CURA c0A, BUENAIRE, and ORUBA, are three islands lying off the province of Coro in Colombia, but belong to the kingdom of the Netherlands. Curacoa, the principal island, is situated at from N. lat. 12°, to 12° 18', long. 8° E. from Washington city. Buenaire lies 60 miles easterly, and Oruba an equal distance westerly from Curacoa. The whole three may amount to a length of 70 miles, with a breadth of seven or eight, with an area of 500 square miles, and of which nearly one half would be in Curacoa. It was perhaps only the Dutch, of all the Eu ropean nations, who attempted colonies in America, who could have succeeded in Curacoa. The land is arid and sterile; the soil, what little does exist, thin. Yet on this ungrateful tract, there were in 1815, whites 2781, free coloured persons 4033, and 6026 slaves, in all 12,840.
\Villiamstadt, the capital, is represented as one of the most magnificent, clean, neat, and convenient towns in the whole West Indies. Sugar and cotton have been successfully cultivated on Curacoa, but on Buenaire and Oruba, the rearing of stock has been preferred to agri culture by the inhabitants.
We have completed our brief survey of the most inter esting, because the most fruitful and healthy peninsula of the earth, and we find at its conclusion the striking moral phenomenon, that on much more than one seventh part of the productive soil of this planet, there exists only ten and a half millions of human beings. On a surface where the whole existing human species could be sub sisted, there is a little fraction above l j human beings to each square mile ; or about 16 to each 100 square miles.
If we compare South America to Europe, and take the respective climates into the contrast, it is safe to say that the former could support a population double to twat of the latter. Europe, on about three millions of square miles, has an existing population of two hundred mil lions; therefore, if South America was peopled equal to Europe, it would contain four hundred millions of souls.
The actually inhabited part of the United States of North America, amounts to about 600,000 square miles, on which there is an aggregate of, say thirteen millions of persons: the surface peopled nearly equal to one tenth part of South America, consequently, if the latter had a population even equivalent to the former, it would then have ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY MILLIONS OF SOULS.
For a more foil account of the the Provinces, Cities, and Islands of South America, see our articles AMERICA, V01. I. p. 578; ARAUCANIA, Vol. II. p. 285; AREQUIPA, 321 ; BRASIL, V01. IV. p. 404 ; BUENOS AYRES, p. 778, and Vol. V. p. 1; CARACCAS, Vol. V. p. 318; CHILI, Vol. VI. p. 19; CUENCA, Vol. VII. p. 324; CURACOA, p. 349; Cusco, 372; TIERRA DEL FUEGO, Vol. IX. p. 492; NEW GRANADA, Vol. X. p. 54; GUAMANCA, p. 139 ; GUAYAQUIL, p. 141; GUIANA, 144; LIMA, Vol. XII. p. 66; PATAGONIA, VOl. XV. p. 398 ; PERu, p. 504 ; QUITO, Vol. XVI. p. 296. See also SURINAM, in this volume, and ToBAGO and TRINIDAD, in 'Vol XVIII. DARBY.