ORCHILLA— CURACAO. 73 



Island so early as the year 1515, and consequently the oldest of all Spanish settle- 

 ments in South America, was abandoned when the neighbouring pearl fisheries 

 ceased to be productive. 



East of Margarita the little group of the Testigos (" Witnesses ") recalls the 

 presence of a formidable pirate of the first years of the eighteenth century, 

 Captain Teach, the " Bluebeard " of West Indian legends. Frequent attempts have 

 been made to recover his treasures, said to have been buried "three hundred 

 paces " from a certain point in the chief island of the group. 



Tortuga, farther wesf, is occupied by a small village and encircled by a cortège 

 of Tortuguillos (" Little Turtle Reefs"). Blanquilla in the north, as indicated 

 by its name, is an expanse of whitish sands and rocks with a stunted vegetation 

 of cactuses and mimosas. A few depressions here and there have enough vege- 

 table humus to repay cultivation. During the wars of the Revolution a planter 

 from Guadaloupe established himself with his slaves in Blanquilla, where he 

 wanted to set up a cotton-mill. But the Spanish Government expelled the 

 intruders, and restored this remote land to solitude, to its wild oxen and packs of 

 runaway dogs. 



V. — The Leeward Islands. — From Orchilla to Aruba. 



These islands, which run first west and then north-west in continuation of the 

 eastern chain beginning with Blanquilla, develop an extremely regular curve 

 parallel with the Venezuelan coast ; each member of the group even affects a trend 

 identical with that of the opposite mainland. All represent the upraised summits 

 of a submarine ridge belonging like Margarita to the Andes system, but rising to 

 a much lower elevation above sea level. The culminating crest of Orchilla is only 

 400 feet high, while Sanct Christoffel, highest summit in Curaçao and in the whole 

 ohain, scarcely exceeds 1,200 feet. 



On the other hand the islands have been enlarged horizontally by the coral- 

 builders. The Los Roques cluster, which abuts south-eastwards on a rock 150 

 feet high, has its reefs rising here and there above the surface disposed in cir- 

 cular form like the atolls of the Indian Ocean. The neighbouring Aves (Bird 

 Islands) are also of coralline origin, whereas Aruba (Oruba), in the extreme west, 

 presents a nucleus of largely disintegrated syenite and granite, whose detritus 

 forms the soil of the island, itself encircled by a broad fringe of coralline lime- 

 stone. 



The eastern islets and reefs, Orchilla, Los Roques, and Aves, are uninhabitable 

 rocks visited only by fishermen and lighthouse-keepers. After the Revolution 

 they were left politically dependent on Venezuela, while the three western islands 

 of Buen Aire, Curacao, and Aruba, all of relatively large size and cultivable, had 

 long previously been detached from Spain. 



Curaçao. 

 In 1499 Hojeda had already discovered Curaçao, which he called the " Isle of 

 Giants." It was occupied to the sixteenth century by some Spanish settlers, but 



