180 
BA1T-WOB.K8 OF AR1TA. 
situated at the extremity of Cape Araya, were worked in 
very remote times. The Spaniards, who” settled at first at 
Cubagua, and soon after on the coasts of Cumana, worked, 
from the beginning of the sixteenth century, the salt 
marshes which stretch away like a lagoon to* the north 
of Cerro de la Vela. A-S at that period the peninsula 
of Araya had no settled population, the Dutch availed 
themselves of the natural riches of a soil which appeared 
to be property common to all nations. In our days, each 
colony has its own salt-works, and navigation is so much 
improved, that the merchants of Cadiz can send, at a small 
expense, 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 
unknown at the time of the conquest; colonial industry 
had then made so little progress, that the salt of Araya 
was carried, at great expense, to the West India Islands, 
Carthagena, and PortobeUo. In 1605, the court of Madrid 
sent armed ships to Punta Araya, with orders to expel the 
Dutch by force of arms. The Dutch, however, continued 
to carry on a contraband trade in salt till, in 1622, there 
was built near the salt-works a fort, which afterwards 
became celebrated under the name of the Castillo de 
Santiago, or the Eeal Puerza de Araya. The great salt- 
marshes are laid down on the oldest Spanish maps, some- 
times as a bay, and at other times as a lagoon. Laet, 
who wrote his Orbis JVovus in 1633, and who had some 
excellent notions respecting these coasts, expressly states, 
that the lagoon was separated from the sea by an isthmus 
above the level of high water. In 1726, an impetuous 
hurricane destroyed the salt-works of Araya, and rendered 
the fort, the construction of which had cost more than a 
million of piastres, useless. This hurricane was a very rare 
phenomenon in these regions, where the sea is in general 
as calm as the water in our large rivers. The waves over- 
flowed the land to a great extent ; and by the effect of this 
eruption of the ocean the salt lake was converted into a 
gulf several miles in length. Since that period, artificial 
reservoirs, or pits, ( vasets ,) have been formed, to the north 
of the range of hills which separates the castle from the 
north coast of the peninsula. 
