PASSAGE FROM CUMANA TO LA GUAYRA.
MORRO OF NUEVA BARCELONA.
CAPE CODERA.
ROAD FROM LA GUAYRA TO CARACAS.
On the 16th of November, at eight in the evening, we were under
sail to proceed along the coast from Cumana to the port of La
Guayra, whence the inhabitants of the province of Venezuela export
the greater part of their produce. The passage is only a distance
of sixty leagues, and it usually occupies from thirty-six to forty
hours. The little coasting vessels are favoured at once by the wind
and by the currents, which run with more or less force from east to
west, along the coasts of Terra Firma, particularly from cape Paria
to the cape of Chichibacoa. The road by land from Cumana to New
Barcelona, and thence to Caracas, is nearly in the same state as
that in which it was before the discovery of America. The traveller
has to contend with the obstacles presented by a miry soil, large
scattered rocks, and strong vegetation. He must sleep in the open
air, pass through the valleys of the Unare, the Tuy, and the
Capaya, and cross torrents which swell rapidly on account of the
proximity of the mountains. To these obstacles must be added the
dangers arising from the extreme insalubrity of the country. The
very low lands, between the sea-shore and the chain of hills
nearest the coast, from the bay of Mochima as far as Coro, are
extremely unhealthy. But the last-mentioned town, which is
surrounded by an immense wood of thorny cactuses, owes its great
salubrity, like Cumana, to its barren soil and the absence of rain.
In returning from Caracas to Cumana, the road by land is sometimes
preferred to the passage by sea, to avoid the adverse current. The
postman from Caracas is nine days in performing this journey. We
often saw persons, who had followed him, arrive at Cumana ill of
nervous and miasmatic fevers. The tree of which the bark* furnishes
a salutary remedy for those fevers (* Cortex Angosturae of our
pharmacopaeias, the bark of the Bonplandia trifoliata.), grows in
the same valleys, and upon the edge of the same forests which send
forth the pernicious exhalations. M. Bonpland recognised the
cuspare in the vegetation of the gulf of Santa Fe, situated between
the ports of Cumana and Barcelona. The sickly traveller may
perchance repose in a cottage, the inhabitants of which are
ignorant of the febrifuge qualities of the trees that shade the
surrounding valleys.
Having proceeded by sea from Cumana to La Guayra, we intended to
take up our abode in the town of Caracas, till the end of the rainy
season. From Caracas we proposed to direct our course across the
great plains or llanos, to the Missions of the Orinoco; to go up
that vast river, to the south of the cataracts, as far as the Rio
Negro and the frontiers of Brazil; and thence to return to Cumana
by the capital of Spanish Guiana, commonly called, on account of
its situation, Angostura, or the Strait. We could not determine the
time we might require to accomplish a tour of seven hundred
leagues, more than two-thirds of that distance having to be
traversed in boats. The only parts of the Orinoco known on the
coasts are those near its mouth. No commercial intercourse is kept
up with the Missions. The whole of the country beyond the llanos is
unknown to the inhabitants of Cumana and Caracas. Some think that
the plains of Calabozo, covered with turf, stretch eight hundred
leagues southward, communicating with the Steppes or Pampas of
Buenos Ayres; others, recalling to mind the great mortality which
prevailed among the troops of Iturriaga and Solano, during their
expedition to the Orinoco, consider the whole country, south of the
cataracts of Atures, as extremely pernicious to health. In a region
where travelling is so uncommon, people seem to feel a pleasure in
exaggerating to strangers the difficulties arising from the
climate, the wild animals, and the Indians. Nevertheless we
persisted in the project we had formed. We could rely upon the
interest and solicitude of the governor of Cumana, Don Vicente
Emparan, as well as on the recommendations of the Franciscan monks,
who are in reality masters of the shores of the Orinoco.
Fortunately for us, one of those monks, Juan Gonzales, was at that
time in Cumana. This young monk, who was only a lay-brother, was
highly intelligent, and full of spirit and courage. He had the
misfortune shortly after his arrival on the coast to displease his
superiors, upon the election of a new director of the Missions of
Piritu, which is a period of great agitation in the convent of New
Barcelona. The triumphant party exercised a general retaliation,
from which the lay-brother could not escape. He was sent to
Esmeralda, the last Mission of the Upper Orinoco, famous for the
vast quantity of noxious insects with which the air is continually
filled. Fray Juan Gonzales was thoroughly acquainted with the
forests which extend from the cataracts towards the sources of the
Orinoco. Another revolution in the republican government of the
monks had some years before brought him to the coast, where he
enjoyed (and most justly) the esteem of his superiors. He confirmed
us in our desire of examining the much-disputed bifurcation of the
Orinoco. He gave us useful advice for the preservation of our
health, in climates where he had himself suffered long from
intermitting fevers. We had the satisfaction of finding Fray Juan
Gonzales at New Barcelona, on our return from the Rio Negro.
Intending to go from the Havannah to Cadiz, he obligingly offered
to take charge of part of our herbals, and our insects of the
Orinoco; but these collections were unfortunately lost with himself
at sea. This excellent young man, who was much attached to us, and
whose zeal and courage might have rendered him very serviceable to
the missions of his order, perished in a storm on the coast of
Africa, in 1801.
The boat which conveyed us from Cumana to La Guayra, was one of
those employed in trading between the coasts and the West India
Islands. They are thirty feet long, and not more than three feet
high at the gunwale; they have no decks, and their burthen is
generally from two hundred to two hundred and fifty quintals.
Although the sea is extremely rough from Cape Codera to La Guayra,
and although the boats have an enormous triangular sail, somewhat
dangerous in those gusts which issue from the mountain-passes, no
instance has occurred during thirty years, of one of these boats
being lost in the passage from Cumana to the coast of Caracas. The
skill of the Guaiqueria pilots is so great, that accidents are very
rare, even in the frequent trips they make from Cumana to
Guadaloupe, or the Danish islands, which are surrounded with
breakers. These voyages of 120 or 150 leagues, in an open sea, out
of sight of land, are performed in boats without decks, like those
of the ancients, without observations of the meridian altitude of
the sun, without charts, and generally without a compass. The
Indian pilot directs his course at night by the pole-star, and in
the daytime by the sun and the wind. I have seen Guaiqueries and
pilots of the Zambo caste, who could find the pole-star by the
direction of the pointers alpha and beta of the Great Bear, and
they seemed to me to steer less from the view of the pole-star
itself, than from the line drawn through these stars. It is
surprising, that at the first sight of land, they can find the
island of Guadaloupe, Santa Cruz, or Porto Rico; but the
compensation of the errors of their course is not always equally
fortunate. The boats, if they fall to leeward in making land, beat
up with great difficulty to the eastward, against the wind and the
current.
We descended rapidly the little river Manzanares, the windings of
which are marked by cocoa-trees, as the rivers of Europe are
sometimes bordered by poplars and old willows. On the adjacent arid
land, the thorny bushes, on which by day nothing is visible but
dust, glitter during the night with thousands of luminous sparks.
The number of phosphorescent insects augments in the stormy season.
The traveller in the equinoctial regions is never weary of admiring
the effect of those reddish and moveable fires, which, being
reflected by limpid water, blend their radiance with that of the
starry vault of heaven.
We quitted the shore of Cumana as if it had long been our home.
This was the first land we had trodden in a zone, towards which my
thoughts had been directed from earliest youth. There is a powerful
charm in the impression produced by the scenery and climate of
these regions; and 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 feels an almost similar emotion, when he
quits even after a short abode the shores of the Bay of Naples, the
delicious country between Tivoli and the lake of Nemi, or the wild
and majestic scenery of the Upper Alps and the Pyrenees. Yet
everywhere in the temperate zone, the effects of vegetable
physiognomy afford little contrast. The firs and the oaks which
crown the mountains of Sweden have a certain family air in common
with those which adorn Greece and Italy. Between the tropics, on
the contrary, in the lower regions of both Indies, everything 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 vegetation that determines the character of a
landscape, and acts upon the 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 force imparts to them the character of
duration. I appeal to those who, more sensible to the beauties of
nature than to the charms of society, have long resided in the
torrid zone. How dear, how memorable during life, is the land on
which they first disembarked! A vague desire to revisit that spot
remains rooted 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 bright sky of
the south, the light, and the magic of the aerial 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 a placid calm, which is reflected in our
souls. To explain this vivid impression which the aspect of the
scenery in the two Indies produces, even on coasts but thinly
wooded, it is sufficient to recollect that the beauty of the sky
augments from Naples to the equator, almost as much as from
Provence to the south of Italy.
We passed at high water the bar formed at the mouth of the little
river Manzanares. The evening breeze gently swelled the waves in
the gulf of Cariaco. The moon had not risen, but that part of the
milky way which extends from the feet of the Centaur towards 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 which border the shore; and we soon recognized the
coasts only by the scattered lights of the Guaiqueria fishermen.
We sailed at first to north-north-west, approaching the peninsula
of Araya; we then ran thirty miles to west and west-south-west. As
we advanced towards the shoal that surrounds Cape Arenas and
stretches as far as the petroleum springs of Maniquarez, we enjoyed
one of those varied sights which the great phosphorescence of the
sea so often displays in those climates. Bands of porpoises
followed our bark. Fifteen or sixteen of these animals swam at
equal distances from each other. When turning on their backs, they
struck the surface of the water with their broad tails; they
diffused a brilliant light, which seemed like flames issuing from
the depth of the ocean.* (* See Views of Nature Bohn's edition page
246.) Each band of porpoises, ploughing the surface of the waters,
left behind it a track of light, the more striking as the rest of
the sea was not phosphorescent. As the motion of an oar, and the
track of the bark, produced on that night but feeble sparks, it is
natural to suppose that the vivid phosphorescence caused by the
porpoises was owing not only to the stroke of their tails, but also
to the gelatinous matter that envelopes their bodies, and is
detached by the shock of the waves.
We found ourselves at midnight between some barren and rocky
islands, which uprise like bastions in the middle of the sea, and
form the group of the Caracas and Chimanas.* (* There are three of
the Caracas islands and eight of the Chimanas.) The moon was above
the horizon, and lighted up these cleft rocks which are bare of
vegetation and of fantastic aspect. The sea here forms a sort of
bay, a slight inward curve of the land between Cumana and Cape
Codera. The islets of Picua, Picuita, Caracas, and Boracha, appear
like fragments of the ancient coast, which stretches from Bordones
in the same direction east and west. The gulfs of Mochima and Santa
Fe, which will no doubt one day become frequented ports, lie behind
those little islands. The rents in the land, the fracture and dip
of the strata, all here denote the effects of a great revolution:
possibly that which clove asunder the chain of the primitive
mountains, and separated the mica-schist of Araya and the island of
Margareta from the gneiss of Cape Codera. Several of the islands
are visible at Cumana, from the terraces of the houses, and they
produce, according to the superposition of layers of air more or
less heated, the most singular effects of suspension and mirage.
The height of the rocks does not probably exceed one hundred and
fifty toises; but at night, when lighted by the moon, they seem to
be of a very considerable elevation.
It may appear extraordinary, to find the Caracas Islands so distant
from the city of that name, opposite the coast of the Cumanagotos;
but the denomination of Caracas denoted at the beginning of the
Conquest, not a particular spot, but a tribe of Indians, neighbours
of the Tecs, the Taramaynas, and the Chagaragates. As we came very
near this group of mountainous islands, we were becalmed; and at
sunrise, small currents drifted us toward Boracha, the largest of
them. As the rocks rise nearly perpendicular, the shore is abrupt;
and in a subsequent voyage I saw frigates at anchor almost touching
the land. The temperature of the atmosphere became sensibly higher
whilst we were sailing among the islands of this little
archipelago. The rocks, heated during the day, throw out at night,
by radiation, a part of the heat absorbed. As the sun arose on the
horizon, the rugged mountains projected their vast shadows on the
surface of the ocean. The flamingoes began to fish in places where
they found in a creek calcareous rocks bordered by a narrow beach.
All these islands are now entirely uninhabited; but upon one of the
Caracas are found wild goats of large size, brown, and extremely
swift. Our Indian pilot assured us that their flesh has an
excellent flavour. Thirty years ago a family of whites settled on
this island, where they cultivated maize and cassava. The father
alone survived his children. As his wealth increased, he purchased
two black slaves; and by these slaves he was murdered. The goats
became wild, but the cultivated plants perished. Maize in America,
like wheat in Europe, connected with man since his first
migrations, appears to be preserved only by his care. We sometimes
see these nutritive gramina disseminate themselves; but when left
to nature the birds prevent their reproduction by destroying the
seeds.
We anchored for some hours in the road of New Barcelona, at the
mouth of the river Neveri, of which the Indian (Cumanagoto) name is
Enipiricuar. This river is full of crocodiles, which sometimes
extend their excursions into the open sea, especially in calm
weather. They are of the species common in the Orinoco, and bear so
much resemblance to the crocodile of Egypt, that they have long
been confounded together. It may easily be conceived that an
animal, the body of which is surrounded with a kind of armour, must
be nearly indifferent to the saltness of the water. Pigafetta
relates in his journal recently published at Milan that he saw, on
the shores of the island of Borneo, crocodiles which inhabit alike
land and sea. These facts must be interesting to geologists, since
attention has been fixed on the fresh-water formations, and the
curious mixture of marine and fluviatile petrifactions sometimes
observed in certain very recent rocks.
The port of Barcelona has maintained a very active commerce since
1795. From Barcelona is exported most of the produce of those vast
steppes which extend from the south side of the chain of the coast
as far as the Orinoco, and in which cattle of every kind are almost
as abundant as in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The commercial
industry of these countries depends on the demand in the West India
Islands for salted provision, oxen, mules, and horses. The coasts
of Terra Firma being opposite to the island of Cuba, at a distance
of fifteen or eighteen days' sail, the merchants of the Havannah
prefer, especially in time of peace, obtaining their provision from
the port of Barcelona, to the risk of a long voyage in another
hemisphere to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The situation of
Barcelona is singularly advantageous for the trade in cattle. The
animals have only three days' journey from the llanos to the port,
while it requires eight or nine days to reach Cumana, on account of
the chain of mountains of the Brigantine and the Imposible.
Having landed on the right bank of the Neveri, we ascended to a
little fort called El Morro de Barcelona, situated at the elevation
of sixty or seventy toises above the level of the sea. The Morro is
a calcareous rock which has been lately fortified.
The view from the summit of the Morro is not without beauty. The
rocky island of Boracha lies on the east, the lofty promontory of
Unare is on the west, and below are seen the mouth of the river
Neveri, and the arid shores on which the crocodiles come to sleep
in the sun. Notwithstanding the extreme heat of the air, for the
thermometer, exposed to the reflection of the white calcareous
rock, rose to 38 degrees, we traversed the whole of the eminence. A
fortunate chance led us to observe some very curious geological
phenomena, which we again met with in the Cordilleras of Mexico.
The limestone of Barcelona has a dull, even, or conchoidal
fracture, with very flat cavities. It is divided into very thin
strata, and exhibits less analogy with the limestone of Cumanacoa,
than with that of Caripe, forming the cavern of the Guacharo. It is
traversed by banks of schistose jasper,* (Kieselschiefer of Werner.
)* black, with a conchoidal fracture, and breaking into fragments
of a parallelopipedal figure. This fossil does not exhibit those
little streaks of quartz so common in the Lydian stone. It is found
decomposed at its surface into a yellowish grey crust, and it does
not act upon the magnet. Its edges, a little translucid, give it
some resemblance to the hornstone, so common in secondary
limestones.* (* In Switzerland, the hornstone passing into common
jasper is found in kidney-stones, and in layers both in the Alpine
and Jura limestone, especially in the former.) It is remarkable
that we find the schistose jasper which in Europe characterizes the
transition rocks,* (The transition-limestone and schist.) in a
limestone having great analogy with that of Jura. In the study of
formations, which is the great end of geognosy, the knowledge
acquired in the old and new worlds should be made to furnish
reciprocal aid to each other. It appears that these black strata
are found also in the calcareous mountains of the island of
Boracha.* (* We saw some of it as ballast, in a fishing boat at
Punta Araya. Its fragments might have been mistaken for basalt.)
Another jasper, that known by the name of the Egyptian pebble, was
found by M. Bonpland near the Indian village of Curacatiche or
Curacaguitiche, fifteen leagues south of the Morro of Barcelona,
when, on our return from the Orinoco, we crossed the llanos, and
approached the mountains on the coast. This stone presented
yellowish concentric lines and bands, on a reddish brown ground. It
appeared to me that the round pieces of Egyptian jasper belonged
also to the Barcelona limestone. Yet, according to M. Cordier, the
fine pebbles of Suez owe their origin to a breccia formation, or
siliceous agglomerate.
At the moment of our setting sail, on the 19th of November, at
noon, I took some altitudes of the moon, to determine the longitude
of the Morro. The difference of meridian between Cumana and the
town of Barcelona, where I made a great number of astronomical
observations in 1800, is 34 minutes 48 seconds. I found the dip of
the needle 42.20 degrees: the intensity of the forces was equal to
224 oscillations.
From the Morro of Barcelona to Cape Codera, the land becomes low,
as it recedes southward; and the soundings extend to the distance
of three miles. Beyond this we find the bottom at forty-five or
fifty fathoms. The temperature of the sea at its surface was 25.9
degrees; but when we were passing through the narrow channel which
separates the two Piritu Islands, in three fathoms water, the
thermometer was only 24.5 degrees. The difference would perhaps be
greater, if the current, which runs rapidly westward, stirred up
deeper water; and if, in a pass of such small width, the land did
not contribute to raise the temperature of the sea. The Piritu
Islands resemble those shoals which become visible when the tide
falls. They do not rise more than eight or nine inches above the
mean height of the sea. Their surface is smooth, and covered with
grass. We might have thought we were gazing on some of our own
northern meadows. The disk of the setting sun appeared like a globe
of fire suspended over the savannah; and its last rays, as they
swept the earth, illumined the grass, which was at the same time
agitated by the evening breeze. In the low and humid parts of the
equinoctial zone, even when the gramineous plants and reeds present
the aspect of a meadow, a rich accessory of the picture is usually
wanting; I allude to that variety of wild flowers, which, scarcely
rising above the grass, seem as it were, to lie upon a smooth bed
of verdure. Within the tropics, the strength and luxury of
vegetation give such a development to plants, that the smallest of
the dicotyledonous family become shrubs. It would seem as if the
liliaceous plants, mingling with the gramina, assumed the place of
the flowers of our meadows. Their form is indeed striking; they
dazzle by the variety and splendour of their colours; but being too
high above the soil, they disturb that harmonious proportion which
characterizes the plants of our European meadows. Nature has in
every zone stamped on the landscape the peculiar type of beauty
proper to the locality.
We must not be surprised that fertile islands, so near Terra Firma,
are not now inhabited. It was only at the early period of the
discovery, and whilst the Caribbees, Chaymas, and Cumanagotos were
still masters of the coast, that the Spaniards formed settlements
at Cubagua and Margareta. When the natives were subdued, or driven
southward in the direction of the savannahs, the preference was
given to settlements on the continent, where there was a choice of
land, and where there were Indians, who might be treated like
beasts of burden. Had the little islands of Tortuga, Blanquilla,
and Orchilla been situated in the group of the Antilles, they would
not have remained without traces of cultivation.
Vessels of heavy burthen pass between the main land and the most
southern of the Piritu Islands. Being very low, their northern
point is dreaded by pilots who near the coast in those latitudes.
When we found ourselves to westward of the Morro of Barcelona, and
the mouth of the river Unare, the sea, till then calm, became
agitated and rough in proportion as we approached Cape Codera. The
influence of that vast promontory is felt from afar, in that part
of the Caribbean Sea. The length of the passage from Cumana to La
Guayra depends on the degree of ease or difficulty with which Cape
Codera can be doubled. Beyond this cape the sea constantly runs so
high, that we can scarcely believe we are near a coast where (from
the point of Paria as far as Cape San Roman) a gale of wind is
never known. On the 20th of November at sunrise we were so far
advanced, that we might expect to double the cape in a few hours.
We hoped to reach La Guayra the same day; but our Indian pilot
being afraid of the privateers who were near that port, thought it
would be prudent to make for land, and anchor in the little harbour
of Higuerote, which we had already passed, and await the shelter of
night to proceed on our voyage.
On the 20th of November at nine in the morning we were at anchor in
the bay just mentioned, situated westward of the mouth of the Rio
Capaya. We found there neither village nor farm, but merely two or
three huts, inhabited by Mestizo fishermen. Their livid hue, and
the meagre condition of their children, sufficed to remind us that
this spot is one of the most unhealthy of the whole coast. The sea
has so little depth along these shores, that even with the smallest
barks it is impossible to reach the shore without wading through
the water. The forests come down nearly to the beach, which is
covered with thickets of mangroves, avicennias, manchineel-trees,
and that species of suriana which the natives call romero de la
mar.* (* Suriana maritima.) To these thickets, and particularly to
the exhalations of the mangroves, the extreme insalubrity of the
air is attributed here, as in other places in both Indies. On
quitting the boats, and whilst we were yet fifteen or twenty toises
distant from land, we perceived a faint and sickly smell, which
reminded me of that diffused through the galleries of deserted
mines, where the lights begin to be extinguished, and the timber is
covered with flocculent byssus. The temperature of the air rose to
34 degrees, heated by the reverberation from the white sands which
form a line between the mangroves and the great trees of the
forest. As the shore descends with a gentle slope, small tides are
sufficient alternately to cover and uncover the roots and part of
the trunks of the mangroves. It is doubtless whilst the sun heats
the humid wood, and causes the fermentation, as it were, of the
ground, of the remains of dead leaves and of the molluscs enveloped
in the drift of floating seaweed, that those deleterious gases are
formed, which escape our researches. We observed that the
sea-water, along the whole coast, acquired a yellowish brown tint,
wherever it came into contact with the mangrove trees.
Struck with this phenomenon, I gathered at Higuerote a considerable
quantity of branches and roots, for the purpose of making some
experiments on the infusion of the mangrove, on my arrival at
Caracas. The infusion in warm water had a brown colour and an
astringent taste. It contained a mixture of extractive matter and
tannin. The rhizophora, the mistletoe, the cornel-tree, in short,
all the plants which belong to the natural families of the
lorantheous and the caprifoliaceous plants, have the same
properties. The infusion of mangrove-wood, kept in contact with
atmospheric air under a glass jar for twelve days, was not sensibly
deteriorated in purity. A little blackish flocculent sediment was
formed, but it was attended by no sensible absorption of oxygen.
The wood and roots of the mangrove placed under water were exposed
to the rays of the sun. I tried to imitate the daily operations of
nature on the coasts at the rise of the tide. Bubbles of air were
disengaged, and at the expiration of ten days they formed a volume
of thirty-three cubic inches. They were a mixture of azotic gas and
carbonic acid. Nitrous gas scarcely indicated the presence of
oxygen.* (* In a hundred parts there were eighty-four of nitrogen,
fifteen of carbonic acid gas that the water had not absorbed, and
one of oxygen.) Lastly, I set the wood and the roots of the
mangrove thoroughly wetted, to act on a given volume of atmospheric
air in a phial with a ground-glass stopple. The whole of the oxygen
disappeared; and, far from being superseded by carbonic acid,
lime-water indicated only 0.02. There was even a diminution of the
volume of air, more than correspondent with the oxygen absorbed.
These slight experiments led me to conclude that it is the
moistened bark and wood which act upon the atmosphere in the
forests of mangrove-trees, and not the water strongly tinged with
yellow, forming a distinct band along the coasts. In pursuing the
different stages of the decomposition of the ligneous matter, I
observed no appearance of a disengagement of sulphuretted hydrogen,
to which many travellers attribute the smell perceived amidst
mangroves. The decomposition of the earthy and alkaline sulphates,
and their transition to the state of sulphurets, may no doubt
favour this disengagement in many littoral and marine plants; for
instance, in the fuci: but I am rather inclined to think that the
rhizophora, the avicennia, and the conocarpus, augment the
insalubrity of the air by the animal matter which they contain
conjointly with tannin. These shrubs belong to the three natural
families of the Lorantheae, the Combretaceae, and the Pyrenaceae,
in which the astringent principle abounds; this principle
accompanies gelatin, even in the bark of beech, alder, and
nut-trees.
Moreover, a thick wood spreading over marshy grounds would diffuse
noxious exhalations in the atmosphere, even though that wood were
composed of trees possessing in themselves no deleterious
properties. Wherever mangroves grow on the sea-shore, the beach is
covered with infinite numbers of molluscs and insects. These
animals love shade and faint light, and they find themselves
sheltered from the shock of the waves amid the scaffolding of thick
and intertwining roots, which rises like lattice-work above the
surface of the waters. Shell-fish cling to this lattice; crabs
nestle in the hollow trunks; and the seaweeds, drifted to the coast
by the winds and tides, remain suspended on the branches which
incline towards the earth. Thus, maritime forests, by the
accumulation of a slimy mud between the roots of the trees,
increase the extent of land. But whilst these forests gain on the
sea, they do not enlarge their own dimensions; on the contrary,
their progress is the cause of their destruction. Mangroves, and
other plants with which they live constantly in society, perish in
proportion as the ground dries and they are no longer bathed with
salt water. Their old trunks, covered with shells, and half-buried
in the sand, denote, after the lapse of ages, the path they have
followed in their migrations, and the limits of the land which they
have wrested from the ocean.
The bay of Higuerote is favourably situated for examining Cape
Codera, which is there seen in its full extent seven miles distant.
This promontory is more remarkable for its size than for its
elevation, being only about two hundred toises high. It is
perpendicular on the north-west and east. In these grand profiles
the dip of the strata appears to be distinguishable. Judging from
the fragments of rock found along the coast, and from the hills
near Higuerote, Cape Codera is not composed of granite with a
granular texture, but of a real gneiss with a foliated texture. Its
laminae are very broad and sometimes sinuous.* (* Dickflasriger
gneiss.) They contain large nodules of reddish feldspar and but
little quartz. The mica is found in superposed lamellae, not
isolated. The strata nearest the bay were in the direction of 60
degrees north-east, and dipped 80 degrees to north-west. These
relations of direction and of dip are the same at the great
mountain of the Silla, near Caracas, and to the east of Maniquarez,
in the isthmus of Araya. They seem to prove that the primitive
chain of that isthmus, after having been ruptured or swallowed up
by the sea along a space of thirty-five leagues,* (* Between the
meridians of Maniquarez and Higuerote.) appears anew in Cape
Codera, and continues westward as a chain of the coast.
I was assured that, in the interior of the earth, south of
Higuerote, limestone formations are found. The gneiss did not act
upon the magnetic needle; yet along the coast, which forms a cove
near Cape Codera, and which is covered with a fine forest, I saw
magnetic sand mixed with spangles of mica, deposited by the sea.
This phenomenon occurs again near the port of La Guayra. Possibly
it may denote the existence of some strata of hornblende-schist
covered by the waters, in which schist the sand is disseminated.
Cape Codera forms on the north an immense spherical segment. A
shallow which stretches along its foot is known to navigators by
the name of the points of Tutumo and of San Francisco.
The road by land from Higuerote to Caracas, runs through a wild and
humid tract of country, by the Montana of Capaya, north of
Caucagua, and the valley of Rio Guatira and Guarenas. Some of our
fellow-travellers determined on taking this road, and M. Bonpland
also preferred it, notwithstanding the continual rains and the
overflowing of the rivers. It afforded him the opportunity of
making a rich collection of new plants.* (* Bauhinia ferruginea,
Brownea racemosa, B ed. Inga hymenaeifolia, I. curiepensis (which
Willdenouw has called by mistake I. caripensis), etc.) For my part,
I continued alone with the Guaiqueria pilot the voyage by sea; for
I thought it hazardous to lose sight of the instruments which we
were to make use of on the banks of the Orinoco.
We set sail at night-fall. The wind was unfavourable, and we
doubled Cape Codera with difficulty. The surges were short, and
often broke one upon another. The sea ran the higher, owing to the
wind being contrary to the current, till after midnight. The
general motion of the waters within the tropics towards the west is
felt strongly on the coast during two-thirds of the year. In the
months of September, October, and November, the current often flows
eastward for fifteen or twenty days in succession; and vessels on
their way from Guayra to Porto Cabello have sometimes been unable
to stem the current which runs from west to east, although they
have had the wind astern. The cause of these anomalies is not yet
discovered. The pilots think they are the effect of gales of wind
from the north-west in the gulf of Mexico.
On the 21st of November, at sunrise, we were to the west of Cape
Codera, opposite Curuao. The coast is rocky and very elevated, the
scenery at once wild and picturesque. We were sufficiently near
land to distinguish scattered huts surrounded by cocoa-trees, and
masses of vegetation, which stood out from the dark ground of the
rocks. The mountains are everywhere perpendicular, and three or
four thousand feet high; their sides cast broad and deep shadows
upon the humid land, which stretches out to the sea, glowing with
the freshest verdure. This shore produces most of those fruits of
the hot regions, which are seen in such great abundance in the
markets of the Caracas. The fields cultivated with sugar-cane and
maize, between Camburi and Niguatar, stretch through narrow
valleys, looking like crevices or clefts in the rocks: and
penetrated by the rays of the sun, then above the horizon, they
presented the most singular contrasts of light and shade.
The mountain of Niguatar and the Silla of Caracas are the loftiest
summits of this littoral chain. The first almost reaches the height
of Canigou; it seems as if the Pyrenees or the Alps, stripped of
their snows, had risen from the bosom of the ocean; so much more
stupendous do mountains appear 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. The sugar-cane is here cultivated, and the monks of La
Merced have a plantation with two hundred slaves. This spot was
formerly extremely subject to fever; and it is said that the air
has acquired salubrity since trees have been planted round a small
lake, the emanations of which were dreaded, and which is now less
exposed to the ardour of the sun. To the west of Caravalleda, a
wall of bare rock again projects forward in the direction of the
sea, but it has little extent. After having passed it, we
immediately discovered the pleasantly situated village of Macuto;
the black rocks of La Guayra, studded with batteries rising in
tiers one over another, and in the misty distance, Cabo Blanco, a
long promontory with conical summits, and of dazzling whiteness.
Cocoa-trees border the shore, and give it, under that burning sky,
an appearance of fertility.
I landed in the port of La Guayra, and the same evening made
preparations for transporting my instruments to Caracas. Having
been recommended not to sleep in the town, where the yellow fever
had been raging only a few weeks previously, I fixed my lodging in
a house on a little hill, above the village of Maiquetia, a place
more exposed to fresh winds than La Guayra. I reached Caracas on
the 21st of November, four days sooner than M. Bonpland, who, with
the other travellers on the land journey, had suffered greatly from
the rain and the inundations of the torrents, between Capaya and
Curiepe.
Before proceeding further, I will here subjoin a description of La
Guayra, and the extraordinary road which leads from thence to the
town of Caracas, adding thereto all the observations made by M.
Bonpland and myself, in an excursion to Cabo Blanco about the end
of January 1800.
La Guayra is rather a roadstead than a port. The sea is constantly
agitated, and ships suffer at once by the violence of the wind, the
tideways, and the bad anchorage. The lading is taken in with
difficulty, and the swell prevents the embarkation of mules here,
as at New Barcelona and Porto Cabello. The free mulattoes and
negroes, who carry the cacao on board the ships, are a class of men
remarkable for muscular strength. They wade up to their waists
through the water; and it is remarkable that they are never
attacked by the sharks, so common in this harbour. This fact seems
connected with what I have often observed within the tropics, with
respect to other classes of animals which live in society, for
instance monkeys and crocodiles. In the Missions of the Orinoco,
and on the banks of the river Amazon, the Indians, who catch
monkeys to sell them, know very well that they can easily succeed
in taming those which inhabit certain islands; while monkeys of the
same species, caught on the neighbouring continent, die of terror
or rage when they find themselves in the power of man. The
crocodiles of one lake in the llanos are cowardly, and flee even
when in the water; whilst those of another lake will attack with
extreme intrepidity. It would be difficult to explain this
difference of disposition and habits, by the mere aspect of the
respective localities. The sharks of the port of La Guayra seem to
furnish an analogous example. They are dangerous and blood-thirsty
at the island opposite the coast of Caracas, at the Roques, at
Bonayre, and at Curassao; while they forbear to attack persons
swimming in the ports of La Guayra and Santa Martha. The natives,
who like the ignorant mass of people in every country, in seeking
the explanation of natural phenomena, always have recourse to the
marvellous, affirm that in the ports just mentioned, a bishop gave
his benediction to the sharks.
The situation of La Guayra is very singular, and can only be
compared to that of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe. The chain of mountains
which 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 one hundred or one
hundred and forty toises breadth of flat ground between the wall
and the ocean. The town has six or eight thousand inhabitants, and
contains only two streets, running parallel with each other east
and west. It is commanded by the battery of Cerro Colorado; and its
fortifications along the sea-shore are well disposed, and kept in
repair. The aspect of this place has in it something solitary and
gloomy; we seemed not to be on a continent, covered with vast
forests, but on a rocky island, destitute of vegetation. With the
exception of Cabo Blanco and the cocoa-trees of Maiquetia, no view
meets the eye but that of the horizon, the sea, and the azure vault
of heaven. The heat is excessive during the day, and most
frequently during the night. The climate of La Guayra is justly
considered to be hotter than that of Cumana, Porto Cabello, and
Coro, because the sea-breeze is less felt, and the air is heated by
the radiant caloric which the perpendicular rocks emit from the
time the sun sets. The examination of the thermometric observations
made during nine months at La Guayra by an eminent physician,
enabled me to compare the climate of this port, with those of
Cumana, of the Havannah, and of Vera Cruz. This comparison is the
more interesting, as it furnishes an inexhaustible subject of
conversation in the Spanish colonies, and among the mariners who
frequent those latitudes. As nothing is more deceiving in such
matters than the testimony of the senses, we can judge of the
difference of climates only by numerical calculations.
The four places of which we have been speaking are considered as
the hottest on the shores of the New World. A comparison of them
may serve to confirm what we have several times observed, that it
is generally the duration of a high temperature, and not the excess
of heat, or its absolute quantity, which occasions the sufferings
of the inhabitants of the torrid zone.
A series of thermometric observations shows, that La Guayra is one
of the hottest places on the earth; that the quantity of heat which
it receives in the course of a year is a little greater than that
felt at Cumana; but that in the months of November, December, and
January (at equal distance from the two passages of the sun through
the zenith of the town), the atmosphere cools more at La Guayra.
May not this cooling, much slighter than that which is felt almost
at the same time at Vera Cruz and at the Havannah, be the effect of
the more westerly position of La Guayra? The aerial ocean, which
appears to form only one mass, is agitated by currents, the limits
of which are fixed by immutable laws; and its temperature is
variously modified by the configuration of the lands and seas by
which it is sustained. It may be subdivided into several basins,
which overflow into each other, and of which the most agitated (for
instance, that over the gulf of Mexico, or between the sierra of
Santa Martha and the gulf of Darien) have a powerful influence on
the refrigeration and the motion of the neighbouring columns of
air. The north winds sometimes cause influxes and counter-currents
in the south-west part of the Caribbean Sea, which seem, during
particular months, to diminish the heat as far as Terra Firma.
At the time of my abode at La Guayra, the yellow fever, or
calentura amarilla, had been known only two years; and the
mortality it occasioned had not been very great, because the
confluence of strangers on the coast of Caracas was less
considerable than at the Havannah or Vera Cruz. A few individuals,
even creoles and mulattoes, were sometimes carried off suddenly by
certain irregular remittent fevers; which, from being complicated
with bilious appearances, hemorrhages, and other symptoms equally
alarming, appeared to have some analogy with the yellow fever. The
victims of these maladies were generally men employed in the hard
labour of cutting wood in the forests, for instance, in the
neighbourhood of the little port of Carupano, or the gulf of Santa
Fe, west of Cumana. Their death often alarmed the unacclimated
Europeans, in towns usually regarded as peculiarly healthy; but the
seeds of the sporadic malady were propagated no farther. On the
coast of Terra Firma, the real typhus of America, which is known by
the names vomito prieto (black vomit) and yellow fever, and which
must be considered as a morbid affection sui generis, was known
only at Porto Cabello, at Carthagena, and at Santa Martha, where
Gastelbondo observed and described it in 1729. The Spaniards
recently disembarked, and the inhabitants of the valley of Caracas,
were not then afraid to reside at La Guayra. They complained only
of the oppressive heat which prevailed during a great part of the
year. If they exposed themselves to the immediate action of the
sun, they dreaded at most only those attacks of inflammation of the
skin or eyes, which are felt everywhere in the torrid zone, and are
often accompanied by a febrile affection and congestion in the
head. Many individuals preferred the ardent but uniform climate of
La Guayra to the cool but extremely variable climate of Caracas;
and scarcely any mention was made of the insalubrity of the former
port.
Since the year 1797 everything has changed. Commerce being thrown
open to other vessels besides those of the mother country, seamen
born in colder parts of Europe than Spain, and consequently more
susceptible to the climate of the torrid zone, began to frequent La
Guayra. The yellow fever broke out. North Americans, seized with
the typhus, were received in the Spanish hospitals; and it was
affirmed that they had imported the contagion, and that the disease
had appeared on board a brig from Philadelphia, even before the
vessel had entered the roads of La Guayra. The captain of the brig
denied the fact; and asserted that, far from having introduced the
malady, his crew had caught it in the port. We know from what
happened at Cadiz in 1800, how difficult it is to elucidate facts,
when their uncertainty serves to favour theories diametrically
opposite one to another. The more enlightened inhabitants of
Caracas and La Guayra, divided in opinion, like the physicians of
Europe and the United States, on the question of the contagion of
yellow fever, cited the instance of the American vessel; some for
the purpose of proving that the typhus had come from abroad, and
others, to show that it had taken birth in the country itself.
Those who advocated the latter opinion, admitted that an
extraordinary alteration had been caused in the constitution of the
atmosphere by the overflowings of the Rio de La Guayra. This
torrent, which in general is not ten inches deep, was swelled after
sixty hours' rain in the mountains, in so extraordinary a manner,
that it bore down trunks of trees and masses of rock of
considerable size. During this flood the waters were from thirty to
forty feet in breadth, and from eight to ten feet deep. It was
supposed that, issuing from some subterranean basin, formed by
successive infiltrations, they had flowed into the recently cleared
arable lands. Many houses were carried away by the torrent; and the
inundation became the more dangerous for the stores, in consequence
of the gate of the town, which could alone afford an outlet to the
waters, being accidentally closed. It was necessary to make a
breach in the wall on the sea-side. More than thirty persons
perished, and the damage was computed at half a million of
piastres. The stagnant water, which infected the stores, the
cellars, and the dungeons of the public prison, no doubt diffused
miasms in the air, which, as a predisposing cause, may have
accelerated the development of the yellow fever; but I believe that
the inundation of the Rio de la Guayra was no more the primary
cause, than the overflowings of the Guadalquivir, the Xenil, and
the Gual-Medina, were at Seville, at Ecija, and at Malaga, the
primary causes of the fatal epidemics of 1800 and 1804. I examined
with attention the bed of the torrent of La Guayra; and found it to
consist merely of a barren soil, blocks of mica-slate, and gneiss,
containing pyrites detached from the Sierra de Avila, but nothing
that could have had any effect in deteriorating the purity of the
air.
Since the years 1797 and 1798, at which periods there prevailed
dreadful mortality at Philadelphia, St. Lucia, and St. Domingo, the
yellow fever has continued its ravages at La Guayra. It has proved
fatal not only to the troops newly arrived from Spain, but also to
those levied in parts remote from the coasts, in the llanos between
Calabozo and Uritucu, regions almost as hot as La Guayra, but
favourable to health. This latter fact would seem more surprising,
did we not know, that even the natives of Vera Cruz, who are not
attacked with typhus in their own town, sometimes sink under it
during the epidemics of the Havannah and the United States. As the
black vomit finds an insurmountable barrier at the Encero (four
hundred and seventy-six toises high), on the declivity of the
mountains of Mexico, in the direction of Xalapa, where oaks begin
to appear, and the climate begins to be cool and pleasant, so the
yellow fever scarcely ever passes beyond the ridge of mountains
which separates La Guayra from the valley of Caracas. This valley
has been exempt from the malady for a considerable time; for we
must not confound the vomito and the yellow fever with the
irregular and bilious fevers. The Cumbre and the Cerro do Avila
form a very useful rampart to the town of Caracas, the elevation of
which a little exceeds that of the Encero, but of which the mean
temperature is above that of Xalapa.
I have published in another work* (* Nouvelle Espagne tome 2.) the
observations made by M. Bonpland and myself on the locality of the
towns periodically subject to the visitation of yellow fever; and I
shall not hazard here any new conjectures on the changes observed
in the pathogenic constitution of particular localities. The more I
reflect on this subject, the more mysterious appears to me all that
relates to those gaseous emanations which we call so vaguely the
seeds of contagion, and which are supposed to be developed by a
corrupted air, destroyed by cold, conveyed from place to place in
garments, and attached to the walls of houses. How can we explain
why, for the space of eighteen years prior to 1794, there was not a
single instance of the vomito at Vera Cruz, though the concourse of
unacclimated Europeans and of Mexicans from the interior, was very
considerable; though sailors indulged in the same excesses with
which they are still reproached; and though the town was not so
clean as it has been since the year 1800?
The following is the series of pathological facts, considered in
their simplest point of view. When a great number of persons, born
in a cold climate, arrive at the same period in a port of the
torrid zone, not particularly dreaded by navigators, the typhus of
America begins to appear. Those persons have not had typhus during
their passage; it appears among them only after they have landed.
Is the atmospheric constitution changed? or is it that a new form
of disease develops itself among individuals whose susceptibility
is highly increased?
The typhus soon begins to extend its ravages among other Europeans,
born in more southern countries. If propagated by contagion, it
seems surprising that in the towns of the equinoctial continent it
does not attach itself to certain streets; and that immediate
contact* does not augment the danger, any more than seclusion
diminishes it. (* In the oriental plague (another form of typhus
characterised by great disorder of the lymphatic system) immediate
contact is less to be feared than is generally thought. Larrey
maintains that the tumified glands may be touched or cauterized
without danger; but he thinks we ought not to risk putting on the
clothes of persons attacked with the plague.--Memoire sur les
Maladies de l'Armee Francoise en Egypte page 35.) The sick, when
removed to the inland country, and especially to cooler and more
elevated spots, to Xalapa, for instance, do not communicate typhus
to the inhabitants of those places, either because the disease is
not contagious in its nature, or because the predisposing causes
are not the same as in the regions of the shore. When there is a
considerable lowering of the temperature, the epidemic usually
ceases, even on the spot where it first appeared. It again breaks
out at the approach of the hot season, and sometimes long before;
though during several months there may have been no sick person in
the harbour, and no ship may have entered it.
The typhus of America appears to be confined to the shore, either
because persons who bring the disease disembark there, and goods
supposed to be impregnated with deleterious miasms are there
accumulated; or because on the sea-side gaseous emanations of a
particular nature are formed. The aspect of the places subject to
the ravages of typhus seems often to exclude all idea of a local or
endemical origin. It has been known to prevail in the Canaries, the
Bermudas, and among the small West India Islands, in dry places
formerly distinguished for the great salubrity of their climate.
Examples of the propagation of the yellow fever in the inland parts
of the torrid zone appear very doubtful: that malady may have been
confounded with remitting bilious fevers. With respect to the
temperate zone, in which the contagious character of the American
typhus is more decided, the disease has unquestionably spread far
from the shore, even into very elevated places, exposed to cool and
dry winds, as in Spain at Medina-Sidonia, at Carlotta, and in the
city of Murcia. That variety of phenomena which the same epidemic
exhibits, according to the difference of climate, the union of
predisposing causes, its shorter or longer duration, and the degree
of its exacerbation, should render us extremely circumspect in
tracing the secret causes of the American typhus. M. Bailly, who,
at the time of the violent epidemics in 1802 and 1803, was chief
physician to the colony of St. Domingo, and who studied that
disease in the island of Cuba, the United States, and Spain, is of
opinion that the typhus is very often, but not always, contagious.
Since the yellow fever has made such ravages in La Guayra,
exaggerated accounts have been given of the uncleanliness in that
little town as well as of Vera Cruz, and of the quays or wharfs of
Philadelphia. In a place where the soil is extremely dry, destitute
of vegetation, and where scarcely a few drops of water fall in the
course of seven or eight months, the causes that produce what are
called miasms, cannot be of very frequent occurrence. La Guayra
appeared to me in general to be tolerably clean, with the exception
of the quarter of the slaughter-houses. The sea-side has no beach
on which the remains of fuci or molluscs are heaped up; but the
neighbouring coast, which stretches eastward towards Cape Codera,
and consequently to the windward of La Guayra, is extremely
unhealthy. Intermitting, putrid, and bilious fevers often prevail
at Macuto and at Caravalleda; and when from time to time the breeze
is interrupted by a westerly wind, the little bay of Cotia sends
air loaded with putrid emanations towards the coast of La Guayra,
notwithstanding the rampart opposed by Cabo Blanco.
The irritability of the organs being so different in the people of
the north and those of the south, it cannot be doubted, that with
greater freedom of commerce, and more frequent and intimate
communication between countries situated in different climates, the
yellow fever will extend its ravages in the New World. It is even
probable that the concurrence of so many exciting causes, and their
action on individuals so differently organized, may give birth to
new forms of disease and new deviations of the vital powers. This
is one of the evils that inevitably attend rising civilization.
The yellow fever and the black vomit cease periodically at the
Havannah and Vera Cruz, when the north winds bring the cold air of
Canada towards the gulf of Mexico. But from the extreme equality of
temperature which characterizes the climates of Porto Cabello, La
Guayra, New Barcelona, and Cumana, it may be feared that the typhus
will there become permanent, whenever, from a great influx of
strangers, it has acquired a high degree of exacerbation.
Tracing the granitic coast of La Guayra westward, we find between
that port (which is in fact but an ill-sheltered roadstead) and
that of Porto Cabello, several indentations of the land, furnishing
excellent anchorage for ships. Such are the small bay of Catia, Los
Arecifes, Puerto-la-Cruz, Choroni, Sienega de Ocumare, Turiamo,
Burburata, and Patanebo. All these ports, with the exception of
that of Burburata, from which mules are exported to Jamaica, are
now frequented only by small coasting vessels, which are there
laden with provisions and cacao from the surrounding plantations.
The inhabitants of Caracas are desirous to avail themselves of the
anchorage of Catia, to the west of Cabo Blanco. M. Bonpland and
myself examined that point of the coast during our second abode at
La Guayra. A ravine, called the Quebrada de Tipe, descends from the
table-land of Caracas towards Catia. A plan has long been in
contemplation for making a cart-road through this ravine and
abandoning the old road to La Guayra, which resembles the passage
over St. Gothard. According to this plan, the port of Catia,
equally large and secure, would supersede that of La Guayra.
Unfortunately, however, all that shore, to leeward of Cabo Blanco,
abounds with mangroves, and is extremely unhealthy. I ascended to
the summit of the promontory, which forms Cabo Blanco, in order to
observe the passage of the sun over the meridian. I wished to
compare in the morning the altitudes taken with an artificial
horizon and those taken with the horizon of the sea; to verify the
apparent depression of the latter, by the barometrical measurement
of the hill. By this method, hitherto very little employed, on
reducing the heights of the sun to the same time, a reflecting
instrument may be used like an instrument furnished with a level. I
found the latitude of the cape to be 10 degrees 36 minutes 45
seconds; I could only make use of the angles which gave the image
of the sun reflected on a plane glass; the horizon of the sea was
very misty, and the windings of the coast prevented me from taking
the height of the sun on that horizon.
The environs of Cabo Blanco are not uninteresting for the study of
rocks. The gneiss here passes into the state of mica-slate
(Glimmerschiefer.), and contains, along the sea-coast, layers of
schistose chlorite. (Chloritschiefer.) In this latter I found
garnets and magnetical sand. On the road to Catia we see the
chloritic schist passing into hornblende schist.
(Hornblendschiefer.) All these formations are found together in the
primitive mountains of the old world, especially in the north of
Europe. The sea at the foot of Cabo Blanco throws up on the beach
rolled fragments of a rock, which is a granular mixture of
hornblende and lamellar feldspar. It is what is rather vaguely
called PRIMITIVE GRUNSTEIN. In it we can recognize traces of quartz
and pyrites. Submarine rocks probably exist near the coast, which
furnish these very hard masses. I have compared them in my journal
to the PATERLESTEIN of Fichtelberg, in Franconia, which is also a
diabase, but so fusible, that glass buttons are made of it, which
are employed in the slave-trade on the coast of Guinea. I believed
at first, according to the analogy of the phenomena furnished by
the mountains of Franconia, that the presence of these hornblende
masses with crystals of common (uncompact) feldspar indicated the
proximity of transition rocks; but in the high valley of Caracas,
near Antimano, balls of the same diabase fill a vein crossing the
mica-slate. On the western declivity of the hill of Cabo Blanco,
the gneiss is covered with a formation of sandstone, or
conglomerate, extremely recent. This sandstone combines angular
fragments of gneiss, quartz, and chlorite, magnetical sand,
madrepores, and petrified bivalve shells. Is this formation of the
same date as that of Punta Araya and Cumana?
Scarcely any part of the coast has so burning a climate as the
environs of Cabo Blanco. We suffered much from the heat, augmented
by the reverberation of a barren and dusty soil; but without
feeling any bad consequences from the effects of insolation. The
powerful action of the sun on the cerebral functions is extremely
dreaded at La Guayra, especially at the period when the yellow
fever begins to be felt. Being one day on the terrace of the house,
observing at noon the difference of the thermometer in the sun and
in the shade, a man approached me holding in his hand a potion,
which he conjured me to swallow. He was a physician, who from his
window, had observed me bareheaded, and exposed to the rays of the
sun. He assured me, that, being a native of a very northern
climate, I should infallibly, after the imprudence I had committed,
be attacked with the yellow fever that very evening, if I refused
to take the remedy against it. I was not alarmed by this
prediction, however serious, believing myself to have been long
acclimated; but I could not resist yielding to entreaties, prompted
by such benevolent feelings. I swallowed the dose; and the
physician doubtless counted me among the number of those he had
saved.
The road leading from the port to Caracas (the capital of a
government of near 900,000 inhabitants) resembles, as I have
already observed, the passage over the Alps, the road of St.
Gothard, and of the Great St. Bernard. Taking the level of the road
had never been attempted before my arrival in the province of
Venezuela. No precise idea had even been formed of the elevation of
the valley of Caracas. It had indeed been long observed, that the
descent was much less from La Cumbre and Las Vueltas (the latter is
the culminating point of the road towards the Pastora at the
entrance of the valley of Caracas), than towards the port of La
Guayra; but the mountain of Avila having a very considerable bulk,
the eye cannot discern simultaneously the points to be compared. It
is even impossible to form a precise idea of the elevation of
Caracas, from the climate of the valley, where the atmosphere is
cooled by the descending currents of air, and by the mists, which
envelope the lofty summit of the Silla during a great part of the
year.
When in the season of the great heats we breathe the burning
atmosphere of La Guayra, and turn our eyes towards the mountains,
it seems scarcely possible that, at the distance of five or six
thousand toises, a population of forty thousand individuals
assembled in a narrow valley, enjoys the coolness of spring, a
temperature which at night descends to 12 degrees of the centesimal
thermometer. This near approach of different climates is common in
the Cordillera of the Andes; but everywhere, at Mexico, at Quito,
in Peru, and in New Granada, it is only after a long journey into
the interior, either across plains or along rivers, that we reach
the great cities, which are the central points of civilization. The
height of Caracas is but a third of that of Mexico, Quito, and
Santa Fe de Bogota; yet of all the capitals of Spanish America
which enjoy a cool and delicious climate in the midst of the torrid
zone, Caracas is nearest to the coast. What a privilege for a city
to possess a seaport at three leagues distance, and to be situated
among mountains, on a table-land, which would produce wheat, if the
cultivation of the coffee-tree were not preferred!
The road from La Guayra to the valley of Caracas is infinitely
finer than the road from Honda to Santa Fe, or that from Guayaquil
to Quito. It is kept in better order than the old road, which led
from the port of Vera Cruz to Perote, on the eastern declivity of
the mountains of New Spain. With good mules it takes but three
hours to go from the port of La Guayra to Caracas; and only two
hours to return. With loaded mules, or on foot, the journey is from
four to five hours. The road runs along a ridge of rocks extremely
steep, and after passing the stations bearing respectively the
names of Torre Quemada, Curucuti, and Salto, we arrive at a large
inn (La Venta) built at six hundred toises above the level of the
sea. The name Torre Quemada, or Burnt Tower, indicates the
sensation that is felt in descending towards La Guayra. A
suffocating heat is reflected from the walls of rock, and
especially from the barren plains on which the traveller looks
down. On this road, as on that from Vera Cruz to Mexico, and
wherever on a rapid declivity the climate changes, the increase of
muscular strength and the sensation of well-being, which we
experience as we advance into strata of cooler air, have always
appeared to me less striking than the feeling of languor and
debility which pervades the frame, when we descend towards the
burning plains of the coast. But such is the organization of man;
and even in the moral world, we are less soothed by that which
ameliorates our condition than annoyed by a new sensation of
discomfort.
From Curucuti to Salto the ascent is somewhat less laborious. The
sinuosities of the way render the declivity easier, as in the old
road over Mont Cenis. The Salto (or Leap) is a crevice, which is
crossed by a draw-bridge. Fortifications crown the summit of the
mountain. At La Venta the thermometer at noon stood at 19.3
degrees, when at La Guayra it kept up at the same hour at 26.2
degrees. La Venta enjoys some celebrity in Europe and in the United
States, for the beauty of its surrounding scenery. When the clouds
permit, this spot affords a magnificent view of the sea, and the
neighbouring coasts. An horizon of more than twenty-two leagues
radius is visible; the white and barren shore reflects a dazzling
mass of light; and the spectator beholds at his feet Cabo Blanco,
the village of Maiquetia with its cocoa-trees, La Guayra, and the
vessels in the port. But I found this view far more extraordinary,
when the sky was not serene, and when trains of clouds, strongly
illumined on their upper surface, seemed projected like floating
islands on the ocean. Strata of vapour, hovering at different
heights, formed intermediary spaces between the eye and the lower
regions. By an illusion easily explained, they enlarged the scene,
and rendered it more majestic. Trees and dwellings appeared at
intervals through the openings, which were left by the clouds when
driven on by the winds, and rolling over one another. Objects then
appear at a greater depth than when seen through a pure and
uniformly serene air. On the declivity of the mountains of Mexico,
at the same height (between Las Trancas and Xalapa), the sea is
twelve leagues distant, and the view of the coast is confused;
while on the road from La Guayra to Caracas we command the plains
(the tierra caliente), as from the top of a tower. How
extraordinary must be the impression created by this prospect on
natives of the inland parts of the country, who behold the sea and
ships for the first time from this point.
I determined by direct observations the latitude of La Venta, that
I might be enabled to give a more precise idea of the distance of
the coasts. The latitude is 10 degrees 33 minutes 9 seconds. Its
longitude appeared to me by the chronometer, nearly 2 minutes 47
seconds west of the town of Caracas. I found the dip of the needle
at this height to be 41.75 degrees, and the intensity of the
magnetic forces equal to two hundred and thirty-four oscillations.
From the Venta, called also La Venta Grande, to distinguish it from
three or four small inns formerly established along the road, but
now destroyed, there is still an ascent of one hundred and fifty
toises to Guayavo. This is nearly the most lofty point of the road.
Whether we gaze on the distant horizon of the sea, or turn our eyes
south-eastward, in the direction of the serrated ridge of rocks,
which seems to unite the Cumbre and the Silla, though separated
from them by the ravine (quebrada) of Tocume, everywhere we admire
the grand character of the landscape. From Guayavo we proceed for
half an hour over a smooth table-land, covered with alpine plants.
This part of the way, on account of its windings, is called Las
Vueltas. We find a little higher up the barracks or magazines of
flour, which were constructed in a spot of cool temperature by the
Guipuzcoa Company, when they had the exclusive monopoly of the
trade of Caracas, and supplied that place with provision. On the
road to Las Vueltas we see for the first time the capital, situated
three hundred toises below, in a valley luxuriantly planted with
coffee and European fruit-trees. Travellers are accustomed to halt
near a fine spring, known by the name of Fuente de Sanchorquiz,
which flows down from the Sierra on sloping strata of gneiss. I
found its temperature 16.4 degrees; which, for an elevation of
seven hundred and twenty-six toises, is considerably cool, and it
would appear much cooler to those who drink its limpid water, if,
instead of gushing out between La Cumbre and the temperate valley
of Caracas, it were found on the descent towards La Guayra. But at
this descent on the northern side of the mountain, the rock, by an
uncommon exception in this country, does not dip to north-west, but
to south-east, which prevents the subterranean waters from forming
springs there.
We continued to descend from the small ravine of Sanchorquiz to la
Cruz de la Guayra, a cross erected on an open spot, six hundred and
thirty-two toises high, and thence (entering by the custom-house
and the quarter of the Pastora) to the city of Caracas. On the
south side of the mountain of Avila, the gneiss presents several
geognostical phenomena worthy of the attention of travellers. It is
traversed by veins of quartz, containing cannulated and often
articulated prisms of rutile titanite two or three lines in
diameter. In the fissures of the quartz we find, on breaking it,
very thin crystals, which crossing each other form a kind of
network. Sometimes the red schorl occurs only in dendritic crystals
of a bright red.* (* Especially below the Cross of La Guayra, at
594 toises of absolute elevation.) The gneiss of the valley of
Caracas is characterized by the red and green garnets it contains;
they however disappear when the rock passes into mica-slate. This
same phenomenon has been remarked by Von Buch in Sweden; but in the
temperate parts of Europe garnets are in general contained in
serpentine and mica-slates, not in gneiss. In the walls which
enclose the gardens of Caracas, constructed partly of fragments of
gneiss, we find garnets of a very fine red, a little transparent,
and very difficult to detach. The gneiss near the Cross of La
Guayra, half a league from Caracas, presented also vestiges of
azure copper-ore* (* Blue carbonate of copper.) disseminated in
veins of quartz, and small strata of plumbago (black lead), or
earthy carburetted iron. This last is found in pretty large masses,
and sometimes mingled with sparry iron-ore, in the ravine of
Tocume, to the west of the Silla.
Between the spring of Sanchorquiz and the Cross of La Guayra, as
well as still higher up, the gneiss contains considerable beds of
saccharoidal bluish-grey primitive limestone, coarse-grained,
containing mica, and traversed by veins of white calcareous spar.
The mica, with large folia, lies in the direction of the dip of the
strata. I found in the primitive limestone a great many
crystallized pyrites, and rhomboidal fragments of sparry iron-ore
of Isabella yellow. I endeavoured, but without success, to find
tremolite (Grammatite of Hauy. The primitive limestone above the
spring of Sanchorquiz, is directed, as the gneiss in that place,
hor. 5.2, and dips 45 degrees north; but the general direction of
the gneiss is, in the Cerro de Avila, hor. 3.4 with 60 degrees of
dip north-west. Exceptions merely local are observed in a small
space of ground near the Cross of La Guayra (hor. 6.2, dip 8
degrees north); and higher up, opposite the Quebrada of Tipe (hor.
12, dip 50 degrees west).), which in the Fichtelberg, in Franconia,
is common in the primitive limestone without dolomite. In Europe
beds of primitive limestone are generally observed in the
mica-slates; but we find also saccharoidal limestone in gneiss of
the most ancient formation, in Sweden near Upsala, in Saxony near
Burkersdorf, and in the Alps in the road over the Simplon. These
situations are analogous to that of Caracas. The phenomena of
geognosy, particularly those which are connected with the
stratification of rocks, and their grouping, are never solitary;
but are found the same in both hemispheres. I was the more struck
with these relations, and this identity of formations, as, at the
time of my journey in these countries, mineralogists were
unacquainted with the name of a single rock of Venezuela, New
Grenada, and the Cordilleras of Quito.