for the West India islands, especially Cuba. The situation of Barcelona is particularly advantageous for this trade, as the animals have only three days' journey from the Llanos to the port, while it requires eight or nine days to cross the mountains to Cumana. In the years 1799 and 1800, no fewer than 30,000 mules are computed to have been shipped for the Spanish, English, and French islands, of which 8,000 were embarked at Barcelona, 6,000 at Puerto Cabello, 3,000 at Carupano, and the remainder at Coro, Burburata, and the mouths of the Guaripiche and the Orinoco. During the peace of Amiens, there were exported, M. Lavaysse states, from the port of Barcelona in one year, 132,000 oxen, 2,100 horses, 84,000 mules, 800 asses, 180,000 quintals of smoked beef (tassajo), 36,000 ox hides, 4,500 horse hides, and 6,000 deer skins. Barcelona was founded by Don Juan Urpin in 1634, prior to which the chief place in the district was the town of Cumanagoto, situated two leagues higher up the river, which is now only a miserable village. Though it enjoys a considerable trade, and contains some opulent houses, the town is badly built; the houses are of mud, and, in general, very meanly furnished. The streets are unpaved; they are consequently filthy during the rains, while, in fine weather, the dust is intolerable. It contains one church, a Franciscan hospital, and (in 1807) a population of 15,000 persons, of whom about half were whites. It lies in lat 10° 6' 52′′ N.; long 67° 4′ W.; about a league from the sea, and twelve leagues in a straight line W. of Cumana. Alcedo represents the temperature of this province to be the same as that of Cumana, though not so unhealthy. M. Lavaysse says, the fact is exactly the reverse: "the climate of Cumana is very healthy, though hot, because it is extremely dry; that of the town of Barcelona is unhealthy from the opposite causes. Alce

do, however, speaks of the two provinces; the French Traveller compares the two towns; and both may be correct.*

The province of Barcelona, which lies between that of Cumana on the east and Caracas on the west, extending southward to the Orinoco, is thinly inhabited and scantily cultivated, but is less mountainous than the adjoining provinces. In the environs of the town, some maize, cocoa, indigo, and cotton are grown; but the exports of these articles are inconsiderable. Large fertile districts lie wholly neglected, and the inhabitants for the most part prefer the grazing system to the toil of cultivation. only other town in the province is Conception del Pao, situated in the midst of savannas on the other side of the Brigantine, and containing, in 1807, 3,000 inhabitants. It is 45 leagues from Barcelona, 55 from Cumana, and 28 S.E. of Caracas.

The

On the right bank of the Neveri, a little fort has been built on a calcareous rock called El Morro de Barcelona, at an elevation of sixty or seventy toises above the sea-level, to command the landing-place. From the Morro to Cape Codera, the land becomes low as it recedes in a sort of cove toward the south; the forests come down to the beach, and the shores are to be dreaded for their insalubrity. Beyond the promontory, the coast becomes rocky and very high, and presents scenes at once savage and picturesque. The mountains present perpendicular faces from 3 to 4,000 feet high, casting broad and deep shadows upon the humid land which extends to the sea, and which glows with the freshest verdure. Fields of maize and sugar plantations are seen stretching along narrow valleys, which resemble clefts in the rocks, and present the

* Lavaysse, p. 123; Alcedo's Dict. vol. i. p. 140; Depons' Travels, vol. ii. p. 266; Humboldt, Pers. Narr. vol. iii. p. 361.

most singular contrasts of light and shade. The mountain of Niguatar and the Silla of Caracas are the loftiest summits of this chain. "It seems as if the Pyrenees or the Alps, stripped of their snows, had risen from the bosom of the waters; so much greater appears the mass of mountains when viewed for the first time from the sea." Near Caravalleda, the cultivated lands enlarge: we find hills with gentle declivities, and the vegetation rises to a great height. Further westward, a wall of bare rocks again presents itself towards the sea, on passing which, the village of Macuto is seen, pleasantly situated, with the black rocks of La Guayra, studded with batteries, rising in tiers one above another, and, in a misty distance, Cabo Blanco, a long promontory of dazzling whiteness, with its conical summits. Cocoa-trees border the shore, and give it, under that burning sky, an appearance of fertility.

CARACAS.

La Guayra, the port of Caracas, is a mere roadstead, open to the north and east, and slightly sheltered to the west by Cape Blanco. But for this cape, it would have no pretensions whatever to be called a port; and as it is, those pretensions are very slight. Vessels anchor in from six and seven to five and twenty and thirty fathoms, according to their distance from shore, with a bottom generally of white sand. The worm is very destructive to the bottoms of such vessels as are not coppered. There is almost constantly a swell, which is sometimes so violent as to prevent all intercourse with the shore for several days together; and the lading is at all times taken in with difficulty. "It is a singular spectacle," says an English Traveller with whom we shall now join company, "when the air is perfectly calm, to see upon

the beach a continued line of high breakers, which succeed each other incessantly, and descend with a roaring which is heard far up the valleys. On account of this surf, the wharf of La Guayra, which is of wood, and upwards of 160 feet in length, stands in need of continual repair.”*

The very singular situation of La Guayra is compared by M. Humboldt to that of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe. "The chain of mountains that separates the port from the high valley of Caracas, descends almost directly into the sea; and the houses of the town are backed by a wall of steep rocks. There scarcely remains 100 or 140 toises breadth of flat ground between the wall and the ocean. The town

has 6 or 8,000 inhabitants, and contains only two streets, running parallel to each other east and west. It is commanded by the battery of Cerro Colorado; and its fortifications along the sea-side are well disposed and kept in repair. The aspect of this place has something solitary and gloomy; we seemed not to be on a continent covered with vast forests, but in a rocky island destitute of mould and vegetation. With the exception of Cape Blanco and the cocoatrees of Maiquetia, no view meets the eye but that of the horizon, the sea, and the azure vault of heaven. The heat is stifling during the day, and most frequently during the night. The climate of La Guayra is justly considered as more ardent than that of Cumana, Puerto Cabello, and Coro; because the seabreeze is less felt, and the air is heated by the radiant caloric which the perpendicular rocks emit from the time the sun sets."+

*Semple's Sketch of Caracas, p. 37.

The four hottest places on the shore of the New World are considered to be La Guayra, Cumana, the Havannah, and Vera Cruz; to which, Humboldt says, may be added, Coro, Carthagena, Omoa, Campeachy, Guayaquil, and Acapulco.

The town is irregularly and badly built, the lower street in a line parallel with the beach, and most of the others stretching up the side of the mountain, at the foot of which the town is built, and along the high bank of a ravine in which flows a small stream. After heavy rains, this becomes for a short time an impassable torrent, and has sometimes even overflowed its lofty banks, to the great danger of the lower part of the town. The only public building of any consequence is the custom-house, which is large and commodious. The church has nothing in it remarkable; nor is there, indeed," adds Mr Semple, "in the whole place, an object worthy of detaining the traveller a single hour." This gentleman visited La Guayra in 1810. Two years after, the earthquake which desolated Caracas, reduced La Guayra to little better than a heap of ruins; and according to the statement of a recent traveller, it had not recovered so lately as February 1823, from the effects of the dire visitation. It is described as presenting a most dismal aspect, and the coast was covered with wrecks. A violent swell from the N.E. had, in the preceding month, cast on shore every vessel that was lying off the port, except one; and no fewer than fourteen hulks were then on the beach.* Yet, the commerce carried on with La Guayra is considerable, and, as this Writer states, is daily increasing both with Great Britain and North America.

Notwithstanding the heat of the climate, the yellow

The mean of the whole year is, at La Guayra nearly 28.10; at Cumana 27.7°; at Santa Cruz 25.4°; at the Havannah 25.6°; at Rio Janeiro 23.5°; at Santa Cruz in Teneriffe 21.9°; at Cairo 22.4°; at Batavia and Madras not above 25° and 27°; at Rome 15.8° (cent. ther.) La Guayra is, therefore, one of the hottest places on the earth.-HUMBOLDT, Pers. Narr, vol. iii. p. 388.

*Letters from Colombia, p. 2.