These islands, at the time of the discovery by the Spaniards, were inhabited by an Indian race which has left numerous traces of its occupancy; pottery, stone objects, petroglyphs, etc., are met with in large numbers in Aruba and in a less quantity on Buen Ayre and Curaçao. * * * These petroglyphs are quite different in character from those which I have recently described in a brief study of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, and their appearance brings to mind those found in Orinoco, in Venezuela, in the peninsula of Paraguana, on the border of the Magdalena river, and as far as Chiriqui. They differ from these, however, in several respects, and especially in that they are almost always multi-colored. The colors usually employed are red, blue, a yellowish white, and black. They are, moreover, painted and not cut in the rock. They show the same degree of variance as I have already noticed in North America--in Sonora, Arizona, and Chihuahua--between the petroglyphs which I have designated as Pimos, which are always incised, and those in the mountains which I designated as Comanche, and which are always painted and in many colors. The petroglyphs are, as has already been said, very numerous on the island of Aruba. I have personal knowledge of thirty, but, according to my friend Père van Kolwsjk, there must be more than fifty. The most important groups are as follows: (1) _Avikok._ An enormous dark rock forms the summit of a wooded knob, and in this rock are two large cavities, one above the other, on the walls of which are the petroglyphs represented. (2) _Fontein._ On the border of a fresh-water lagoon, a short distance from the northeast part of the island, near the sea, is a grotto of coralline origin, whose walls are of remarkable whiteness. This grotto is composed of a principal passage, quite wide, cut off toward the lower end by a row of stalactites and stalagmites, which, joining together, form a curious grimacing figure. On the wall to the left, as we look toward the bottom of the grotto, are found some petroglyphs. They are well preserved, thanks to their situation and the shelter from inclement weather, and they show no indication of painting, being distinctly traced on the walls. (3) _Chiribana._ On some granitic spurs of a hill of the same name are found curious petroglyphs. (4) At Lero de Wajukan, near Avikok, and at the foot of a hill, petroglyphs are found on some blocks of granite. I notice specially the human figure which in the original is outlined in red and bears on the shoulder a hatchet of the Carib type with a haft. (5) At Ayo I discovered petroglyphs with figures in blue and red. (6) At Woeboeri inscriptions are found on the wall of an immense mass of granite. (7) Some petroglyphs on the walls of a grotto at Karasito. CHAPTER III.