convenience' sake, to the grand twofold division of the country into the eastern and western portions so long distinguished by the names of New Granada and Venezuela or Caracas. We shall begin where Humboldt commences his personal narrative, and where Columbus first set his foot on the New Continent,— the north-eastern coast of Caracas. VENEZUELA OR CARACAS. The period at which Baron Humboldt and his friend M. Bonpland commenced their travels in the New Continent, was the last year of the eighteenth century. Since then, those regions have been the theatre of one of the most sanguinary struggles that, perhaps, ever occurred in any political revolution, by which whole districts have been almost depopulated. "In the time of its greatest prosperity," remarks Col Hall, the country was comparatively a desert; but this desolation has been fearfully augmented during the revolutionary war." Internal dissensions, as Humboldt justly remarks, are the more to be dreaded in regions where civilisation is but slightly rooted, and where, from the influence of climate, the forests may soon regain their empire over cleared lands, if their culture be suspended. The account furnished by this learned Traveller, therefore, must be considered as portraying the state of the colony at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The same remark applies to the Travels of M. Dupons, formerly agent to the French Government at Caracas, where he resided during the years 1801, 2, 3, and 4. The Statistical Description of Venezuela drawn up by M. Lavaysse, a French colonist of Trinidad, comes down no later than 1807. Mr Semple, an intelligent English traveller, has given a brief account of the state of Caracas in 1810. Since then, the only pub lished travels that have reached us, descriptive of this country, are those of Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane, of the Royal Navy, who visited both Caracas and Bogota during the years 1823 and 4; but his work relates chiefly to the western portion of Colombia, and he saw little of Venezuela. We shall therefore have to follow chiefly in the track of MM. Humboldt and Bonpland; and as their account dates prior to the Revolution, we have purposely reserved our historical sketch of the late events for the conclusion of the volume, as a more appropriate sequel than introduction. CUMANA. on It was on the 16th of July, 1799, that the Travellers anchored opposite the mouth of the river Manzanares, on the banks of which the city of Cumana is built. "Our eyes were fixed," says the Writer, the groupes of cocoa-trees that border the river, and the trunks of which, more than sixty feet high, towered over the landscape. The plain was covered with tufts of cassias, capers, and those arborescent mimosas which, like the pine of Italy, extend their branches in the form of an umbrella. The pinnated leaves of palms were conspicuous on the azure of a sky, the clearness of which was unsullied by any trace of vapours. The sun was ascending rapidly towards the zenith. A dazzling light was spread through the air, along the whitish hills, strewed with cylindric cactuses, and over a sea ever calm, the shores of which were peopled with alcatras,* egrets, and flamingoes. The splendour of the day, the vivid colouring of the vegetation, the forms of the plants, the varied plumage of the birds, every thing announ * A species of brown pelican of the size of a swan. ced the grand aspect of nature in the equinoctial regions."* A vast plain, or salt marsh, called El Salado, consisting of whitish sand partially covered with low shrubs,† divides the suburb of the Guayqueria Indians from the sea-coast. The city of Cumana, the capital of the old government of New Andalusia, is a mile distant from the embarcadere, or battery of the Bocca, which is the landing place. It stands at the foot of a volcanic mountain, part of a groupe stretching east and west, from the summit of Imposibile to Port Mochima, which appears to have formed at some remote period an island in the Gulf of Cariaco. There is no doubt, Humboldt thinks, that that gulf has been produced by an irruption of the sea, and the whole of the sandy plain on which the city is built, was at one time submerged by the waters. The river Manzanares encompasses the city on the south and west, separating it, on the south, from the suburbs of the Guayquerias. This city, the most ancient of all in Tierra Firme, was built by Gonzalo Ocampo in * Pers. Narr. vol. ii. p. 183. † Mangle prieto (avicenna tomentosa), sesuvium, yellow gomphrena, and cactus,-shrubs found only on the seashore, and on the elevated plains of the Andes within the torrid zone. That the gulf owes its existence to a rent of the continent, is stated to be a generally received opinion among the inhabitants; and it is related, that at the time of the third voyage of Christopher Columbus, the natives mentioned it as a very recent event. "In 1530, the inhabitants were alarmed by new shocks on the coasts of Paria and Cumana. The lands were inundated by the sea, and the small fort built by James Castellon, was entirely destroyed. At the same time, an enormous opening was formed in the mountains of Cariaco, on the shores of the Gulf, when a great body of water, mixed with asphaltum, issued from the micaceous schist."-HUMBOLDT, vol. ii. p. 215. "Fifty 1520.* It was at first called New Toledo. years ago, it was only a miserable village, that received annually two or three small vessels from Spain, which divided the trade of the country with the Dutch and English smugglers. When the edict of Charles III., dated Nov 12, 1778, vulgarly called the free-trade law, which put an end to the monopoly of the Guipuscoa Company, revived the languishing agriculture and commerce, the population of this province more than doubled in twenty years, and the riches of the country augmented in a progression still more considerable. This province, its capital, and the other towns, are honourable monuments," continues M. Lavaysse, "of the prodigious influence of an enlightened, prudent, and disinterested governor on the prosperity of a colony. During nearly eleven years (from 1793 to 1804) that Don Vicente de Emparan was governor of the colony, the liberal protection which he granted to agriculture and commerce, had augmented, in 1805, the colonial produce to double what it was in 1799: every class of society was in good circumstances, and many persons had acquired considerable fortunes. The town had increased to triple its former size; houses elegantly built, with Italian roofs, had replaced hovels and huts; and a new quarter or suburb, that rivals the ancient town, took the venerated name of Emparan." The number of inhabitants of every age and colour, in 1802, is stated by M. Dupons at 24,000, of whom a large proportion were white Creoles. When M. Lavaysse was there in 1807, * Ocampo's settlement was destroyed by the Indians, and the real founder of the colony, M. Lavaysse contends, was Governor Diego Castellon, who was sent out by the audiencia of San Domingo, in 1523, after the extermination of the colonists left by the admirable Las Casas a few years before. + Statistical Account, &c. p. 94. it amounted to upwards of 28,000; and at the end of 1810, he says, it had risen to 30,000, "almost all industrious and laborious." M. Humboldt, however, considers this as an exaggerated calculation. In 1800, the local government estimated the population at less than 12,000; and in 1802, it could scarcely, he maintains, have exceeded 19,000. The births in 1798, were only 522; in the equinoctial regions of Mexico they are as 17 to 100; whereas, if the population in 1800 had been 26,000, the births would have been but as 1 to 43. M. Dupons states the total population of the provinces of Cumana and Barcelona at 80,000 souls. "The statements I read on the spot," says M. Lavaysse, in 1807, declared this population to be 96,000 persons. The estimate cited by Col Hall, rates the population of Cumana (including Barcelona) at 100,000 souls. The town of Cumana contains two parish churches, (one of which was erected in 1803, two convents, Franciscan and Dominican, and a theatre, constructed on the same plan as that of Caracas, but much smaller. Bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and rope-dancing are, however, the favourite amusements. "Four years ago," says M. Lavaysse, "there was no town-clock in Cumana. While M. Humboldt was in this town in 1800, he constructed a very fine sun-dial there. When a stranger passes by this dial, in company with. a Cumanese, the latter never fails to say: We owe this sun-dial to the learned (sabio) Baron de Humboldt.' I remarked that they never pronounced the name of this illustrious traveller, without adding that epithet to it, and they speak of him with a mingled sentiment of admiration and regard. This town has no public establishment for the education of youth; it is, therefore, astonishing to find any knowledge among its inhabitants; yet, there is some information disseminated among many of the Creoles of Cumana. They |