and vegetation scarce, yet we cannot 

 fail to notice that whatever does exist in such localities is 

 vigorous of its kind and difficult to destroy. Midway 

 between the seashore and the lagoon where the salt is 

 obtained, is the collection of houses forming the village 

 of Araya ; and here, in one of the best houses, lives the 

 Administrador de la Salina. To be Administrator of 

 the salt-pan at Araya is the ambition of many of those 

 place-hunters whose business is the setting up or over- 

 throwing of presidents, for the post is considered one 

 of the best political rewards in the Kepublic. On the 

 occasion of our visit a tall dignified old gentleman with a 



