I 



369 



the place of the flowers of our meadows. Their 

 form is indeed striking; they dazzle by the 

 variety and splendour of their colours ; but, 

 too high above the soil, they disturb that har- 

 monious relation, which exists among the plants 

 that compose our meadows and our turf. Na- 

 ture, in her beneficence, has given the land- 

 scape under every zone it's peculiar type of 

 beauty. 



We ought not to wonder, that fertile islands, 

 so near the continent, are not now inhabited. 

 It was only at the first period of the discovery, 

 and when the Caribbees, Chaymas, and Cuma- 

 nagotoes were still masters of the coast, that 

 the Spaniards formed settlements at Cubagua 

 and Margaretta. When the natives were sub- 

 dued, or driven to the south, toward the sa- 

 vannahs, settlements on the continent were 

 preferred, where there was a choice of land, 

 and of Indians, who might be treated like beasts 

 of burden. If the little islands of Tortuga, 

 Blanquilla, and Orchilla, had been placed amid 

 the group of the Antilles, they would not have 

 remained without^any tracejof cultivation. 



Vessels that draw a great deal of water pass 

 between the main land] and the most southern 

 of the Piritoo Islands. Being very low, their 

 northern point is dreaded by the pilots, who 

 come near the coast in those latitudes. When 

 we found ourselves to the westward of the 



vol. in. 2 B 



