72 



SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



Government to speculators at a high figure. The fish is largely captured with 

 enormous trawl-nets, each worked by 180 or 200 hands, ail members of the Guay- 

 queri tribe. A single haul occasionally represents as much as twenty-five tons 

 of dried fish. During the season, which lasts nine months, a good chinchorro (net) 

 should take altogether at least 225 tons. When the line closes round the seething 

 multitudes, hundreds of fishes leap out and fall into the boats which crowd round 

 the periphery. The oil of the sharks and of the other non-edible kinds serves 

 for liffhtino: tlie houses and varnishinor the boats. 



Nevertheless, all this marine produce, with the slight resources of the island, 

 are insufficient to support the inhabitants, who consequently emigrate in consider- 



Fig. 24. — Mabgaeita. 

 Scale 1 : 800,000. 



b4°50' 



West or Greenwich 



53°50' 



Depths. 



Oto 5 

 Fathoms. 



able numbers to Venezuela. The great majority are half-caste Guayqueri natives, 

 who increase very rapidly. In 1881 they numbered over 37,000, of whom more 

 than 20,000 were women, an enormous disparity due to the emigration of the 

 men to the mainland. In average years the birth-rate far exceeds the mor- 

 tality in this salubrious island, which attracts consumptive patients from great 

 distances. 



The chief centres of population, Asuncion, the capital, noted for its miraculous 

 Virgin adorned with a robe of pearls, the two ports of Pampatar and Pueblo de la 

 Mar (Porlamar), and, near the bay of Juan Griego, Pueblo del Norte, have all 

 been founded in the eastern part of the island, Nueva . Cadiz, founded in Cubagua 



