249 



colony has it's own salt-works and navigation is 

 so much improved, that the merchants of Cadiz 

 can send at small expence salt from Spain and 

 Portugal, to the southern hemisphere, a distance 

 of 1900 leagues, to cure meat at Monte Video 

 and Buenos Ayres. These advantages were un- 

 known at the time of the conquest ; colonial in- 

 dustry had then made so little progress, that the 

 salt of Araya was carried at great expence to 

 the West India islands, Carthagena, and Porto- 

 bello *. In 1605, the court of Madrid sent arm- 

 ed ships to Punta Araya, with orders to station 

 themselves there, and expel the Dutch by force 

 of arms. The Dutch, however, continued to 

 carry on a contraband trade in salt till, in 1622, 

 a fort was built near the salt-works, that after- 

 ward became celebrated under the name of the 

 Castillo de Santiago, or of the Real Fuerza de 

 Araya. The great salt-marshes are laid down 

 on the oldest Spanish maps, sometimes as a bay, 

 and at other times as a mere. Laet, who wrote 

 his Orbis Novus in 1633, and who had some ex- 

 cellent notions respecting these coasts, expressly 

 states, that the mere was separated from the sea 

 by an isthmus above the level of high water. In 

 1726, an extraordinary event destroyed the salt- 

 works of Araya^ and rendered the fort, the con- 



* MSS. of the archives of Cumana. (Informes kechos sobre 

 la Salina nueva.) 



