DEPARTURE FROM CARIPE. MOUNTAIN AND FOREST OF SANTA MARIA. MISSION OF CATUARO. PORT OF CARIACO.

DEPARTURE FROM CARIPE. MOUNTAIN AND FOREST OF SANTA MARIA. MISSION OF CATUARO. PORT OF CARIACO.

The days we passed at the Capuchin convent in the mountains of

Caripe, glided swiftly away, though our manner of living was simple

and uniform. From sunrise to nightfall we traversed the forests and

neighbouring mountains, to collect plants. When the winter rains

prevented us from undertaking distant excursions, we visited the

huts of the Indians, the conuco of the community, or those

assemblies in which the alcaldes every evening arrange the labours

of the succeeding day. We returned to the monastery only when the

sound of the bell called us to the refectory to share the repasts

of the missionaries. Sometimes, very early in the morning, we

followed them to the church, to attend the doctrina, that is to

say, the religious instruction of the Indians. It was rather a

difficult task to explain dogmas to the neophytes, especially those

who had but a very imperfect knowledge of the Spanish language. On

the other hand, the monks are as yet almost totally ignorant of the

language of the Chaymas; and the resemblance of sounds confuses the

poor Indians and suggests to them the most whimsical ideas. Of this

I may cite an example. I saw a missionary labouring earnestly to

prove that infierno, hell, and invierno, winter, were not one and

the same thing; but as different as heat and cold. The Chaymas are

acquainted with no other winter than the season of rains; a 535x2312f nd

consequently they imagined the Hell of the whites to be a place

where the wicked are exposed to frequent showers. The missionary

harangued to no purpose: it was impossible to efface the first

impression produced by the analogy between the two consonants. He

could not separate in the minds of the neophytes the ideas of rain

and hell; invierno and infierno.

After passing almost the whole day in the open air, we employed our

evenings, at the convent, in making notes, drying our plants, and

sketching those that appeared to form new genera. Unfortunately the

misty atmosphere of a valley, where the surrounding forests fill

the air with an enormous quantity of vapour, was unfavourable to

astronomical observations. I spent a part of the nights waiting to

take advantage of the moment when some star should be visible

between the clouds, near its passage over the meridian. I often

shivered with cold, though the thermometer only sunk to 16 degrees,

which is the temperature of the day in our climates towards the end

of September. The instruments remained set up in the court of the

convent for several hours, yet I was almost always disappointed in

my expectations. Some good observations of Fomalhaut and of Deneb

have given 10 degrees 10 minutes 14 seconds as the latitude of

Caripe; which proves that the position indicated in the maps of

Caulin is 18 minutes wrong, and in that of Arrowsmith 14 minutes.

Observations of corresponding altitudes of the sun having given me

the true time, within about 2 seconds, I was enabled to determine

the magnetic variation with precision, at noon. It was, on the 20th

of September, 1799, 3 degrees 15 minutes 30 seconds north-east;

consequently 0 degrees 58 minutes 15 seconds less than at Cumana.

If we attend to the influence of the horary variations, which in

these countries do not in general exceed 8 minutes, we shall find,

that at considerable distances the variation changes less rapidly

than is usually supposed. The dip of the needle was 42.75 degrees,

centesimal division, and the number of oscillations, expressing the

intensity of the magnetic forces, rose to 229 in ten minutes.

The vexation of seeing the stars disappear in a misty sky was the

only disappointment we felt in the valley of Caripe. The aspect of

this spot presents a character at once wild and tranquil, gloomy

and attractive. In the solitude of these mountains we are perhaps

less struck by the new impressions we receive at every step, than

with the marks of resemblance we trace in climates the most remote

from each other. The hills by which the convent is backed, are

crowned with palm-trees and arborescent ferns. In the evenings,

when the sky denotes rain, the air resounds with the monotonous

howling of the alouate apes, which resembles the distant sound of

wind when it shakes the forest. Yet amid these strange sounds,

these wild forms of plants, and these prodigies of a new world,

nature everywhere speaks to man in a voice familiar to him. The

turf that overspreads the soil: the old moss and fern that cover

the roots of the trees; the torrents that gush down the sloping

banks of the calcareous rocks; in fine, the harmonious accordance

of tints reflected by the waters, the verdure, and the sky;

everything recalls to the traveller, sensations which he has

already felt.

The beauties of this mountain scenery so much engaged us, that we

were very tardy in observing the embarrassment felt by our kind

entertainers the monks. They had but a slender provision of wine

and wheaten bread; and although in those high regions both are

considered as belonging merely to the luxuries of the table, yet we

saw with regret, that our hosts abstained from them on our account.

Our portion of bread had already been diminished three-fourths, yet

violent rains still obliged us to delay our departure for two days.

How long did this delay appear! It made us dread the sound of the

bell that summoned us to the refectory.

We departed at length on the 22nd of September, followed by four

mules, laden with our instruments and plants. We had to descend the

north-east slope of the calcareous Alps of New Andalusia, which we

have called the great chain of the Brigantine and the Cocollar. The

mean elevation of this chain scarcely exceeds six or seven hundred

toises: in respect to height and geological constitution, we may

compare it to the chain of the Jura. Notwithstanding the

inconsiderable elevation of the mountains of Cumana, the descent is

extremely difficult and dangerous in the direction of Cariaco. The

Cerro of Santa Maria, which the missionaries ascend in their

journey from Cumana to their convent at Caripe, is famous for the

difficulties it presents to travellers. On comparing these

mountains with the Andes of Peru, the Pyrenees, and the Alps, which

we successively visited, it has more than once occurred to us, that

the less lofty summits are sometimes the most inaccessible.

On leaving the valley of Caripe, we first crossed a ridge of hills

north-east of the convent. The road led us along a continual ascent

through a vast savannah, as far as the table-land of Guardia de San

Augustin. We there halted to wait for the Indian who carried the

barometer. We found ourselves to be at 533 toises of absolute

elevation, or a little higher than the bottom of the cavern of

Guacharo. The savannahs or natural meadows, which yield excellent

pasture for the cows of the convent, are totally devoid of trees or

shrubs. It is the domain of the monocotyledonous plants; for amidst

the gramina only a few Maguey* plants rise here and there (* Agave

Americana.); their flowery stalks being more than twenty-six feet

high. Having reached the table-land of Guardia, we appeared to be

transported to the bed of an old lake, levelled by the

long-continued abode of the waters. We seemed to trace the

sinuosities of the ancient shore in the tongues of land which jut

out from the craggy rock, and even in the distribution of the

vegetation. The bottom of the basin is a savannah, while its banks

are covered with trees of full growth. This is probably the most

elevated valley in the provinces of Venezuela and Cumana. One

cannot but regret, that a spot favoured by so temperate a climate,

and which without doubt would be fit for the culture of corn, is

totally uninhabited.

From the table-land of Guardia we continued to descend, till we

reached the Indian village of Santa Cruz. We passed at first along

a slope extremely slippery and steep, to which the missionaries had

given the name of Baxada del Purgatorio, or Descent of Purgatory.

It is a rock of schistose sandstone, decomposed, covered with clay,

the talus of which appears frightfully steep, from the effect of a

very common optical illusion. When we look down from the top to the

bottom of the hill the road seems inclined more than 60 degrees.

The mules in going down draw their hind legs near to their fore

legs, and lowering their cruppers, let themselves slide at a

venture. The rider runs no risk, provided he slacken the bridle,

thereby leaving the animal quite free in his movements. From this

point we perceived towards the left the great pyramid of Guacharo.

The appearance of this calcareous peak is very picturesque, but we

soon lost sight of it, on entering the thick forest, known by the

name of the Montana de Santa Maria. We descended without

intermission for seven hours. It is difficult to conceive a more

tremendous descent; it is absolutely a road of steps, a kind of

ravine, in which, during the rainy season, impetuous torrents dash

from rock to rock. The steps are from two to three feet high, and

the beasts of burden, after measuring with their eyes the space

necessary to let their load pass between the trunks of the trees,

leap from one rock to another. Afraid of missing their mark, we saw

them stop a few minutes to scan the ground, and bring together

their four feet like wild goats. If the animal does not reach the

nearest block of stone, he sinks half his depth into the soft

ochreous clay, that fills up the interstices of the rock. When the

blocks are wanting, enormous roots serve as supports for the feet

of men and beasts. Some of these roots are twenty inches thick, and

they often branch out from the trunks of the trees much above the

level of the soil. The Creoles have sufficient confidence in the

address and instinct of the mules, to remain in their saddles

during this long and dangerous descent. Fearing fatigue less than

they did, and being accustomed to travel slowly for the purpose of

gathering plants and examining the nature of the rocks, we

preferred going down on foot; and, indeed, the care which our

chronometers demanded, left us no liberty of choice.

The forest that covers the steep flank of the mountain of Santa

Maria, is one of the thickest I ever saw. The trees are of

stupendous height and size. Under their bushy, deep green foliage,

there reigns continually a kind of dim daylight, a peculiar sort of

obscurity, of which our forests of pines, oaks, and beech-trees,

convey no idea. Notwithstanding its elevated temperature, it is

difficult to believe that the air can dissolve the quantity of

water exhaled from the surface of the soil, the foliage of the

trees, and their trunks: the latter are covered with a drapery of

orchideae, peperomia, and other succulent plants. With the aromatic

odour of the flowers, the fruit, and even the wood, is mingled that

which we perceive in autumn in misty weather. Here, as in the

forests of the Orinoco, fixing our eyes on the top of the trees, we

discerned streams of vapour, whenever a solar ray penetrated, and

traversed the dense atmosphere. Our guides pointed out to us among

those majestic trees, the height of which exceeded 120 or 130 feet,

the curucay of Terecen. It yields a whitish liquid, and very

odoriferous resin, which was formerly employed by the Cumanagoto

and Tagiri Indians, to perfume their idols. The young branches have

an agreeable taste, though somewhat astringent. Next to the curucay

and enormous trunks of hymenaea, (the diameter of which was more

than nine or ten feet), the trees which most excited our attention

were the dragon's blood (Croton sanguifluum), the purple-brown

juice of which flows down a whitish bark; the calahuala fern,

different from that of Peru, but almost equally medicinal;* (* The

calahuala of Caripe is the Polypodium crassifolium; that of Peru,

the use of which has been so much extended by Messrs. Ruiz and

Pavon, comes from the Aspidium coriaceum, Willd. (Tectaria

calahuala, Cav.) In commerce the diaphoretic roots of the

Polypodium crassifolium, and of the Acrostichum huascaro, are mixed

with those of the calahuala or Aspidium coriaceum.) and the

palm-trees, irasse, macanilla, corozo, and praga.* (* Aiphanes

praga.) The last yields a very savoury palm-cabbage, which we had

sometimes eaten at the convent of Caripe. These palms with pinnated

and thorny leaves formed a pleasing contrast to the fern-trees. One

of the latter, the Cyathea speciosa,* grows to the height of more

than thirty-five feet, a prodigious size for plants of this family.

(* Possibly a hemitelia of Robert Brown. The trunk alone is from 22

to 24 feet long. This and the Cyathea excelsa of the Mauritius, are

the most majestic of all the fern-trees described by botanists. The

total number of these gigantic cryptogamous plants amounts at

present to 25 species, that of the palm-trees to 80. With the

cyathea grow, on the mountain of Santa Maria, Rhexia juniperina,

Chiococca racemosa, and Commelina spicata.) We discovered here, and

in the valley of Caripe, five new kinds of arborescent ferns.* (*

Meniscium arborescens, Aspidium caducum, A. rostratum, Cyathea

villosa, and C. speciosa.) In the time of Linnaeus, botanists knew

no more than four on both continents.

We observed that the fern-trees are in general much more rare than

the palm-trees. Nature has confined them to temperate, moist, and

shady places. They shun the direct rays of the sun, and while the

pumos, the corypha of the steppes and other palms of America,

flourish on the barren and burning plains, these ferns with

arborescent trunks, which at a distance look like palm-trees,

preserve the character and habits of cryptogamous plants. They love

solitary places, little light, moist, temperate and stagnant air.

If they sometimes descend towards the sea-coast, it is only under

cover of a thick shade. The old trunks of the cyathea and the

meniscium are covered with a carbonaceous powder, which, probably

being deprived of hydrogen, has a metallic lustre like plumbago. No

other plant presents this phenomenon; for the trunks of the

dicotyledons, in spite of the heat of the climate, and the

intensity of the light, are less burnt within the tropics than in

the temperate zone. It may be said that the trunks of the ferns,

which, like the monocotyledons, are enlarged by the remains of the

petioles, decay from the circumference to the centre; and that,

deprived of the cortical organs through which the elaborated juices

descend to the roots, they are burnt more easily by the action of

the oxygen of the atmosphere. I brought to Europe some powders with

metallic lustre, taken from very old trunks of Meniscium and

Aspidium.

In proportion as we descended the mountain of Santa Maria, we saw

the arborescent ferns diminish, and the number of palm-trees

increase. The beautiful large-winged butterflies (nymphales), which

fly at a prodigious height, became more common. Everything denoted

our approach to the coast, and to a zone in which the mean

temperature of the day is from 28 to 30 degrees.

The weather was cloudy, and led us to fear one of those heavy

rains, during which from 1 to 1.3 inches of water sometimes falls

in a day. The sun at times illumined the tops of the trees; and,

though sheltered from its rays, we felt an oppressive heat. Thunder

rolled at a distance; the clouds seemed suspended on the top of the

lofty mountains of the Guacharo; and the plaintive howling of the

araguatoes, which we had so often heard at Caripe, denoted the

proximity of the storm. We now for the first time had a near view

of these howling apes. They are of the family of the alouates,* (*

Stentor, Geoffroy.) the different species of which have long been

confounded one with another. The small sapajous of America, which

imitate in whistling the tones of the passeres, have the bone of

the tongue thin and simple, but the apes of large size, as the

alouates and marimondes,* (* Ateles, Geoffroy.) have the tongue

placed on a large bony drum. Their superior larynx has six pouches,

in which the voice loses itself; and two of which, shaped like

pigeons' nests, resemble the inferior larynx of birds. The air

driven with force into the bony drum produces that mournful sound

which characterises the araguatoes. I sketched on the spot these

organs, which are imperfectly known to anatomists, and published

the description of them on my return to Europe.

The araguato, which the Tamanac Indians call aravata,* (* In the

writings of the early Spanish missionaries, this monkey is

described by the names of aranata and araguato. In both names we

easily discover the same root. The v has been transformed into g

and n. The name of arabata, which Gumilla gives to the howling apes

of the Lower Orinoco, and which Geoffroy thinks belongs to the S.

straminea of Great Paria, is the same Tamanac word aravata. This

identity of names need not surprise us. The language of the Chayma

Indians of Cumana is one of the numerous branches of the Tamanac

language, and the latter is connected with the Caribbee language of

the Lower Orinoco.) and the Maypures marave, resembles a young

bear.* (* Alouate ourse (Simia ursina).) It is three feet long,

reckoning from the top of the head (which is small and very

pyramidal) to the beginning of the prehensile tail. Its fur is

bushy, and of a reddish brown; the breast and belly are covered

with fine hair, and not bare as in the mono colorado, or alouate

roux of Buffon, which we carefully examined in going from

Carthagena to Santa Fe de Bogota. The face of the araguato is of a

blackish blue, and is covered with a fine and wrinkled skin: its

beard is pretty long; and, notwithstanding the direction of the

facial line, the angle of which is only thirty degrees, the

araguato has, in the expression of the countenance, as much

resemblance to man as the marimonde (S. belzebuth, Bresson) and the

capuchin of the Orinoco (S. chiropotes). Among thousands of

araguatoes which we observed in the provinces of Cumana, Caracas,

and Guiana, we never saw any change in the reddish brown fur of the

back and shoulders, whether we examined individuals or whole

troops. It appeared to me in general, that variety of colour is

less frequent among monkeys than naturalists suppose.

The araguato of Caripe is a new species of the genus Stentor, which

I have above described. It differs equally from the ouarine (S.

guariba) and the alouate roux (S. seniculus, old man of the woods).

Its eye, voice, and gait, denote melancholy. I have seen young

araguatoes brought up in Indian huts. They never play like the

little sagoins, and their gravity was described with much

simplicity by Lopez de Gomara, in the beginning of the sixteenth

century. "The Aranata de los Cumaneses," says this author, "has the

face of a man, the beard of a goat, and a grave demeanour (honrado

gesto.)" Monkeys are more melancholy in proportion as they have

more resemblance to man. Their sprightliness diminishes, as their

intellectual faculties appear to increase.

We stopped to observe some howling monkeys, which, to the number of

thirty or forty, crossed the road, passing in a file from one tree

to another over the horizontal and intersecting branches. While we

were observing their movements, we saw a troop of Indians going

towards the mountains of Caripe. They were without clothing, as the

natives of this country generally are. The women, laden with rather

heavy burdens, closed the march. The men were all armed; and even

the youngest boys had bows and arrows. They moved on in silence,

with their eyes fixed on the ground. We endeavoured to learn from

them whether we were yet far from the Mission of Santa Cruz, where

we intended passing the night. We were overcome with fatigue, and

suffered from thirst. The heat increased as the storm drew near,

and we had not met with a single spring on the way. The words si,

patre; no, patre; which the Indians continually repeated, led us to

think they understood a little Spanish. In the eyes of a native

every white man is a monk, a padre; for in the Missions the colour

of the skin characterizes the monk, more than the colour of the

garment. In vain we questioned them respecting the length of the

way: they answered, as if by chance, si and no, without our being

able to attach any precise sense to their replies. This made us the

more impatient, as their smiles and gestures indicated their wish

to direct us; and the forest seemed at every step to become thicker

and thicker. At length we separated from the Indians; our guides

were able to follow us only at a distance, because the beasts of

burden fell at every step in the ravines.

After journeying for several hours, continually descending on

blocks of scattered rock, we found ourselves unexpectedly at the

outlet of the forest of Santa Maria. A savannah, the verdure of

which had been renewed by the winter rains, stretched before us

farther than the eye could reach. On the left we discovered a

narrow valley, extending as far as the mountains of the Guacharo,

and covered with a thick forest. Looking downward, the eye rested

on the tops of the trees, which, at eight hundred feet below the

road, formed a carpet of verdure of a dark and uniform tint. The

openings in the forest appeared like vast funnels, in which we

could distinguish by their elegant forms and pinnated leaves, the

Praga and Irasse palms. But what renders this spot eminently

picturesque, is the aspect of the Sierra del Guacharo. Its northern

slope, in the direction of the gulf of Cariaco, is abrupt. It

presents a wall of rock, an almost vertical profile, exceeding 3000

feet in height. The vegetation which covers this wall is so scanty,

that the eye can follow the lines of the calcareous strata. The

summit of the Sierra is flat, and it is only at its eastern

extremity, that the majestic peak of the Guacharo rises like an

inclined pyramid, its form resembles that of the needles and horns*

of the Alps. (* The Shreckhorner, the Finsteraarhorn, etc.)

The savannah we crossed to the Indian village of Santa Cruz is

composed of several smooth plateaux, lying above each other like

terraces. This geological phenomenon, which is repeated in every

climate, seems to indicate a long abode of the waters in basins

that have poured them from one to the other. The calcareous rock is

no longer visible, but is covered with a thick layer of mould. The

last time we saw it in the forest of Santa Maria it was slightly

porous, and looked more like the limestone of Cumanacoa than that

of Caripe. We there found brown iron-ore disseminated in patches,

and if we were not deceived in our observation, a Cornu-ammonis,

which we could not succeed in our attempt to detach. It was seven

inches in diameter. This fact is the more important, as in this

part of America we have never seen ammonites. The Mission of Santa

Cruz is situated in the midst of the plain. We reached it towards

the evening, suffering much from thirst, having travelled nearly

eight hours without finding water. The thermometer kept at 26

degrees; accordingly we were not more than 190 toises above the

level of the sea.

We passed the night in one of those ajupas called King's houses,

which, as I have already said, serve as tambos or caravanserais to

travellers. The rains prevented any observations of the stars; and

the next day, the 23rd of September, we continued our descent

towards the gulf of Cariaco. Beyond Santa Cruz a thick forest again

appears; and in it we found, under tufts of melastomas, a beautiful

fern, with osmundia leaves, which forms a new genus of the order of

polypodiaceous plants.* (* Polybotya.)

Having reached the mission of Catuaro, we were desirous of

continuing our journey eastward by Santa Rosalia, Casanay, San

Josef, Carupano, Rio Carives, and the Montana of Paria; but we

learnt with great regret, that torrents of rain had rendered the

roads impassable, and that we should run the risk of losing the

plants we had already gathered. A rich planter of cacao-trees was

to accompany us from Santa Rosalia to the port of Carupano; but

when the time of departure approached, we were informed that his

affairs had called him to Cumana. We resolved in consequence to

embark at Cariaco, and to return directly by the gulf, instead of

passing between the island of Margareta and the isthmus of Araya.

The Mission of Catuaro is situated on a very wild spot. Trees of

full growth still surround the church, and the tigers come by night

to devour the poultry and swine belonging to the Indians. We lodged

at the dwelling of the priest, a monk of the congregation of the

Observance, to whom the Capuchins had confided the Mission, because

priests of their own community were wanting.

At this Mission we met Don Alexandro Mexia, the corregidor of the

district, an amiable and well-educated man. He gave us three

Indians, who, armed with their machetes, were to precede us, and

cut our way through the forest. In this country, so little

frequented, the power of vegetation is such at the period of the

great rains, that a man on horseback can with difficulty make his

way through narrow paths, covered with lianas and intertwining

branches. To our great annoyance, the missionary of Catuaro

insisted on conducting us to Cariaco; and we could not decline the

proposal. The movement for independence, which had nearly broken

out at Caracas in 1798, had been preceded and followed by great

agitation among the slaves at Coro, Maracaybo, and Cariaco. At the

last of these places an unfortunate negro had been condemned to

die, and our host, the vicar of Catuaro, was going thither to offer

him spiritual comfort. During our journey we could not escape

conversations, in which the missionary pertinaciously insisted on

the necessity of the slave-trade, on the innate wickedness of the

blacks, and the benefit they derived from their state of slavery

among the Christians! The mildness of Spanish legislation, compared

with the Black Code of most other nations that have possessions in

either of the Indies, cannot be denied. But such is the state of

the negroes, that justice, far from efficaciously protecting them

during their lives, cannot even punish acts of barbarity which

cause their death.

The road we took across the forest of Catuaro resembled the descent

of the mountain Santa Maria; here also, the most difficult and

dangerous places have fanciful names. We walked as in a narrow

furrow, scooped out by torrents, and filled with fine tenacious

clay. The mules lowered their cruppers and slid down the steepest

slopes. This descent is called Saca Manteca.* (* Or the

Butter-Slope. Manteca in Spanish signifies butter.) There is no

danger in the descent, owing to the great address of the mules of

this country. The clay, which renders the soil so slippery, is

produced by the numerous layers of sandstone and schistose clay

crossing the bluish grey alpine limestone. This last disappears as

we draw nearer to Cariaco. When we reached the mountain of Meapira,

we found it formed in great part of a white limestone, filled with

fossil remains, and from the grains of quartz agglutinated in the

mass, it appeared to belong to the great formation of the sea-coast

breccias. We descended this mountain on the strata of the rock, the

section of which forms steps of unequal height. Farther on, going

out of the forest, we reached the hill of Buenavista,* (* Mountain

of the Fine Prospect.) well deserving the name it bears; since it

commands a view of the town of Cariaco, situated in the midst of a

vast plain filled with plantations, huts, and scattered groups of

cocoa-palms. To the west of Cariaco extends the wide gulf; which a

wall of rock separates from the ocean: and towards the east are

seen, like bluish clouds, the high mountains of Paria and Areo.

This is one of the most extensive and magnificent prospects that

can be enjoyed on the coast of New Andalusia. In the town of

Cariaco we found a great part of the inhabitants suffering from

intermittent fever; a disease which in autumn assumes a formidable

character. When we consider the extreme fertility of the

surrounding plains, their moisture, and the mass of vegetation with

which they are covered, we may easily conceive why, amidst so much

decomposition of organic matter, the inhabitants do not enjoy that

salubrity of air which characterizes the climate of Cumana.

The chain of calcareous mountains of the Brigantine and the

Cocollar sends off a considerable branch to the north, which joins

the primitive mountains of the coast. This branch bears the name of

Sierra de Meapire; but towards the town of Cariaco it is called

Cerro Grande de Curiaco. Its mean height did not appear to be more

than 150 or 200 toises. It was composed, where I could examine it,

of the calcareous breccias of the sea-coast. Marly and calcareous

beds alternate with other beds containing grains of quartz. It is a

very striking phenomenon for those who study the physical aspect of

a country, to see a transverse ridge connect at right angles two

parallel ridges, of which one, the more southern, is composed of

secondary rocks, and the other, the more northern, of primitive

rocks. The latter presents, nearly as far as the meridian of

Carupano, only mica-slate; but to the east of this point, where it

communicates by a transverse ridge (the Sierra de Meapire) with the

limestone range, it contains lamellar gypsum, compact limestone,

and other rocks of secondary formation. It might be supposed that

the southern ridge has transferred these rocks to the northern

chain.

When standing on the summit of the Cerro del Meapire, we see the

mountain currents flow on one side to the gulf of Paria, and on the

other to the gulf of Cariaco. East and west of the ridge there are

low and marshy grounds, spreading out without interruption; and if

it be admitted that both gulfs owe their origin to the sinking of

the earth, and to rents caused by earthquakes, we must suppose that

the Cerro de Meapire has resisted the convulsive movements of the

globe, and hindered the waters of the gulf of Paria from uniting

with those of the gulf of Cariaco. But for this rocky dyke, the

isthmus itself in all probability would have had no existence; and

from the castle of Araya as far as Cape Paria, the whole mass of

the mountains of the coast would have formed a narrow island,

parallel to the island of Santa Margareta, and four times as long.

Not only do the inspection of the ground, and considerations

deduced from its relievo, confirm these opinions; but a mere glance

of the configuration of the coasts, and a geological map of the

country, would suggest the same ideas. It would appear that the

island of Margareta has been heretofore attached to the coast-chain

of Araya by the peninsula of Chacopata and the Caribbee islands,

Lobo and Coche, in the same manner as this chain is still connected

with that of the Cocollar and Caripe by the ridge of Meapire.

At present we perceive that the humid plains which stretch east and

west of the ridge, and which are improperly called the valleys San

Bonifacio and Cariaco, are enlarging by gaining on the sea. The

waters are receding, and these changes of the shore are very

remarkable, more particularly on the coast of Cumana. If the level

of the soil seem to indicate that the two gulfs of Cariaco and

Paria formerly occupied a much more considerable space, we cannot

doubt that at present the land is progressively extending. Near

Cumana, a battery, called La Boca, was built in 1791 on the very

margin of the sea; in 1799 we saw it very far inland. At the mouth

of the Rio Neveri, near the Morro of Nueva Barcelona, the retreat

of the waters is still more rapid. This local phenomenon is

probably assignable to accumulations of sand, the progress of which

has not yet been sufficiently examined. Descending the Sierra de

Meapire, which forms the isthmus between the plains of San

Bonifacio and Cariaco, we find towards the east the great lake of

Putacuao, which communicates with the river Areo, and is four or

five leagues in diameter. The mountainous lands that surround this

basin are known only to the natives. There are found those great

boa serpents known to the Chayma Indians by the name of guainas,

and to which they fabulously attribute a sting under the tail.

Descending the Sierra de Meapire to the west, we find at first a

hollow ground (tierra hueca) which, during the great earthquakes of

1766, threw out asphaltum enveloped in viscous petroleum. Farther

on, a numberless quantity of sulphureous thermal springs* are seen

issuing from the soil (* El Llano de Aguas calientes,

east-north-east of Cariaco, at the distance of two leagues.); and

at length we reach the borders of the lake of Campoma, the

exhalations from which contribute to the insalubrity of the climate

of Cariaco. The natives believe that the hollow is formed by the

engulfing of the hot springs; and, judging from the sound heard

under the hoofs of the horses, we must conclude that the

subterranean cavities are continued from west to east nearly as far

as Casanay, a length of three or four thousand toises. A little

river, the Rio Azul, runs through these plains which are rent into

crevices by earthquakes. These earthquakes have a particular centre

of action, and seldom extend as far as Cumana. The waters of the

Rio Azul are cold and limpid; they rise on the western declivity of

the mountain of Meapire, and it is believed that they are augmented

by infiltrations from the lake Putacuao, situated on the other side

of the chain. The little river, together with the sulphureous hot

springs, fall into the Laguna de Campoma. This is a name given to a

great lagoon, which is divided in dry weather into three basins

situated north-west of the town of Cariaco, near the extremity of

the gulf. Fetid exhalations arise continually from the stagnant

water of this lagoon. The smell of sulphuretted hydrogen is mingled

with that of putrid fishes and rotting plants.

Miasms are formed in the valley of Cariaco, as in the Campagna of

Rome; but the hot climate of the tropics increases their

deleterious energy. These miasms are probably ternary or quaternary

combinations of azote, phosphorus, hydrogen, carbon, and sulphur.

The situation of the lagoon of Campoma renders the north-west wind,

which blows frequently after sunset, very pernicious to the

inhabitants of the little town of Cariaco. Its influence can be the

less doubted, as intermitting fevers are observed to degenerate

into typhoid fevers, in proportion as we approach the lagoon, which

is the principal focus of putrid miasms. Whole families of free

negroes, who have small plantations on the northern coast of the

gulf of Cariaco, languish in their hammocks from the beginning of

the rainy season. These intermittent fevers assume a dangerous

character, when persons, debilitated by long labour and copious

perspiration, expose themselves to the fine rains, which frequently

fall as evening advances. Nevertheless, the men of colour, and

particularly the Creole negroes, resist much better than any other

race, the influence of the climate. Lemonade and infusions of

Scoparia dulcis are given to the sick; but the cuspare, which is

the cinchona of Angostura, is seldom used.

It is generally observed, that in these epidemics of the town of

Cariaco the mortality is less considerable than might be supposed.

Intermitting fevers, when they attack the same individual during

several successive years, enfeeble the constitution; but this state

of debility, so common on the unhealthy coasts, does not cause

death. What is remarkable enough, is the belief which prevails here

as in the Campagna of Rome, that the air has become progressively

more vitiated in proportion as a greater number of acres have been

cultivated. The miasms exhaled from these plains have, however,

nothing in common with those which arise from a forest when the

trees are cut down, and the sun heats a thick layer of dead leaves.

Near Cariaco the country is but thinly wooded. Can it be supposed

that the mould, fresh stirred and moistened by rains, alters and

vitiates the atmosphere more than the thick wood of plants which

covers an uncultivated soil? To local causes are joined other

causes less problematic. The neighbouring shores of the sea are

covered with mangroves, avicennias, and other shrubs with

astringent bark. All the inhabitants of the tropics are aware of

the noxious exhalations of these plants; and they dread them the

more, as their roots and stocks are not always under water, but

alternately wetted and exposed to the heat of the sun.* The

mangroves produce miasms, because they contain vegeto-animal matter

combined with tannin. (* The following is a list of the social

plants that cover those sandy plains on the sea-side, and

characterize the vegetation of Cumana and the gulf of Cariaco.

Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia nitida, Gomphrena flava, G. brachiata,

Sesuvium portulacastrum (vidrio), Talinum cuspidatum (vicho), T.

cumanense, Portulacca pilosa (zargasso), P. lanuginosa, Illecebrum

maritimum, Atriplex cristata, Heliotropium viride, H. latifolium,

Verbena cuneata, Mollugo verticillata, Euphorbia maritima,

Convolvulus cumanensis.)

The town of Cariaco has been repeatedly sacked in former times by

the Caribs. Its population has augmented rapidly since the

provincial authorities, in spite of prohibitory orders from the

court of Madrid have often favoured the trade with foreign

colonies. The population amounted, in 1800, to more than 6000

souls. The inhabitants are active in the cultivation of cotton,

which is of a very fine quality. The capsules of the cotton-tree,

when separated from the woolly substance, are carefully burnt; as

those husks if thrown into the river, and exposed to putrefaction,

yield noxious exhalations. The culture of the cacao-tree has of

late considerably diminished. This valuable tree bears only after

eight or ten years. Its fruit keeps very badly in the warehouses,

and becomes mouldy at the expiration of a year, notwithstanding all

the precautions employed for drying it.

It is only in the interior of the province, to the east of the

Sierra de Meapire, that new plantations of the cacao-tree are seen.

They become there the more productive, as the lands, newly cleared

and surrounded by forests, are in contact with an atmosphere damp,

stagnant, and loaded with mephitic exhalations. We there see

fathers of families, attached to the old habits of the colonists,

slowly amass a little fortune for themselves and their children.

Thirty thousand cacao-trees will secure competence to a family for

a generation and a half. If the culture of cotton and coffee have

led to the diminution of cacao in the province of Caracas and in

the small valley of Cariaco, it must be admitted that this last

branch of colonial industry has in general increased in the

interior of the provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana. The causes

of the progressive movement of the cacao-tree from west to east may

be easily conceived. The province of Caracas has been from a remote

period cultivated: and, in the torrid zone, in proportion as a

country has been cleared, it becomes drier and more exposed to the

winds. These physical changes have been adverse to the propagation

of cacao-trees, the plantations of which, diminishing in the

province of Caracas, have accumulated eastward on a newly-cleared

and virgin soil. The cacao of Cumana is infinitely superior to that

of Guayaquil. The best is produced in the valley of San Bonifacio;

as the best cacao of New Barcelona, Caracas, and Guatimala, is that

of Capiriqual, Uritucu, and Soconusco. Since the island of Trinidad

has become an English colony, the whole of the eastern extremity of

the province of Cumana, especially the coast of Paria, and the gulf

of the same name, have changed their appearance. Foreigners have

settled there, and have introduced the cultivation of the

coffee-tree, the cotton-tree, and the sugar-cane of Otaheite. The

population has greatly increased at Carupano, in the beautiful

valley of Rio Caribe, at Guira, and at the new town of Punta di

Piedra, built opposite Spanish Harbour, in the island of Trinidad.

The soil is so fertile in the Golfo Triste, that maize yields two

harvests in the year, and produces three hundred and eighty fold

the quantity sown.

Early in the morning we embarked in a sort of narrow canoe, called

a lancha, in hopes of crossing the gulf of Cariaco during the day.

The motion of the waters resembles that of our great lakes, when

they are agitated by the winds. From the embarcadero to Cumana the

distance is only twelve nautical leagues. On quitting the little

town of Cariaco, we proceeded westward along the river of

Carenicuar, which, in a straight line like an artificial canal,

runs through gardens and plantations of cotton-trees. On the banks

of the river of Cariaco we saw the Indian women washing their linen

with the fruit of the parapara (Sapindus saponaria, or soap-berry),

an operation said to be very injurious to the linen. The bark of

the fruit produces a strong lather; and the fruit is so elastic

that if thrown on a stone it rebounds three or four times to the

height of seven or eight feet. Being a spherical form, it is

employed in making rosaries.

After we embarked we had to contend against contrary winds. The

rain fell in torrents, and the thunder rolled very near. Swarms of

flamingoes, egrets, and cormorants filled the air, seeking the

shore, whilst the alcatras, a large species of pelican, alone

continued peaceably to fish in the middle of the gulf. The gulf of

Cariaco is almost everywhere forty-five or fifty fathoms deep; but

at its eastern extremity, near Curaguaca, along an extent of five

leagues, the lead does not indicate more than three or four

fathoms. Here is found the Baxo de la Cotua, a sand-bank, which at

low-water appears like a small island. The canoes which carry

provisions to Cumana sometimes ground on this bank; but always

without danger, because the sea is never rough or heavy. We crossed

that part of the gulf where hot springs gush from the bottom of the

sea. It was flood-tide, so that the change of temperature was not

very perceptible: besides, our canoe drove too much towards the

southern shore. It may be supposed that strata of water must be

found of different temperatures, according to the greater or less

depth, and according as the mingling of the hot waters with those

of the gulf is accelerated by the winds and currents. The existence

of these hot springs, which we were assured raise the temperature

of the sea through an extent of ten or twelve thousand square

toises, is a very remarkable phenomenon. (* In the island of

Guadaloupe, there is a fountain of boiling water, which rushes out

on the beach. Hot-water springs rise from the bottom of the sea in

the gulf of Naples, and near the island of Palma, in the

archipelago of the Canary Islands.) Proceeding from the promontory

of Paria westward, by Irapa, Aguas Calientes, the gulf of Cariaco,

the Brigantine, and the valley of Aragua, as far as the snowy

mountains of Merida, a continued band of thermal waters is found in

an extent of 150 leagues.

Adverse winds and rainy weather forced us to go on shore at

Pericantral, a small farm on the south side of the gulf. The whole

of this coast, though covered with beautiful vegetation, is almost

wholly uncultivated. There are scarcely seven hundred inhabitants:

and, excepting in the village of Mariguitar, we saw only

plantations of cocoa-trees, which are the olives of the country.

This palm occupies on both continents a zone, of which the mean

temperature of the year is not below 20 degrees.* (* The cocoa-tree

grows in the northern hemisphere from the equator to latitude 28

degrees. Near the equator we find it from the plains to the height

of 700 toises above the level of the sea.) It is, like the

chamaerops of the basin of the Mediterranean, a true palm-tree of

the coast. It prefers salt to fresh water; and flourishes less

inland, where the air is not loaded with saline particles, than on

the shore. When cocoa-trees are planted in Terra Firma, or in the

Missions of the Orinoco, at a distance from the sea, a considerable

quantity of salt, sometimes as much as half a bushel, is thrown

into the hole which receives the nut. Among the plants cultivated

by man, the sugar-cane, the plantain, the mammee-apple, and

alligator-pear (Laurus persea), alone have the property of the

cocoa-tree; that of being watered equally well with fresh and salt

water. This circumstance is favourable to their migrations; and if

the sugarcane of the sea-shore yield a syrup that is a little

brackish, it is believed at the same time to be better fitted for

the distillation of spirit than the juice produced from the canes

in inland situations.

The cocoa-tree, in the other parts of America, is in general

cultivated around farm-houses, and the fruit is eaten; in the gulf

of Cariaco, it forms extensive plantations. In a fertile and moist

ground, the tree begins to bear fruit abundantly in the fourth

year; but in dry soils it bears only at the expiration of ten

years. The duration of the tree does not in general exceed eighty

or a hundred years; and its mean height at that age is from seventy

to eighty feet. This rapid growth is so much the more remarkable,

as other palm-trees, for instance, the moriche,* (* Mauritia

flexuosa.) and the palm of Sombrero,* (* Corypha tectorum.) the

longevity of which is very great, frequently do not attain a

greater height than fourteen or eighteen feet in the space of sixty

years. In the first thirty or forty years, a cocoa-tree of the gulf

of Cariaco bears every lunation a cluster of ten or fourteen nuts,

all of which, however, do not ripen. It may be reckoned that, on an

average, a tree produces annually a hundred nuts, which yield eight

flascos* of oil. (One flasco contains 70 or 80 cubic inches, Paris

measure.) In Provence, an olive-tree thirty years old yields twenty

pounds, or seven flascos of oil, so that it produces something less

than a cocoa-tree. There are in the gulf of Cariaco plantations

(haciendas) of eight or nine thousand cocoa-trees. They resemble,

in their picturesque appearance, those fine plantations of

date-trees near Elche, in Murcia, where, over the superficies of

one square league, there may be found upwards of 70,000 palms. The

cocoa-tree bears fruit in abundance till it is thirty or forty

years old; after that age the produce diminishes, and a trunk a

hundred years old, without being altogether barren, yields very

little. In the town of Cumana there is prepared a great quantity of

cocoa-nut oil, which is limpid, without smell, and very fit for

burning. The trade in this oil is not less active than that on the

coast of Africa for palm-oil, which is obtained from the Elais

guineensis, and is used as food. I have often seen canoes arrive at

Cumana laden with 3000 cocoa-nuts.

We did not quit the farm of Pericantral till after sunset. The

south coast of the gulf presents a most fertile aspect, while the

northern coast is naked, dry, and rocky. In spite of this aridity,

and the scarcity of rain, of which sometimes none falls for the

space of fifteen months,* the peninsula of Araya, like the desert

of Canound in India, produces patillas, or water-melons, weighing

from fifty to seventy pounds. (* The rains appear to have been more

frequent at the beginning of the 16th century. At any rate, the

canon of Granada (Peter Martyr d'Anghiera), speaking in the year

1574, of the salt-works of Araya, or of Haraia, described in the

fifth chapter of this work, mentions showers (cadentes imbres) as a

very common phenomenon. The same author, who died in 1526, affirms

that the Indians wrought the salt-works before the arrival of the

Spaniards. They dried the salt in the form of bricks; and our

writer even then discussed the geological question, whether the

clayey soil of Haraia contained salt-springs, or whether it had

been impregnated with salt by the periodical inundations of the

ocean for ages.) In the torrid zone, the vapours contained by the

air form about nine-tenths of the quantity necessary to its

saturation: and vegetation is maintained by the property which the

leaves possess of attracting the water dissolved in the atmosphere.

At sunrise, we saw the Zamuro vultures,* (* Vultur aura.) in flocks

of forty or fifty, perched on the cocoa-trees. These birds range

themselves in files to roost together like fowls. They go to roost

long before sunset, and do not awake till after the sun is above

the horizon. This sluggishness seems as if it were shared in those

climates by the trees with pinnate leaves. The mimosas and the

tamarinds close their leaves, in a clear and serene sky,

twenty-five or thirty-five minutes before sunset, and unfold them

in the morning when the solar disk has been visible for an equal

space of time. As I noticed pretty regularly the rising and setting

of the sun, for the purpose of observing the effect of the mirage,

or of the terrestrial refractions, I was enabled to give continued

attention to the phenomena of the sleep of plants. I found them the

same in the steppes, where no irregularity of the ground

interrupted the view of the horizon. It appears, that, accustomed

during the day to an extreme brilliancy of light, the sensitive and

other leguminous plants with thin and delicate leaves are affected

in the evening by the smallest decline in the intensity of the

sun's rays; so that for vegetation, night begins there, as with us,

before the total disappearance of the solar disk. But why, in a

zone where there is scarcely any twilight, do not the first rays of

the sun stimulate the leaves with the more strength, as the absence

of light must have rendered them more susceptible? Does the

humidity deposited on the parenchyma by the cooling of the leaves,

which is the effect of the nocturnal radiation, prevent the action

of the first rays of the sun? In our climates, the leguminous

plants with irritable leaves awake during the twilight of the

morning, before the sun appears.