proach the laguna, which is the principal focus of the miasmata. Add to this, the sea-shore is covered with mangroves (rhizophora), avicennias, and other shrubs with bark of astringent properties, the roots and stocks of which being not always under water, but alternately wetted and exposed to the sun, give forth very noxious exhalations. Both to the east and west or the Cerro del Meapire (or Cerro grande de Cariaco), which divides the valleys of Caraico, and San Bonifacio, low and marshy lands extend to the coast without interruption, and they are continually enlarging by gaining on the sea. While standing on the summit of this ridge, the mountain currents may be seen running on the east side to the Gulf of Paria, and, on the west, to the Gulf of Cariaco. Both those gulfs, which are supposed to owe their origin to the sinking of the earth and the rents caused by earthquakes, formerly occupied a much more considerable space. At present, at all events, the waters are retiring, and the changes on the shore are more particularly observable on the coast of Cumana. Near that town, the battery de la Bocca, which was built in 1791 on the very edge of the sea, was already, in 1799, far inland. At the mouth of the Rio Neveri, near the morro of Barcelona, the retreat of the waters is still more rapid.

The low land which extends eastward of the Sierra de Meapira, from Carupano, by the valley of San Bonifacio, toward the Gulf of Paria, is for the most part uncultivated and equally unhealthy. It is here that the best chocolate is produced. The plantations, which have diminished in the western provinces, giving way before the cultivation of cotton and the cane, have increased on the newly cleared and virgin soil of these pestilential regions, being found the more productive as the new and humid lands, still surrounded with forests, are in contact with an atmosphere damp and loaded with mephitic exhalations. "We there see," says Humboldt, "fathers of fami

lies attached to the old habits of the planters, prepare for themselves and their children a slow but secure fortune. A single slave is sufficient to help them in their toilsome labours. They clear the soil with their own hands, raise young cocoa-trees under the shade of the erythrinas or plantains, lop the grown trees, destroy the swarms of worms and insects that attack the bark, leaves, and flowers, dig trenches, and resolve to lead a wretched life for seven or eight years till the cocoa-tree begins to bear. Thirty thousand trees secure a competency to a family for a generation and a half."* In the plain of San Bonifacio, there is a large lake, four or five leagues in diameter, called the Laguna de Putacuao, communicating with the river Areo: it is surrounded by a mountainous district known only to the natives.

It was not without sensations of regret that our Travellers quitted the shores of Cumana to prosecute their travels in the western provinces of Venezuela. "It was the first land," says the learned Writer, "that we had touched under a zone toward which my wishes had been turned from my earliest youth. There is something so great, so powerful, in the impression made by nature in the climate of the Indies, that, after an abode of a few months, we seemed to have lived there during a long succession of years. In Europe, the inhabitant of the North, or of the plains, feels an almost similar emotion, when he quits even after a short abode the shores of the Bay of

Pers. Narr. vol. iii. p. 194. The learned Traveller styles the cocoa-tree, "the olive of the country.' All along the southern side of the Gulf of Cariaco, a tract covered with beautiful vegetation, but almost entirely uncultivated, large plantations are seen bordering the shore. Their appearance is highly picturesque. Among the plants cultivated by man, cocoa-palm, the sugar-cane, the banana, the mammee-apple, and the alligator pear, have alone the property of flourishing alike whether watered by fresh or by salt water.

the

Naples, the delicious country between Tivoli and the Lake of Nemi, or the wild and solemn scenery of the Higher Alps and the Pyrenees. Yet, every where under the temperate zone, the effects of the physiognomy of the vegetables afford little contrast. The firs and the oaks that crown the mountains of Sweden, have a certain family resemblance to those which vegetate in the fine climates of Greece and Italy. Between the tropics, on the contrary, in the lower regions of both Indies, every thing in nature appears new and marvellous. In the open plains, and amid the gloom of forests, almost all the remembrances of Europe are effaced; for it is the vegetation that determines the character of a landscape, and acts upon our imagination by its mass, the contrast of its forms, and the glow of its colours. In proportion as impressions are powerful and new, they weaken antecedent impressions, and their strength gives them the appearance of duration. I appeal to those who, more

sensible of the beauties of nature than of the charms of social life, have long resided in the torrid zone. How dear, how memorable during life, is the land where they first disembarked! A vague desire to revisit that spot, roots itself in their minds to the most advanced age. Cumana and its dusty soil are still more frequently present to my imagination, than all the wonders of the Cordilleras. Beneath the fine sky of the south, the light and the magic of the aërial hues, embellish a land almost destitute of vegetation. The sun does not merely enlighten, it colours the objects, and wraps them in a thin vapour, which, without changing the transparency of the air, renders its tints more harmonious, softens the effects of the light, and diffuses over nature that calm which is reflected in our souls. To explain this vivid impression which the aspect of the scenery in the two Indias produces, even on coasts where there is little wood, it will be sufficient to recollect, that the beauty of the sky

augments from Naples towards the equator, almost as much as from Provence toward the south of Italy.

"We passed at high water the bar which the little river Manzanares has formed at its mouth. The evening breeze gently swelled the waves of the Gulf of Cariaco. The moon had not risen, but that part of the milky way which extends from the feet of the Centaur toward the constellation of Sagittarius, seemed to pour a silvery light over the surface of the ocean. The white rock crowned by the Castle of San Antonio, appeared from time to time between the high tops of the cocoa-trees that border the shore. We soon recognised the coasts only by the scattered lights of the Guayqueria fishermen. In these moments, we felt in all its force the charm of that spot, and the regret of leaving it. Five months had passed since we disembarked on that shore, as on a newly discovered land, strangers to all that surrounded us, approaching with mistrust every bush, every humid and shadowy spot. That coast now disappeared to our eyes, leaving remembrances which seemed of a long date. The soil, the rocks, the plants, the inhabitants, all now were become familiar to us.

The passage from Cumana to the port of La Guayra is only sixty leagues, and often takes only from thirtysix to forty hours, the little coasting vessels being favoured at once by the wind and the currents. Το avoid the latter in returning, the journey by land is sometimes preferred, which occupies nine days. The road from Ĉumana to Barcelona and Caracas is nearly in the same state as before the discovery of America, The traveller has to contend with all the obstacles of a miry country, large scattered rocks, and almost impervious vegetation; he must sleep in the open air, cross several rapid mountain torrents, and run the risk of catching nervous and miasmatic fevers in passing through the extremely unhealthy tract of low country which extends from the Bay of Mochima to

Coro. The passage by sea, taking the whole boat, costs 120 piasters. The boats are thirty feet long, and not more than three feet high at the gunwale; they have no decks, and their lading is generally from 200 to 250 quintals. Yet, although the sea is extremely rough from Cape Codera to La Guayra, and although the boats carry an enormous triangular sail, somewhat dangerous in case of the sudden gusts which come down from the mountains, there had not been an instance during thirty years of one of them being

lost in this passage. The skill of the Guay queria

pilots is so great, that shipwrecks are very rare even in the trips from Cumana to Guadaloupe, or the Danish islands, surrounded with breakers.

Between Cumana and Cape Codera, where the sea forms a sort of shallow bay, two groupes of barren rocky islands, rising like bastions, appear to be fragments of the ancient coast, separated by some convulsion of nature: they are called the Caracas and the Chimanas.* Behind these islands are the gulfs of Mochima and Santa Fé, which are likely one day, Humboldt says, to become frequented ports.

At ten marine leagues from the port of Cumana, is New Barcelona, situated on the left bank of the River Neveri, (the Indian name is Enipiricuar,) which abounds with the species of crocodile so common in the Orinoco. This port, the name of which till lately was scarcely to be found in our maps, has had an active trade since 1795. From this place is exported great part of the produce of the Llanos, consisting of salted provision, oxen, mules, and horses,

"It may appear extraordinary," says the learned Traveller, "to find Caracas islands so distant from the city of that name, opposite the coast of the Cumanagotoes; but the denomination of Caracas denoted, at the conquest, a tribe of Indians, not any particular spot. Guadaloupe was formerly called Caracqueira."