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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Equinoctial Regions of America, Volume 3, by 
+Alexander von Humboldt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Equinoctial Regions of America, Volume 3
+
+Author: Alexander von Humboldt
+
+Posting Date: August 18, 2012 [EBook #7254]
+Release Date: January, 2005
+First Posted: April 1, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF AMERICA, V3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sue Asschers
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOHN'S SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY.
+
+
+HUMBOLDT'S PERSONAL NARRATIVE
+
+VOLUME 3.
+
+PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF AMERICA
+DURING THE YEARS 1799-1804
+
+BY
+
+ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT AND AIME BONPLAND.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF
+ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
+AND EDITED BY
+THOMASINA ROSS.
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES
+
+VOLUME 3.
+
+
+LONDON.
+
+GEORGE BELL & SONS.
+1908.
+LONDON: PORTUGAL STREET, LINCOLN'S INN.
+CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
+NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
+BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER AND CO.
+
+
+***
+
+The longitudes mentioned in the text refer always to the meridian of
+the Observatory of Paris.
+
+The real is about 6 1/2 English pence.
+
+The agrarian measure, called caballeria, is eighteen cordels, (each
+cordel includes twenty-four varas) or 432 square varas; consequently,
+as 1 vara = 0.835m., according to Rodriguez, a caballeria is 186,624
+square varas, or 130,118 square metres, or thirty-two and two-tenths
+English acres.
+
+20 leagues to a degree.
+
+5000 varas = 4150 metres.
+
+3403 square toises = 1.29 hectare.
+
+An acre = 4044 square metres.
+
+Five hundred acres = fifteen and a half caballerias.
+
+Sugar-houses are thought to be very considerable that yield 2000 cases
+annually, or 32,000 arrobas (nearly 368,000 kilogrammes.)
+
+An arroba of 25 Spanish pounds = 11.49 kilogrammes.
+
+A quintal = 45.97 kilogrammes.
+
+A tarea of wood = one hundred and sixty cubic feet.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME 3.
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.25.
+
+SPANISH GUIANA.--ANGOSTURA.--PALM-INHABITING TRIBES.--MISSIONS OF THE
+CAPUCHINS.--THE LAGUNA PARIME.--EL DORADO.--LEGENDARY TALES OF THE
+EARLY VOYAGERS.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.26.
+
+THE LLANOS DEL PAO, OR EASTERN PART OF THE PLAINS OF
+VENEZUELA.--MISSIONS OF THE CARIBS.--LAST VISIT TO THE COAST OF NUEVA
+BARCELONA, CUMANA, AND ARAYA.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.27.
+
+POLITICAL STATE OF THE PROVINCES OF VENEZUELA.--EXTENT OF
+TERRITORY.--POPULATION.--NATURAL PRODUCTIONS.--EXTERNAL
+TRADE.--COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT PROVINCES COMPRISING THE
+REPUBLIC OF COLUMBIA.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.28.
+
+PASSAGE FROM THE COAST OF VENEZUELA TO THE HAVANA.--GENERAL VIEW OF
+THE POPULATION OF THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS, COMPARED WITH THE POPULATION
+OF THE NEW CONTINENT, WITH RESPECT TO DIVERSITY OF RACES, PERSONAL
+LIBERTY, LANGUAGE, AND WORSHIP.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.29.
+
+POLITICAL ESSAY ON THE ISLAND OF CUBA.--THE HAVANNAH.--HILLS OF
+GUANAVACOA, CONSIDERED IN THEIR GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS.--VALLEY OF LOS
+GUINES, BATABANO, AND PORT OF TRINIDAD.--THE KING AND QUEEN'S GARDENS.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.30.
+
+PASSAGE FROM TRINIDAD DE CUBA TO RIO SINU.--CARTHAGENA.--AIR VOLCANOES
+OF TURBACO.--CANAL OF MAHATES.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.31.
+
+CUBA AND THE SLAVE TRADE.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.32.
+
+GEOGNOSTIC DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH AMERICA, NORTH OF THE RIVER AMAZON,
+AND EAST OF THE MERIDIAN OF THE SIERRA NEVADA DE MERIDA.
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+***
+
+
+
+PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO THE EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF THE NEW
+CONTINENT.
+
+VOLUME 3.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.25.
+
+SPANISH GUIANA.
+ANGOSTURA.
+PALM-INHABITING TRIBES.
+MISSIONS OF THE CAPUCHINS.
+THE LAGUNA PARIME.
+EL DORADO.
+LEGENDARY TALES OF THE EARLY VOYAGERS.
+
+I shall commence this chapter by a description of Spanish Guiana
+(Provincia de la Guyana), which is a part of the ancient Capitania
+general of Caracas. Since the end of the sixteenth century three towns
+have successively borne the name of St. Thomas of Guiana. The first
+was situated opposite to the island of Faxardo, at the confluence of
+the Carony and the Orinoco, and was destroyed* by the Dutch, under the
+command of Captain Adrian Janson, in 1579. (* The first of the voyages
+undertaken at Raleigh's expense was in 1595; the second, that of
+Laurence Keymis, in 1596; the third, described by Thomas Masham, in
+1597; and the fourth, in 1617. The first and last only were performed
+by Raleigh in person. This celebrated man was beheaded on October the
+29th, 1618. It is therefore the second town of Santo Tomas, now called
+Vieja Guyana, which existed in the time of Raleigh.) The second,
+founded by Antonio de Berrio in 1591, near twelve leagues east of the
+mouth of the Carony, made a courageous resistance to Sir Walter
+Raleigh, whom the Spanish writers of the conquest know only by the
+name of the pirate Reali. The third town, now the capital of the
+province, is fifty leagues west of the confluence of the Carony. It
+was begun in 1764, under the Governor Don Joacquin Moreno de Mendoza,
+and is distinguished in the public documents from the second town,
+vulgarly called the fortress (el castillo, las fortalezas), or Old
+Guayana (Vieja Guayana), by the name of Santo Thome de la Nueva
+Guayana. This name being very long, that of Angostura* (the strait)
+has been commonly substituted for it. (* Europe has learnt the
+existence of the town of Angostura by the trade carried on by the
+Catalonians in the Carony bark, which is the beneficial bark of the
+Bonplanda trifoliata. This bark, coming from Nueva Guiana, was called
+corteza or cascarilla del Angostura (Cortex Angosturae). Botanists so
+little guessed the origin of this geographical denomination that they
+began by writing Augustura, and then Augusta.)
+
+Angostura, the longitude and latitude of which I have already
+indicated from astronomical observations, stands at the foot of a hill
+of amphibolic schist* bare of vegetation. (* Hornblendschiefer.) The
+streets are regular, and for the most part parallel with the course of
+the river. Several of the houses are built on the bare rock; and here,
+as at Carichana, and in many other parts of the missions, the action
+of black and strong strata, when strongly heated by the rays of the
+sun upon the atmosphere, is considered injurious to health. I think
+the small pools of stagnant water (lagunas y anegadizos), which extend
+behind the town in the direction of south-east, are more to be feared.
+The houses of Angostura are lofty and convenient; they are for the
+most part built of stone; which proves that the inhabitants have but
+little dread of earthquakes. But unhappily this security is not
+founded on induction from any precise data. It is true that the shore
+of Nueva Andalusia sometimes undergoes very violent shocks, without
+the commotion being propagated across the Llanos. The fatal
+catastrophe of Cumana, on the 4th of February, 1797, was not felt at
+Angostura; but in the great earthquake of 1766, which destroyed the
+same city, the granitic soil of the two banks of the Orinoco was
+agitated as far as the Raudales of Atures and Maypures. South of these
+Raudales shocks are sometimes felt, which are confined to the basin of
+the Upper Orinoco and the Rio Negro. They appear to depend on a
+volcanic focus distant from that of the Caribbee Islands. We were told
+by the missionaries at Javita and San Fernando de Atabapo that in 1798
+violent earthquakes took place between the Guaviare and the Rio Negro,
+which were not propagated on the north towards Maypures. We cannot be
+sufficiently attentive to whatever relates to the simultaneity of the
+oscillations, and to the independence of the movements in contiguous
+ground. Everything seems to prove that the propagation of the
+commotion is not superficial, but depends on very deep crevices that
+terminate in different centres of action.
+
+The scenery around the town of Angostura is little varied; but the
+view of the river, which forms a vast canal, stretching from
+south-west to north-east, is singularly majestic.
+
+When the waters are high, the river inundates the quays; and it
+sometimes happens that, even in the town, imprudent persons become the
+prey of crocodiles. I shall transcribe from my journal a fact that
+took place during M. Bonpland's illness. A Guaykeri Indian, from the
+island of La Margareta, was anchoring his canoe in a cove where there
+were not three feet of water. A very fierce crocodile, which
+habitually haunted that spot, seized him by the leg, and withdrew from
+the shore, remaining on the surface of the water. The cries of the
+Indian drew together a crowd of spectators. This unfortunate man was
+first seen seeking, with astonishing presence of mind, for a knife
+which he had in his pocket. Not being able to find it, he seized the
+head of the crocodile and thrust his fingers into its eyes. No man in
+the hot regions of America is ignorant that this carnivorous reptile,
+covered with a buckler of hard and dry scales, is extremely sensitive
+in the only parts of his body which are soft and unprotected, such as
+the eyes, the hollow underneath the shoulders, the nostrils, and
+beneath the lower jaw, where there are two glands of musk. The
+Guaykeri Indian was less fortunate than the negro of Mungo Park, and
+the girl of Uritucu, whom I mentioned in a former part of this work,
+for the crocodile did not open its jaws and lose hold of its prey. The
+animal, overcome by pain, plunged to the bottom of the river, and,
+after having drowned the Indian, came up to the surface of the water,
+dragging the dead body to an island opposite the port. A great number
+of the inhabitants of Angostura witnessed this melancholy spectacle.
+
+The crocodile, owing to the structure of its larynx, of the hyoidal
+bone, and of the folds of its tongue, can seize, though not swallow,
+its prey under water; thus when a man disappears, the animal is
+usually perceived some hours after devouring its prey on a
+neighbouring beach. The number of individuals who perish annually, the
+victims of their own imprudence and of the ferocity of these reptiles,
+is much greater than is believed in Europe. It is particularly so in
+villages where the neighbouring grounds are often inundated. The same
+crocodiles remain long in the same places. They become from year to
+year more daring, especially, as the Indians assert, if they have once
+tasted of human flesh. These animals are so wary, that they are killed
+with difficulty. A ball does not pierce their skin; and the shot is
+only mortal when it penetrates the throat or a part beneath the
+shoulder. The Indians, who know little of the use of fire-arms, attack
+the crocodile with lances, after the animal has been caught with large
+pointed iron hooks, baited with pieces of meat, and fastened by a
+chain to the trunk of a tree. They do not approach the animal till it
+has struggled a long time to disengage itself from the iron fixed in
+the upper jaw. There is little probability that a country in which a
+labyrinth of rivers without number brings every day new bands of
+crocodiles from the eastern back of the Andes, by the Meta and the
+Apure, toward the coast of Spanish Guiana, should ever be delivered
+from these reptiles. All that will be gained by civilization will be
+to render them more timid and more easily put to flight.
+
+Affecting instances are related of African slaves, who have exposed
+their lives to save those of their masters, who had fallen into the
+jaws of a crocodile. A few years ago, between Uritucu and the Mission
+de Abaxo, a negro, hearing the cries of his master, flew to the spot,
+armed with a long knife (machete), and plunged into the river. He
+forced the crocodile, by putting out his eyes, to let go his prey and
+to plunge under the water. The slave bore his expiring master to the
+shore; but all succour was unavailing to restore him to life. He had
+died of suffocation, for his wounds were not deep. The crocodile, like
+the dog, appears not to close its jaws firmly while swimming.
+
+The inhabitants of the banks of the Orinoco and its tributary streams
+discourse continually on the dangers to which they are exposed. They
+have marked the manners of the crocodile, as the torero has studied
+the manners of the bull. When they are assailed, they put in practice,
+with that presence of mind and that resignation which characterize the
+Indians, the Zamboes, and copper-coloured men in general, the counsels
+they have heard from their infancy. In countries where nature is so
+powerful and so terrible, man is constantly prepared for danger. We
+have mentioned before the answer of the young Indian girl, who
+delivered herself from the jaws of the crocodile: "I knew he would let
+me go if I thrust my fingers into his eyes." This girl belonged to the
+indigent class of the people, in whom the habits of physical want
+augment energy of character; but how can we avoid being surprised to
+observe in the countries convulsed by terrible earthquakes, on the
+table-land of the province of Quito, women belonging to the highest
+classes of society display in the moment of peril, the same calm, the
+same reflecting intrepidity? I shall mention one example only in
+support of this assertion. On the 4th of February, 1797, when 35,000
+Indians perished in the space of a few minutes, a young mother saved
+herself and her children, crying out to them to extend their arms at
+the moment when the cracked ground was ready to swallow them up. When
+this courageous woman heard the astonishment that was expressed at a
+presence of mind so extraordinary, she answered, with great
+simplicity, "I had been told in my infancy: if the earthquake surprise
+you in a house, place yourself under a doorway that communicates from
+one apartment to another; if you be in the open air and feel the
+ground opening beneath you, extend both your arms, and try to support
+yourself on the edge of the crevice." Thus, in savage regions or in
+countries exposed to frequent convulsions, man is prepared to struggle
+with the beasts of the forest, to deliver himself from the jaws of the
+crocodile, and to escape from the conflict of the elements.
+
+The town of Angostura, in the early years of its foundation, had no
+direct communication with the mother-country. The inhabitants were
+contented with carrying on a trifling contraband trade in dried meat
+and tobacco with the West India Islands, and with the Dutch colony of
+Essequibo, by the Rio Carony. Neither wine, oil, nor flour, three
+articles of importation the most sought after, was received directly
+from Spain. Some merchants, in 1771, sent the first schooner to Cadiz;
+and since that period a direct exchange of commodities with the ports
+of Andalusia and Catalonia has become extremely active. The population
+of Angostura,* after having been a long time languishing, has much
+increased since 1785. (* Angostura, or Santo Thome de la Nueva
+Guayana, in 1768, had only 500 inhabitants. Caulin page 63. They were
+numbered in 1780 and the result was 1513 (455 Whites, 449 Blacks, 363
+Mulattoes and Zamboes, and 246 Indians). The population in the year
+1789 rose to 4590; and in 1800 to 6600 souls. Official Lists
+manuscript. The capital of the English colony of Demerara, the town of
+Stabroek, the name of which is scarcely known in Europe, is only fifty
+leagues distant, south-east of the mouths of the Orinoco. It contains,
+according to Bolingbroke, nearly 10,000 inhabitants.) At the time of
+my abode in Guiana, however, it was far from being equal to that of
+Stabroek, the nearest English town. The mouths of the Orinoco have an
+advantage over every other part in Terra Firma. They afford the most
+prompt communications with the Peninsula. The voyage from Cadiz to
+Punta Barima is performed sometimes in eighteen or twenty days. The
+return to Europe takes from thirty to thirty-five days. These mouths
+being placed to windward of all the islands, the vessels of Angostura
+can maintain a more advantageous commerce with the West Indies than La
+Guayra and Porto Cabello. The merchants of Caracas, therefore, have
+been always jealous of the progress of industry in Spanish Guiana; and
+Caracas having been hitherto the seat of the supreme government, the
+port of Angostura has been treated with still less favour than the
+ports of Cumana and Nueva Barcelona. With respect to the inland trade,
+the most active is that of the province of Varinas, which sends mules,
+cacao, indigo, cotton, and sugar to Angostura; and in return receives
+generos, that is, the products of the manufacturing industry of
+Europe. I have seen long boats (lanchas) set off, the cargoes of which
+were valued at eight or ten thousand piastres. These boats went first
+up the Orinoco to Cabruta; then along the Apure to San Vicente; and
+finally, on the Rio Santo Domingo, as far as Torunos, which is the
+port of Varinas Nuevas. The little town of San Fernando de Apure, of
+which I have already given a description, is the magazine of this
+river-trade, which might become more considerable by the introduction
+of steamboats.
+
+I have now described the country through which we passed during a
+voyage of five hundred leagues; it remains for me to make known the
+small space of three degrees fifty-two minutes of longitude, that
+separates the present capital from the mouth of the Orinoco. Exact
+knowledge of the delta and the course of the Rio Carony is at once
+interesting to hydrography and to European commerce.
+
+When a vessel coming from sea would enter the principal mouth of the
+Orinoco, the Boca de Navios, it should make the land at the Punta
+Barima. The right or southern bank is the highest: the granitic rock
+pierces the marshy soil at a small distance in the interior, between
+the Cano Barima, the Aquire, and the Cuyuni. The left, or northern
+bank of the Orinoco, which stretches along the delta towards the Boca
+de Mariusas and the Punta Baxa, is very low, and is distinguishable at
+a distance only by the clumps of moriche palm-trees which embellish
+the passage. This is the sago-tree* of the country (* The nutritious
+fecula or medullary flour of the sago-trees is found principally in a
+group of palms which M. Kunth has distinguished by the name of
+calameae. It is collected, however, in the Indian Archipelago, as an
+article of trade, from the trunks of the Cycas revoluta, the Phoenix
+farinifera, the Corypha umbraculifera, and the Caryota urens.
+(Ainslie, Materia Medica of Hindostan, Madras 1813.)) The quantity of
+nutritious matter which the real sago-tree of Asia affords (Sagus
+Rumphii, or Metroxylon sagu, Roxb.) exceeds that which is furnished by
+any other plant useful to man. One trunk of a tree in its fifteenth
+year sometimes yields six hundred pounds weight of sago, or meal (for
+the word sago signifies meal in the dialect of Amboyna). Mr. Crawfurd,
+who resided a long time in the Indian Archipelago, calculates that an
+English acre could contain four hundred and thirty-five sago-trees,
+which would yield one hundred and twenty thousand five hundred pounds
+avoirdupois of fecula, or more than eight thousand pounds yearly.
+History of the Indian Archipelago volume 1 pages 387 and 393. This
+produce is triple that of corn, and double that of potatoes in France.
+But the plantain produces, on the same surface of land, still more
+alimentary substance than the sago-tree.); it yields the flour of
+which the yuruma bread is made; and far from being a palm-tree of the
+shore, like the Chamaerops humilis, the common cocoa-tree, and the
+lodoicea of Commerson, is found as a palm-tree of the marshes as far
+as the sources of the Orinoco.* (* I dwell much on these divisions of
+the great and fine families of palms according to the distribution of
+the species: first, in dry places, or inland plains, Corypha tectorum;
+second, on the sea-coast, Chamaerops humilis, Cocos nucifera, Corypha
+maritima, Lodoicea seychellarum, Labill.; third, in the fresh-water
+marshes, Sagus Rumphii, Mauritia flexuosa; and 4th, in the alpine
+regions, between seven and fifteen hundred toises high, Ceroxylon
+andicola, Oreodoxa frigida, Kunthia montana. This last group of palmae
+montanae, which rises in the Andes of Guanacas nearly to the limit of
+perpetual snow, was, I believe, entirely unknown before our travels in
+America. (Nov. Gen. volume 1 page 317; Semanario de Santa Fe de Bogota
+1819 Number 21 page 163.) In the season of inundations these clumps of
+mauritia, with their leaves in the form of a fan, have the appearance
+of a forest rising from the bosom of the waters. The navigator, in
+proceeding along the channels of the delta of the Orinoco at night,
+sees with surprise the summit of the palm-trees illumined by large
+fires. These are the habitations of the Guaraons (Tivitivas and
+Waraweties of Raleigh* (* The Indian name of the tribe of Uaraus
+(Guaraunos of the Spaniards) may be recognized in the Warawety
+(Ouarauoty) of Raleigh, one of the branches of the Tivitivas. See
+Discovery of Guiana, 1576 page 90 and the sketch of the habitations of
+the Guaraons, in Raleghi brevis Descrip. Guianae, 1594 tab 4.)), which
+are suspended from the trunks of trees. These tribes hang up mats in
+the air, which they fill with earth, and kindle, on a layer of moist
+clay, the fire necessary for their household wants. They have owed
+their liberty and their political independence for ages to the quaking
+and swampy soil, which they pass over in the time of drought, and on
+which they alone know how to walk in security to their solitude in the
+delta of the Orinoco; to their abode on the trees where religious
+enthusiasm will probably never lead any American stylites.* (* This
+sect was founded by Simeon Sisanites, a native of Syria. He passed
+thirty-seven years in mystic contemplation, on five pillars, the last
+of which was thirty-six cubits high. The sancti columnares attempted
+to establish their aerial cloisters in the country of Treves, in
+Germany; but the bishops opposed these extravagant and perilous
+enterprises. Mosheim, Instit. Hist. Eccles page 192. See Humboldt's
+Views of Nature (Bohn) pages 13 and 136.) I have already mentioned in
+another place that the mauritia palm-tree, the tree of life of the
+missionaries, not only affords the Guaraons a safe dwelling during the
+risings of the Orinoco, but that its shelly fruit, its farinaceous
+pith, its juice, abounding in saccharine matter, and the fibres of its
+petioles, furnish them with food, wine,* and thread proper for making
+cords and weaving hammocks. (* The use of this moriche wine however is
+not very common. The Guaraons prefer in general a beverage of
+fermented honey.) These customs of the Indians of the delta of the
+Orinoco were found formerly in the Gulf of Darien (Uraba), and in the
+greater part of the inundated lands between the Guarapiche and the
+mouths of the Amazon. It is curious to observe in the lowest degree of
+human civilization the existence of a whole tribe depending on one
+single species of palm-tree, similar to those insects which feed on
+one and the same flower, or on one and the same part of a plant.
+
+The navigation of the river, whether vessels arrive by the Boca de
+Navios, or risk entering the labyrinth of the bocas chicas, requires
+various precautions, according as the waters are high or low. The
+regularity of these periodical risings of the Orinoco has been long an
+object of admiration to travellers, as the overflowings of the Nile
+furnished the philosophers of antiquity with a problem difficult to
+solve. The Orinoco and the Nile, contrary to the direction of the
+Ganges, the Indus, the Rio de la Plata, and the Euphrates, flow alike
+from the south toward the north; but the sources of the Orinoco are
+five or six degrees nearer to the equator than those of the Nile.
+Observing every day the accidental variations of the atmosphere, we
+find it difficult to persuade ourselves that in a great space of time
+the effects of these variations mutually compensate each other: that
+in a long succession of years the averages of the temperature of the
+humidity, and of the barometric pressure, differ so little from month
+to month; and that nature, notwithstanding the multitude of partial
+perturbations, follows a constant type in the series of meteorological
+phenomena. Great rivers unite in one receptacle the waters which a
+surface of several thousand square leagues receives. However unequal
+may be the quantity of rain that falls during several successive
+years, in such or such a valley, the swellings of rivers that have a
+very long course are little affected by these local variations. The
+swellings represent the average of the humidity that reigns in the
+whole basin; they follow annually the same progression because their
+commencement and their duration depend also on the mean of the
+periods, apparently extremely variable, of the beginning and end of
+the rains in the different latitudes through which the principal trunk
+and its various tributary streams flow. Hence it follows that the
+periodical oscillations of rivers are, like the equality of
+temperature of caverns and springs, a sensible indication of the
+regular distribution of humidity and heat, which takes place from year
+to year on a considerable extent of land. They strike the imagination
+of the vulgar; as order everywhere astonishes, when we cannot easily
+ascend to first causes. Rivers that belong entirely to the torrid zone
+display in their periodical movements that wonderful regularity which
+is peculiar to a region where the same wind brings almost always
+strata of air of the same temperature; and where the change of the sun
+in its declination causes every year at the same period a rupture of
+equilibrium in the electric intensity, in the cessation of the
+breezes, and the commencement of the season of rains. The Orinoco, the
+Rio Magdalena, and the Congo or Zaire are the only great rivers of the
+equinoctial region of the globe, which, rising near the equator, have
+their mouths in a much higher latitude, though still within the
+tropics. The Nile and the Rio de la Plata direct their course, in the
+two opposite hemispheres, from the torrid zone towards the temperate.*
+(* In Asia, the Ganges, the Burrampooter, and the majestic rivers of
+Indo-China direct their course towards the equator. The former flow
+from the temperate to the torrid zone. This circumstance of courses
+pursuing opposite directions (towards the equator, and towards the
+temperate climates) has an influence on the period and the height of
+the risings, on the nature and variety of the productions on the banks
+of the rivers, on the less or greater activity of trade; and, I may
+add, from what we know of the nations of Egypt, Merce, and India, on
+the progress of civilization along the valleys of the rivers.)
+
+As long as, confounding the Rio Paragua of Esmeralda with the Rio
+Guaviare, the sources of the Orinoco were sought towards the
+south-west, on the eastern back of the Andes, the risings of this
+river were attributed to a periodical melting of the snows. This
+reasoning was as far from the truth as that in which the Nile was
+formerly supposed to be swelled by the waters of the snows of
+Abyssinia. The Cordilleras of New Grenada, near which the western
+tributary streams of the Orinoco, the Guaviare, the Meta, and the
+Apure take their rise, enter no more into the limit of perpetual
+snows, with the sole exception of the Paramos of Chita and Mucuchies,
+than the Alps of Abyssinia. Snowy mountains are much more rare in the
+torrid zone than is generally admitted; and the melting of the snows,
+which is not copious there at any season, does not at all increase at
+the time of the inundations of the Orinoco.
+
+The cause of the periodical swellings of the Orinoco acts equally on
+all the rivers that take rise in the torrid zone. After the vernal
+equinox, the cessation of the breezes announces the season of rains.
+The increase of the rivers (which may be considered as natural
+pluviometers) is in proportion to the quantity of water that falls in
+the different regions. This quantity, in the centre of the forests of
+the Upper Orinoco and the Rio Negro, appeared to me to exceed 90 or
+100 inches annually. Such of the natives, therefore, as have lived
+beneath the misty sky of the Esmeralda and the Atabapo, know, without
+the smallest notion of natural philosophy, what Eudoxus and
+Eratosthenes knew heretofore,* that the inundations of the great
+rivers are owing solely to the equatorial rains. (* Strabo lib. 17
+page 789. Diod. Sic. lib. l c. 5.) The following is the usual progress
+of the oscillations of the Orinoco. Immediately after the vernal
+equinox (the people say on the 25th of March) the commencement of the
+rising is perceived. It is at first only an inch in twenty-four hours;
+sometimes the river again sinks in April; it attains its maximum in
+July; remains at the same level from the end of July till the 25th of
+August; and then decreases progressively, but more slowly than it
+increased. It is at its minimum in January and February. In both
+worlds the rivers of the northern torrid zone attain the greatest
+height nearly at the same period. The Ganges, the Niger, and the
+Gambia reach the maximum, like the Orinoco, in the month of August.*
+(* Nearly forty or fifty days after the summer solstice.) The Nile is
+two months later, either on account of some local circumstances in the
+climate of Abyssinia, or of the length of its course, from the country
+of Berber, or 17.5 degrees of latitude, to the bifurcation of the
+delta. The Arabian geographers assert that in Sennaar and in Abyssinia
+the Nile begins to swell in the month of April (nearly as the
+Orinoco); the rise, however, does not become sensible at Cairo till
+toward the summer solstice; and the water attains its greatest height
+at the end of the month of September.* (* Nearly eighty or ninety days
+after the summer solstice.) The river keeps at the same level till the
+middle of October; and is at its minimum in April and May, a period
+when the rivers of Guiana begin to swell anew. It may be seen from
+this rapid statement, that, notwithstanding the retardation caused by
+the form of the natural channels, and by local climatic circumstances,
+the great phenomenon of the oscillations of the rivers of the torrid
+zone is everywhere the same. In the two zodiacs vulgarly called the
+Tartar and Chaldean, or Egyptian (in the zodiac which contains the
+sign of the Rat, an in that which contains those of the Fishes and
+Aquarius), particular constellations are consecrated to the periodical
+overflowings of the rivers. Real cycles, divisions of time, have been
+gradually transformed into divisions of space; but the generality of
+the physical phenomena of the risings seems to prove that the zodiac
+which has been transmitted to us by the Greeks, and which, by the
+precession of the equinoxes, becomes an historical monument of high
+antiquity, may have taken birth far from Thebes, and from the sacred
+valley of the Nile. In the zodiacs of the New World--in the Mexican,
+for instance, of which we discover the vestiges in the signs of the
+days, and the periodical series which they compose--there are also
+signs of rain and of inundation corresponding to the Chou (Rat) of the
+Chinese* and Thibetan cycle of Tse, and to the Fishes and Aquarius of
+the dodecatemorion. (* The figure of water itself is often substituted
+for that of the Rat (Arvicola) in the Tartar zodiac. The Rat takes the
+place of Aquarius. Gaubil, Obs. Mathem. volume 3 page 33.) These two
+Mexican signs are Water (Atl) and Cipactli, the sea-monster furnished
+with a horn. This animal is at once the Antelope-fish of the Hindoos,
+the Capricorn of our zodiac, the Deucalion of the Greeks, and the Noah
+(Coxcox) of the Azteks.* (* Coxcox bears also the denomination of
+Teo-Cipactli, in which the root god or divine is added to the name of
+the sign Cipactli. It is the man of the Fourth Age; who, at the fourth
+destruction of the world (the last renovation of nature), saved
+himself with his wife, and reached the mountain of Colhuacan.
+According to the commentator Germanicus, Deucalion was placed in
+Aquarius; but the three signs of the Fishes, Aquarius and Capricorn
+(the Antelope-fish) were heretofore intimately linked together. The
+animal, which, after having long inhabited the waters, takes the form
+of an antelope, and climbs the mountains, reminds people, whose
+restless imagination seizes the most remote similitudes, of the
+ancient traditions of Menou, of Noah, and of those Deucalions
+celebrated among the Scythians and the Thessalians. As the Tartarian
+and Mexican zodiacs contain the signs of the Monkey and the Tiger,
+they, no doubt, originated in the torrid zone. With the Muyscas,
+inhabitants of New Grenada, the first sign, as in eastern Asia, was
+that of water, figured by a Frog. It is also remarkable that the
+astrological worship of the Muyscas came to the table-land of Bogota
+from the eastern side, from the plains of San Juan, which extend
+toward the Guaviare and the Orinoco.) Thus we find the general results
+of comparative hydrography in the astrological monuments, the
+divisions of time and the religious traditions of nations the most
+remote from each other in their situation and in their degree of
+intellectual advancement.
+
+As the equatorial rains take place in the flat country when the sun
+passes through the zenith of the place, that is, when its declination
+becomes homonymous with the zone comprised between the equator and one
+of the tropics, the waters of the Amazon sink, while those of the
+Orinoco rise perceptibly. In a very judicious discussion on the origin
+of the Rio Congo,* (* Voyage to the Zaire page 17.) the attention of
+philosophers has been already called to the modifications which the
+periods of the risings must undergo in the course of a river, the
+sources and the mouth of which are not on the same side of the
+equinoctial line.* (* Among the rivers of America this is the case
+with the Rio Negro, the Rio Branco, and the Jupura.) The hydraulic
+systems of the Orinoco and the Amazon furnish a combination of
+circumstances still more extraordinary. They are united by the Rio
+Negro and the Cassiquiare, a branch of the Orinoco; it is a navigable
+line, between two great basins of rivers, that is crossed by the
+equator. The river Amazon, according to the information which I
+obtained on its banks, is much less regular in the periods of its
+oscillations than the Orinoco; it generally begins, however, to
+increase in December, and attains its maximum of height in March.* (*
+Nearly seventy or eighty days after our winter solstice, which is the
+summer solstice of the southern hemisphere.) It sinks from the month
+of May, and is at its minimum of height in the months of July and
+August, at the time when the Lower Orinoco inundates all the
+surrounding land. As no river of America can cross the equator from
+south to north, on account of the general configuration of the ground,
+the risings of the Orinoco have an influence on the Amazon; but those
+of the Amazon do not alter the progress of the oscillations of the
+Orinoco. It results from these data, that in the two basins of the
+Amazon and the Orinoco, the concave and convex summits of the curve of
+progressive increase and decrease correspond very regularly with each
+other, since they exhibit the difference of six months, which results
+from the situation of the rivers in opposite hemispheres. The
+commencement of the risings only is less tardy in the Orinoco. This
+river increases sensibly as soon as the sun has crossed the equator;
+in the Amazon, on the contrary, the risings do not commence till two
+months after the equinox. It is known that in the forests north of the
+line the rains are earlier than in the less woody plains of the
+southern torrid zone. To this local cause is joined another, which
+acts perhaps equally on the tardy swellings of the Nile. The Amazon
+receives a great part of its waters from the Cordillera of the Andes,
+where the seasons, as everywhere among mountains, follow a peculiar
+type, most frequently opposite to that of the low regions.
+
+The law of the increase and decrease of the Orinoco is more difficult
+to determine with respect to space, or to the magnitude of the
+oscillations, than with regard to time, or the period of the maxima
+and minima. Having been able to measure but imperfectly the risings of
+the river, I report, not without hesitation, estimates that differ
+much from each other.* (* Tuckey, Maritime Geogr. volume 4 page 309.
+Hippisley, Expedition to the Orinoco page 38. Gumilla volume 1 pages
+56 to 59. Depons volume 3 page 301. The greatest height of the rise of
+the Mississippi is, at Natchez, fifty-five English feet. This river
+(the largest perhaps of the whole temperate zone) is at its maximum
+from February to May; at its minimum in August and September.
+Ellicott, Journal of an Expedition to the Ohio.) Foreign pilots admit
+ninety feet for the ordinary rise in the Lower Orinoco. M. Depons, who
+has in general collected very accurate notions during his stay at
+Caracas, fixes it at thirteen fathoms. The heights naturally vary
+according to the breadth of the bed and the number of tributary
+streams which the principal trunk receives.
+
+The people believe that every five years the Orinoco rises three feet
+higher than common; but the idea of this cycle does not rest on any
+precise measures. We know by the testimony of antiquity, that the
+oscillations of the Nile have been sensibly the same with respect to
+their height and duration for thousands of years; which is a proof,
+well worthy of attention, that the mean state of the humidity and the
+temperature does not vary in that vast basin. Will this constancy in
+physical phenomena, this equilibrium of the elements, be preserved in
+the New World also after some ages of cultivation? I think we may
+reply in the affirmative; for the united efforts of man cannot fail to
+have an influence on the general causes on which the climate of Guiana
+depends.
+
+According to the barometric height of San Fernando de Apure, I find
+from that town to the Boca de Navios the slope of the Apure and the
+Lower Orinoco to be three inches and a quarter to a nautical mile of
+nine hundred and fifty toises.* (* The Apure itself has a slope of
+thirteen inches to the mile.) We may be surprised at the strength of
+the current in a slope so little perceptible; but I shall remind the
+reader on this occasion, that, according to measurements made by order
+of Mr. Hastings, the Ganges was found, in a course of sixty miles
+(comprising the windings,) to have also only four inches fall to a
+mile; that the mean swiftness of this river is, in the seasons of
+drought, three miles an hour, and in those of rains six or eight
+miles. The strength of the current, therefore, in the Ganges as in the
+Orinoco, depends less on the slope of the bed, than on the
+accumulation of the higher waters, caused by the abundance of the
+rains, and the number of tributary streams. European colonists have
+already been settled for two hundred and fifty years on the banks of
+the Orinoco; and during this long period of time, according to a
+tradition which has been propagated from generation to generation, the
+periodical oscillations of the river (the time of the beginning of the
+rising, and that when it attains its maximum) have never been retarded
+more than twelve or fifteen days.
+
+When vessels that draw a good deal of water sail up toward Angostura
+in the months of January and February, by favour of the sea-breeze and
+the tide, they run the risk of taking the ground. The navigable
+channel often changes its breadth and direction; no buoy, however, has
+yet been laid down, to indicate any deposit of earth formed in the bed
+of the river, where the waters have lost their original velocity.
+There exists on the south of Cape Barima, as well by the river of this
+name as by the Rio Moroca and several estuaries (esteres) a
+communication with the English colony of Essequibo. Small vessels can
+penetrate into the interior as far as the Rio Poumaron, on which are
+the ancient settlements of Zealand and Middleburg. Heretofore this
+communication interested the government of Caracas only on account of
+the facility it furnished to an illicit trade; but since Berbice,
+Demerara, and Essequibo have fallen into the hands of a more powerful
+neighbour, it fixes the attention of the Spanish Americans as being
+connected with the security of their frontiers. Rivers which have a
+course parallel to the coast, and are nowhere farther distant from it
+than five or six nautical miles, characterize the whole of the shore
+between the Orinoco and the Amazon.
+
+Ten leagues distant from Cape Barima, the great bed of the Orinoco is
+divided for the first time into two branches of two thousand toises in
+breadth. They are known by the Indian names of Zacupana and Imataca.
+The first, which is the northernmost, communicates on the west of the
+islands Congrejos and del Burro with the bocas chicas of Lauran,
+Nuina, and Mariusas. As the Isla del Burro disappears in the time of
+great inundations, it is unhappily not suited to fortifications. The
+southern bank of the brazo Imataca is cut by a labyrinth of little
+channels, into which the Rio Imataca and the Rio Aquire flow. A long
+series of little granitic hills rises in the fertile savannahs between
+the Imataca and the Cuyuni; it is a prolongation of the Cordilleras of
+Parima, which, bounding the horizon south of Angostura, forms the
+celebrated cataracts of the Rio Caroni, and approaches the Orinoco
+like a projecting cape near the little fort of Vieja Guyana. The
+populous missions of the Caribbee and Guiana Indians, governed by the
+Catalonian Capuchins, lie near the sources of the Imataca and the
+Aquire. The easternmost of these missions are those of Miamu, Camamu,
+and Palmar, situate in a hilly country, which extends towards
+Tupuquen, Santa Maria, and the Villa de Upata. Going up the Rio
+Aquire, and directing your course across the pastures towards the
+south, you reach the mission of Belem de Tumeremo, and thence the
+confluence of the Curumu with the Rio Cuyuni, where the Spanish post
+or destacamento de Cuyuni was formerly established. I enter into this
+topographical detail because the Rio Cuyuni, or Cuduvini, runs
+parallel to the Orinoco from west to east, through an extent of 2.5 or
+3 degrees of longitude,* and furnishes an excellent natural boundary
+between the territory of Caracas and that of English Guiana. (*
+Including the Rio Juruam, one of the principal branches of the Cuyuni.
+The Dutch military post is five leagues west of the union of Cuyuni
+with the Essequibo, where the former river receives the Mazuruni.)
+
+The two great branches of the Orinoco, the Zacupana and the Imataca,
+remain separate for fourteen leagues: on going up farther, the waters
+of the river are found united* in a single channel extremely broad. (*
+At this point of union are found two villages of Guaraons. They also
+bear the names of Imataca and Zacupana.) This channel is near eight
+leagues long; at its western extremity a second bifurcation appears;
+and as the summit of the delta is in the northern branch of the
+bifurcated river, this part of the Orinoco is highly important for the
+military defence of the country. All the channels* that terminate in
+the bocas chicas, rise from the same point of the trunk of the
+Orinoco. (* Cano de Manamo grande, Cano de Manamo chico, Cano
+Pedernales, Cano Macareo, Cano Cutupiti, Cano Macuona, Cano grande de
+Mariusas, etc. The last three branches form by their union the sinuous
+channel called the Vuelta del Torno.) The branch (Cano Manamo) that
+separates from it near the village of San Rafael has no ramification
+till after a course of three or four leagues; and by placing a small
+fort above the island of Chaguanes, Angostura might be defended
+against an enemy that should attempt to penetrate by one of the bocas
+chicas. In my time the station of the gun-boats was east of San
+Rafael, near the northern bank of the Orinoco. This is the point which
+vessels must pass in sailing up toward Angostura by the northern
+channel, that of San Rafael, which is the broadest but the most
+shallow.
+
+Six leagues above the point where the Orinoco sends off a branch to
+the bocas chicas is placed an ancient fort (los Castillos de la Vieja
+or Antigua Guayana,) the first construction of which goes back to the
+sixteenth century. In this spot the bed of the river is studded with
+rocky islands; and it is asserted that its breadth is nearly six
+hundred and fifty toises. The town is almost destroyed, but the
+fortifications subsist, and are well worthy the attention of the
+government of Terra Firma. There is a magnificent view from the
+battery established on a bluff north-west of the ancient town, which,
+at the period of great inundations, is entirely surrounded with water.
+Pools that communicate with the Orinoco form natural basins, adapted
+for the reception of vessels that want repairs.
+
+After having passed the little forts of Vieja Guayana, the bed of the
+Orinoco again widens. The state of cultivation of the country on the
+two banks affords a striking contrast. On the north is seen the desert
+part of the province of Cumana, steppes (Llanos) destitute of
+habitations, and extending beyond the sources of the Rio Mamo, toward
+the tableland or mesa of Guanipa. On the south we find three populous
+villages belonging to the missions of Carony, namely, San Miguel de
+Uriala, San Felix and San Joaquin. The last of these villages, situate
+on the banks of the Carony, immediately below the great cataract, is
+considered as the embarcadero of the Catalonian missions. On
+navigating more to the east, between the mouth of the Carony and
+Angostura, the pilot should avoid the rocks of Guarampo, the sandbank
+of Mamo, and the Piedra del Rosario. From the numerous materials which
+I brought home, and from astronomical discussions, the principal
+results of which I have indicated above, I have constructed a map of
+the country bounded by the delta of the Orinoco, the Carony, and the
+Cuyuni. This part of Guiana, from its proximity to the coast, will
+some day offer the greatest attraction to European settlers.
+
+The whole population of this vast province in its present state is,
+with the exception of a few Spanish parishes, scattered on the banks
+of the Lower Orinoco, and subject to two monastic governments.
+Estimating the number of the inhabitants of Guiana, who do not live in
+savage independence, at thirty-five thousand, we find nearly
+twenty-four thousand settled in the missions, and thus withdrawn as it
+were from the direct influence of the secular arm. At the period of my
+voyage, the territory of the Observantin monks of St. Francis
+contained seven thousand three hundred inhabitants, and that of the
+Capuchinos Catalanes seventeen thousand; an astonishing disproportion,
+when we reflect on the smallness of the latter territory compared to
+the vast banks of the Upper Orinoco, the Atabapo, the Cassiquiare and
+the Rio Negro. It results from these statements that nearly two-thirds
+of the population of a province of sixteen thousand eight hundred
+square leagues are found concentrated between the Rio Imataca and the
+town of Santo Thome del Angostura, on a space of ground only
+fifty-five leagues in length, and thirty in breadth. Both of these
+monastic governments are equally inaccessible to Whites, and form
+status in statu. The first, that of the Observantins, I have described
+from my own observations; it remains for me to record here the notions
+I could procure respecting the second of these governments, that of
+the Catalonian Capuchins. Fatal civil dissensions and epidemic fevers
+have of late years diminished the long-increasing prosperity of the
+missions of the Carony; but, notwithstanding these losses, the region
+which we are going to examine is still highly interesting with respect
+to political economy.
+
+The missions of the Catalonian Capuchins, which in 1804 contained at
+least sixty thousand head of cattle grazing in the savannahs, extend
+from the eastern banks of the Carony and the Paragua as far as the
+banks of the Imataca, the Curumu, and the Cuyuni; at the south-east
+they border on English Guiana, or the colony of Essequibo; and toward
+the south, in going up the desert banks of the Paragua and the
+Paraguamasi, and crossing the Cordillera of Pacaraimo, they touch the
+Portuguese settlements on the Rio Branco. The whole of this country is
+open, full of fine savannahs, and no way resembling that through which
+we passed on the Upper Orinoco. The forests become impenetrable only
+on advancing toward the south; on the north are meadows intersected
+with woody hills. The most picturesque scenes lie near the falls of
+the Carony, and in that chain of mountains, two hundred and fifty
+toises high, which separates the tributary streams of the Orinoco from
+those of the Cuyuni. There are situate the Villa de Upata,* the
+capital of the missions, Santa Maria, and Cupapui. (* Founded in 1762.
+Population in 1797, 657 souls; in 1803, 769 souls. The most populous
+villages of these missions, Alta Gracia, Cupapui, Santa Rosa de Cura,
+and Guri, had between 600 and 900 inhabitants in 1797; but in 1818
+epidemic fevers diminished the population more than a third. In some
+missions these diseases have swept away nearly half of the
+inhabitants.) Small table-lands afford a healthy and temperate
+climate. Cacao, rice, cotton, indigo, and sugar grow in abundance
+wherever a virgin soil, covered with a thick coat of grasses, is
+subjected to cultivation. The first Christian settlements in those
+countries are not, I believe, of an earlier date than 1721. The
+elements of which the present population is composed are the three
+Indian races of the Guayanos, the Caribs and the Guaycas. The last are
+a people of mountaineers and are far from being so diminutive in size
+as the Guaycas whom we found at Esmeralda. It is difficult to fix them
+to the soil; and the three most modern missions in which they have
+been collected, those of Cura, Curucuy, and Arechica, are already
+destroyed. The Guayanos, who early in the sixteenth century gave their
+name to the whole of that vast province, are less intelligent but
+milder; and more easy, if not to civilize, at least to subjugate, than
+the Caribs. Their language appears to belong to the great branch of
+the Caribbee and Tamanac tongues. It displays the same analogies of
+roots and grammatical forms, which are observed between the Sanscrit,
+the Persian, the Greek, and the German. It is not easy to fix the
+forms of what is indefinite by its nature; and to agree on the
+differences which should be admitted between dialects, derivative
+languages and mother-tongues. The Jesuits of Paraguay have made known
+to us another tribe of Guayanos* in the southern hemisphere, living in
+the thick forests of Parana. (* They are also called Guananas, or
+Gualachas.) Though it cannot be denied in general that in consequence
+of distant migrations,* (* Like the celebrated migrations of the
+Omaguas, or Omeguas.) the nations that are settled north and south of
+the Amazon have had communications with each other, I will not decide
+whether the Guayanos of Parana and of Uruguay exhibit any other
+relation to those of Carony, than that of an homonomy, which is
+perhaps only accidental.
+
+The most considerable Christian settlements are now concentrated
+between the mountains of Santa Maria, the mission of San Miguel and
+the eastern bank of the Carony, from San Buenaventura as far as Guri
+and the embarcadero of San Joaquin; a space of ground which has not
+more than four hundred and sixty square leagues of surface. The
+savannahs to the east and south are almost uninhabited; we find there
+only the solitary missions of Belem, Tumuremo, Tupuquen, Puedpa, and
+Santa Clara. It were to be wished that the spots preferred for
+cultivation were distant from the rivers where the land is higher and
+the air more favourable to health. The Rio Carony, the waters of
+which, of an admirable clearness, are not well stocked with fish, is
+free from shoals from the Villa de Barceloneta, a little above the
+confluence of the Paragua, as far as the village of Guri. Farther
+north it winds between innumerable islands and rocks; and only the
+small boats of the Caribs venture to navigate amid these raudales, or
+rapids of the Carony. Happily the river is often divided into several
+branches; and consequently that can be chosen which, according to the
+height of the waters, presents the fewest whirlpools and shoals. The
+great fall, celebrated for the picturesque beauty of its situation, is
+a little above the village of Aguacaqua, or Carony, which in my time
+had a population of seven hundred Indians. This cascade is said to be
+from fifteen to twenty feet high; but the bar does not cross the whole
+bed of the river, which is more than three hundred feet broad. When
+the population is more extended toward the east, it will avail itself
+of the course of the small rivers Imataca and Aquire, the navigation
+of which is pretty free from danger. The monks, who like to keep
+themselves isolated, in order to withdraw from the eye of the secular
+power, have been hitherto unwilling to settle on the banks of the
+Orinoco. It is, however, by this river only, or by the Cuyuni and the
+Essequibo, that the missions of Carony can export their productions.
+The latter way has not yet been tried, though several Christian
+settlements* are formed on one of the principal tributary streams of
+the Cuyuni, the Rio Juruario. (* Guacipati, Tupuquen, Angel de la
+Custodia, and Cura, where the military post of the frontiers was
+stationed in 1800, which had been anciently placed at the confluence
+of the Cuyuni and the Curumu.) This stream furnishes, at the period of
+the great swellings, the remarkable phenomenon of a bifurcation. It
+communicates by the Juraricuima and the Aurapa with the Rio Carony; so
+that the land comprised between the Orinoco, the sea, the Cuyuni, and
+the Carony, becomes a real island. Formidable rapids impede the
+navigation of the Upper Cuyuni; and hence of late an attempt has been
+made to open a road to the colony of Essequibo much more to the
+south-east, in order to fall in with the Cuyuni much below the mouth
+of the Curumu.
+
+The whole of this southern territory is traversed by hordes of
+independent Caribs; the feeble remains of that warlike people who were
+so formidable to the missionaries till 1733 and 1735, at which period
+the respectable bishop Gervais de Labrid,* (* Consecrated a bishop for
+the four parts of the world (obispo para las quatro partes del mundo)
+by pope Benedict XIII.) canon of the metropolitan chapter of Lyon,
+Father Lopez, and several other ecclesiastics, perished by the hands
+of the Caribs. These dangers, too frequent formerly, exist no longer,
+either in the missions of Carony, or in those of the Orinoco; but the
+independent Caribs continue, on account of their connection with the
+Dutch colonists of Essequibo, an object of mistrust and hatred to the
+government of Guiana. These tribes favour the contraband trade along
+the coast, and by the channels or estuaries that join the Rio Barima
+to the Rio Moroca; they carry off the cattle belonging to the
+missionaries, and excite the Indians recently converted, and living
+within the sound of the bell, to return to the forests. The free
+hordes have everywhere a powerful interest in opposing the progress of
+cultivation and the encroachments of the Whites. The Caribs and the
+Aruacas procure fire-arms at Essequibo and Demerara; and when the
+traffic of American slaves (poitos) was most active, adventurers of
+Dutch origin took part in these incursions on the Paragua, the
+Erevato, and the Ventuario. Man-hunting took place on these banks, as
+heretofore (and probably still) on those of the Senegal and the
+Gambia. In both worlds Europeans have employed the same artifices, and
+committed the same atrocities, to maintain a trade that dishonours
+humanity. The missionaries of the Carony and the Orinoco attribute all
+the evils they suffer from the independent Caribs to the hatred of
+their neighbours, the Calvinist preachers of Essequibo. Their works
+are therefore filled with complaints of the secta diabolica de Calvino
+y de Lutero, and against the heretics of Dutch Guiana, who also think
+fit sometimes to go on missions, and spread the germs of social life
+among the savages.
+
+Of all the vegetable productions of those countries, that which the
+industry of the Catalonian Capuchins has rendered the most celebrated
+is the tree that furnishes the Cortex angosturae, which is erroneously
+designated by the name of cinchona of Carony. We were fortunate enough
+to make it first known as a new genus distinct from the cinchona, and
+belonging to the family of meliaceae, or of zanthoxylus. This salutary
+drug of South America was formerly attributed to the Brucea ferruginea
+which grows in Abyssinia, to the Magnolia glauca, and to the Magnolia
+plumieri. During the dangerous disease of M. Bonpland, M. Ravago sent
+a confidential person to the missions of Carony, to procure for us, by
+favour of the Capuchins of Upata, branches of the tree in flower which
+we wished to be able to describe. We obtained very fine specimens, the
+leaves of which, eighteen inches long, diffused an agreeable aromatic
+smell. We soon perceived that the cuspare (the indigenous name of the
+cascarilla or corteza del Angostura) forms a new genus; and on sending
+the plants of the Orinoco to M. Willdenouw, I begged he would dedicate
+this plant to M. Bonpland. The tree, known at present by the name of
+Bonplandia trifoliata, grows at the distance of five or six leagues
+from the eastern bank of the Carony, at the foot of the hills that
+surround the missions Capapui, Upata and Alta Gracia. The Caribbee
+Indians make use of an infusion of the bark of the cuspare, which they
+consider as a strengthening remedy. M. Bonpland discovered the same
+tree west of Cumana, in the gulf of Santa Fe, where it may become one
+of the articles of exportation from New Andalusia.
+
+The Catalonian monks prepare an extract of the Cortex angosturae which
+they send to the convents of their province, and which deserves to be
+better known in the north of Europe. It is to be hoped that the
+febrifuge and anti-dysenteric bark of the bonplandia will continue to
+be employed, notwithstanding the introduction of another, described by
+the name of False Angostura bark, and often confounded with the
+former. This false Angostura, or Angostura pseudo-ferruginea, comes,
+it is said, from the Brucea antidysenterica; it acts powerfully on the
+nerves, produces violent attacks of tetanus, and contains, according
+to the experiments of Pelletier and Caventon, a peculiar alkaline
+substance* analogous to morphine and strychnine. (* Brucine. M.
+Pelletier has wisely avoided using the word angosturine, because it
+might indicate a substance taken from the real Cortex angosturae, or
+Bonplandia trifoliata. (Annales de Chimie volume 12 page 117.) We saw
+at Peru the barks of two new species of weinmannia and wintera mixed
+with those of cinchona; a mixture less dangerous, but still injurious,
+on account of the superabundance of tannin and acrid matter contained
+in the false cascarilla.) As the tree which yields the real Cortex
+angosturae does not grow in great abundance, it is to be wished that
+plantations of it were formed. The Catalonian monks are well fitted to
+spread this kind of cultivation; they are more economical,
+industrious, and active than the other missionaries. They have already
+established tan-yards and cotton-spinning in a few villages; and if
+they suffer the Indians henceforth to enjoy the fruit of their
+labours, they will find great resources in the native population.
+Concentered on a small space of land, these monks have the
+consciousness of their political importance, and have from time to
+time resisted the civil authority, and that of their bishop. The
+governors who reside at Angostura have struggled against them with
+very unequal success, according as the ministry of Madrid showed a
+complaisant deference for the ecclesiastical hierarchy, or sought to
+limit its power. In 1768 Don Manuel Centurion carried off twenty
+thousand head of cattle from the missionaries, in order to distribute
+them among the indigent inhabitants. This liberality, exerted in a
+manner not very legal, produced very serious consequences. The
+governor was disgraced on the complaint of the Catalonian monks though
+he had considerably extended the territory of the missions toward the
+south, and founded the Villa de Barceloneta, above the confluence of
+the Carony with the Rio Paragua, and the Ciudad de Guirior, near the
+union of the Rio Paragua and the Paraguamusi. From that period the
+civil administration has carefully avoided all intervention in the
+affairs of the Capuchins, whose opulence has been exaggerated like
+that of the Jesuits of Paraguay.
+
+The missions of the Carony, by the configuration of their soil* and
+the mixture of savannahs and arable lands, unite the advantages of the
+Llanos of Calabozo and the valleys of Aragua. (* It appears that the
+little table-lands between the mountains of Upata, Cumanu, and
+Tupuquen, are more than one hundred and fifty toises above the level
+of the sea.) The real wealth of this country is founded on the care of
+the herds and the cultivation of colonial produce. It were to be
+wished that here, as in the fine and fertile province of Venezuela,
+the inhabitants, faithful to the labours of the fields, would not
+addict themselves too hastily to the research of mines. The example of
+Germany and Mexico proves, no doubt, that the working of metals is not
+at all incompatible with a flourishing state of agriculture; but,
+according to popular traditions, the banks of the Carony lead to the
+lake Dorado and the palace of the gilded man* (* El Dorado, that is,
+el rey o hombre dorado. See volume 2.23.): and this lake, and this
+palace, being a local fable, it might be dangerous to awaken
+remembrances which begin gradually to be effaced. I was assured that
+in 1760, the independent Caribs went to Cerro de Pajarcima, a mountain
+to the south of Vieja Guayana, to submit the decomposed rock to the
+action of washing. The gold-dust collected by this labour was put into
+calabashes of the Crescentia cujete and sold to the Dutch at
+Essequibo. Still more recently, some Mexican miners, who abused the
+credulity of Don Jose Avalo, the intendant of Caracas, undertook a
+very considerable work in the centre of the missions of the Rio
+Carony, near the town of Upata, in the Cerros del Potrero and de
+Chirica. They declared that the whole rock was auriferous;
+stamping-mills, brocards, and smelting-furnaces were constructed.
+After having expended very large sums, it was discovered that the
+pyrites contained no trace whatever of gold. These essays, though
+fruitless, served to renew the ancient idea that every shining rock in
+Guiana is teeming with gold (una madre del oro). Not contented with
+taking the mica-slate to the furnace, strata of amphibolic slates were
+shown to me near Angostura, without any mixture of heterogeneous
+substances, which had been worked under the whimsical name of black
+ore of gold (oro negro).
+
+This is the place to make known, in order to complete the description
+of the Orinoco, the principal results of my researches on El Dorado,
+the White Sea, or Laguna Parime, and the sources of the Orinoco, as
+they are marked in the most recent maps. The idea of an auriferous
+earth, eminently rich, has been connected, ever since the end of the
+sixteenth century, with that of a great inland lake, which furnishes
+at the same time waters to the Orinoco, the Rio Branco and the Rio
+Essequibo. I believe, from a more accurate knowledge of the country, a
+long and laborious study of the Spanish authors who treat of El
+Dorado, and, above all, from comparing a great number of ancient maps,
+arranged in chronological order, I have succeeded in discovering the
+source of these errors. All fables have some real foundation; that of
+El Dorado resembles those myths of antiquity, which, travelling from
+country to country, have been successively adapted to different
+localities. In the sciences, in order to distinguish truth from error,
+it often suffices to retrace the history of opinions, and to follow
+their successive developments. The discussion to which I shall devote
+the end of this chapter is important, not only because it throws light
+on the events of the Conquest, and that long series of disastrous
+expeditions made in search of El Dorado, the last of which was in the
+year 1775; it also furnishes, in addition to this simply historical
+interest, another, more substantial and more generally felt, that of
+rectifying the geography of South America, and of disembarrassing the
+maps published in our days of those great lakes, and that strange
+labyrinth of rivers, placed as if by chance between sixty and
+sixty-six degrees of longitude. No man in Europe believes any longer
+in the wealth of Guiana and the empire of the Grand Patiti. The town
+of Manoa and its palaces covered with plates of massy gold have long
+since disappeared; but the geographical apparatus serving to adorn the
+fable of El Dorado, the lake Parima, which, similar to the lake of
+Mexico, reflected the image of so many sumptuous edifices, has been
+religiously preserved by geographers. In the space of three centuries,
+the same traditions have been differently modified; from ignorance of
+the American languages, rivers have been taken for lakes, and portages
+for branches of rivers; one lake, the Cassipa, has been made to
+advance five degrees of latitude toward the south, while another, the
+Parima or Dorado, has been transported the distance of a hundred
+leagues from the western to the eastern bank of the Rio Branco. From
+these various changes, the problem we are going to solve has become
+much more complicated than is generally supposed. The number of
+geographers who discuss the basis of a map, with regard to the three
+points of measures, of the comparison of descriptive works, and of the
+etymological study* of names, is extremely small. (* I use this
+expression, perhaps an improper one, to mark a species of philological
+examination, to which the names of rivers, lakes, mountains, and
+tribes, must be subjected, in order to discover their identity in a
+great number of maps. The apparent diversity of names arises partly
+from the difference of the dialects spoken by one and the same family
+of people, partly from the imperfection of our European orthography,
+and from the extreme negligence with which geographers copy one
+another. We recognize with difficulty the Rio Uaupe in the Guaupe or
+Guape; the Xie, in the Guaicia; the Raudal de Atures, in Athule; the
+Caribbees, in the Calinas and Galibis; the Guaraunos or Uarau, in the
+Oaraw-its; etc. It is, however, by similar mutations of letters, that
+the Spaniards have made hijo of filius; hambre, of fames; and Felipo
+de Urre, and even Utre, of the Conquistador Philip von Huten; that the
+Tamanacs in America have substituted choraro for soldado; and the Jews
+in China, Ialemeiohang for Jeremiah. Analogy and a certain
+etymological tact must guide geographers in researches of this kind,
+in which they would be exposed to serious errors, if they were not to
+study at the same time the respective situations of the upper and
+lower tributary streams of the same river. Our maps of America are
+overloaded with names, for which rivers have been created. This desire
+of compiling, of filling up vacancies, and of employing, without
+investigation, heterogeneous materials, has given our maps of
+countries the least visited an appearance of exactness, the falsity of
+which is discovered when we arrive on the spot.) Almost all the maps
+of South America which have appeared since the year 1775 are, in what
+regards the interior of the country, comprised between the steppes of
+Venezuela and the river of the Amazons, between the eastern back of
+the Andes and the coast of Cayenne, a simple copy of the great Spanish
+map of La Cruz Olmedilla. A line, indicating the extent of country
+which Don Jose Solano boasted of having discovered and pacified by his
+troops and emissaries, was taken for the road followed by that
+officer, who never went beyond San Fernando de Atabapo, a village one
+hundred and sixty leagues distant from the pretended lake Parima. The
+study of the work of Father Caulin, who was the historiographer of the
+expedition of Solano, and who states very clearly, from the testimony
+of the Indians, how the name of the river Parima gave rise to the
+fable of El Dorado, and of an inland sea, has been neglected. No use
+either has been made of a map of the Orinoco, three years posterior to
+that of La Cruz, and traced by Surville from the collection of true or
+hypothetical materials preserved in the archives of the Despacho
+universal de Indias. The progress of geography, as manifested on our
+maps, is much slower than might be supposed from the number of useful
+results which are found scattered in the works of different nations.
+Astronomical observations and topographic information accumulate
+during a long lapse of years, without being made use of; and from a
+principle of stability and preservation, in other respects
+praiseworthy, those who construct maps often choose rather to add
+nothing, than to sacrifice a lake, a chain of mountains, or an
+interbranching of rivers, which have figured there during ages.
+
+The fabulous traditions of El Dorado and the lake Parima having been
+diversely modified according to the aspect of the countries to which
+they were to be adapted, we must distinguish what they contain that is
+real from what is merely imaginary. To avoid entering here into minute
+particulars, I shall begin first to call the attention of the reader
+to those spots which have been, at various periods, the theatre of the
+expeditions undertaken for the discovery of El Dorado. When we have
+learnt to know the aspect of the country, and the local circumstances,
+such as they can now be described, it will be easy to conceive how the
+different hypotheses recorded on our maps have taken rise by degrees,
+and have modified each other. To oppose an error, it is sufficient to
+recall to mind the variable forms in which we have seen it appear at
+different periods.
+
+Till the middle of the eighteenth century, all that vast space of land
+comprised between the mountains of French Guiana and the forests of
+the Upper Orinoco, between the sources of the Carony and the River
+Amazon (from 0 to 4 degrees of north latitude, and from 57 to 68
+degrees of longitude), was so little known that geographers could
+place in it lakes where they pleased, create communications between
+rivers, and figure chains of mountains more or less lofty. They have
+made full use of this liberty; and the situation of lakes, as well as
+the course and branches of rivers, has been varied in so many ways
+that it would not be surprising if among the great number of maps some
+were found that trace the real state of things. The field of
+hypotheses is now singularly narrowed. I have determined the longitude
+of Esmeralda in the Upper Orinoco; more to the east amid the plains of
+Parima (a land as unknown as Wangara and Dar-Saley, in Africa), a band
+of twenty leagues broad has been travelled over from north to south
+along the banks of the Rio Carony and the Rio Branco in the longitude
+of sixty-three degrees. This is the perilous road which was taken by
+Don Antonio Santos in going from Santo Thome del Angostura to Rio
+Negro and the Amazon; by this road also the colonists of Surinam
+communicated very recently with the inhabitants of Grand Para. This
+road divides the terra incognita of Parima into two unequal portions;
+and fixes limits at the same time to the sources of the Orinoco, which
+it is no longer possible to carry back indefinitely toward the east,
+without supposing that the bed of the Rio Branco, which flows from
+north to south, is crossed by the bed of the Upper Orinoco, which
+flows from east to west. If we follow the course of the Rio Branco, or
+that strip of cultivated land which is dependent on the Capitania
+General of Grand Para, we see lakes, partly imaginary and partly
+enlarged by geographers, forming two distinct groups. The first of
+these groups includes the lakes which they place between the Esmeralda
+and the Rio Branco; and to the second belong those that are supposed
+to lie between the Rio Branco and the mountains of Dutch and French
+Guiana. It results from this sketch that the question whether there
+exists a lake Parima on the east of the Rio Branco is altogether
+foreign to the problem of the sources of the Orinoco.
+
+Beside the country which we have just noticed (the Dorado de la
+Parime, traversed by the Rio Branco), another part of America is
+found, two hundred and sixty leagues toward the west, near the eastern
+back of the Cordillera of the Andes, equally celebrated in the
+expeditions to El Dorado. This is the Mesopotamia between the Caqueta,
+the Rio Negro, the Uaupes, and the Yurubesh, of which I have already
+given a particular account; it is the Dorado of the Omaguas which
+contains Lake Manoa of Father Acunha, the Laguna de oro of the Guanes
+and the auriferous land whence Father Fritz received plates of beaten
+gold in his mission on the Amazon, toward the end of the seventeenth
+century.
+
+The first and above all the most celebrated enterprises attempted in
+search of El Dorado were directed toward the eastern back of the Andes
+of New Grenada. Fired with the ideas which an Indian of Tacunga had
+given of the wealth of the king or zaque of Cundirumarca, Sebastian de
+Belalcazar, in 1535, sent his captains Anasco and Ampudia, to discover
+the valley of El Dorado,* twelve days' journey from Guallabamba,
+consequently in the mountains between Pasto and Popayan. (* El valle
+del Dorado. Pineda relates: que mas adelante de la provincia de la
+Canela se hallan tierras muy ricas, adonde andaban los hombres armados
+de piecas y joyas de oro, y que no havia sierra, ni montana. [Beyond
+the province of Canela there are found very rich countries (though
+without mountains) in which the natives are adorned with trinkets and
+plates of gold.] Herrera dec. 5 lib. 10 cap. 14 and dec. 6 lib. 8 cap.
+6 Geogr. Blaviana volume 11 page 261. Southey tome 1 pages 78 and
+373.) The information which Pedro de Anasco had obtained from the
+natives, joined to that which was received subsequently (1536) by Diaz
+de Pineda, who had discovered the provinces of Quixos and Canela,
+between the Rio Napo and the Rio Pastaca, gave birth to the idea that
+on the east of the Nevados of Tunguragua, Cayambe, and Popayan, were
+vast plains, abounding in precious metals, and where the inhabitants
+were covered with armour of massy gold. Gonzales Pizarro, in searching
+for these treasures, discovered accidentally, in 1539, the
+cinnamon-trees of America (Laurus cinnamomoides, Mut.); and Francisco
+de Orellana went down the Napo, to reach the river Amazon. Since that
+period expeditions were undertaken at the same time from Venezuela,
+New Grenada, Quito, Peru, and even from Brazil and the Rio de la
+Plata,* for the conquest of El Dorado. (* Nuno de Chaves went from the
+Ciudad de la Asumpcion, situate on Rio Paraguay, to discover, in the
+latitude of 24 degrees south, the vast empire of El Dorado, which was
+everywhere supposed to lie on the eastern back of the Andes.) Those of
+which the remembrance have been best preserved, and which have most
+contributed to spread the fable of the riches of the Manaos, the
+Omaguas, and the Guaypes, as well as the existence of the lagunas de
+oro, and the town of the gilded king (Grand Patiti, Grand Moxo, Grand
+Paru, or Enim), are the incursions made to the south of the Guaviare,
+the Rio Fragua, and the Caqueta. Orellana, having found idols of massy
+gold, had fixed men's ideas on an auriferous land between the Papamene
+and the Guaviare. His narrative, and those of the voyages of Jorge de
+Espira (George von Speier), Hernan Perez de Quesada, and Felipe de
+Urre (Philip von Huten), undertaken in 1536, 1542, and 1545, furnish,
+amid much exaggeration, proofs of very exact local knowledge.* (* We
+may be surprised to see, that the expedition of Huten is passed over
+in absolute silence by Herrera (dec. 7 lib. 10 cap. 7 volume 4 238).
+Fray Pedro Simon gives the whole particulars of it, true or fabulous;
+but he composed his work from materials that were unknown to Herrera.)
+When these are examined merely in a geographical point of view, we
+perceive the constant desire of the first conquistadores to reach the
+land comprised between the sources of the Rio Negro, of the Uaupes
+(Guape), and of the Jupura or Caqueta. This is the land which, in
+order to distinguish it from El Dorado de la Parime, we have called El
+Dorado des Omaguas.* (* In 1560 Pedro de Ursua even took the title of
+Governador del Dorado y de Omagua. Fray Pedro Simon volume 6 chapter
+10 page 430.) No doubt the whole country between the Amazon and the
+Orinoco was vaguely known by the name of las Provincias del Dorado;
+but in this vast extent of forests, savannahs, and mountains, the
+progress of those who sought the great lake with auriferous banks, and
+the town of the gilded king, was directed towards two points only, on
+the north-east and south-west of the Rio Negro; that is, to Parima (or
+the isthmus between the Carony, the Essequibo, and the Rio Branco),
+and to the ancient abode of the Manaos, the inhabitants of the banks
+of the Yurubesh. I have just mentioned the situation of the latter
+spot, which is celebrated in the history of the conquest from 1535 to
+1560; and it remains for me to speak of the configuration of the
+country between the Spanish missions of the Rio Carony, and the
+Portuguese missions of the Rio Branco or Parima. This is the country
+lying near the Lower Orinoco, the Esmeralda, and French and Dutch
+Guiana, on which, since the end of the sixteenth century, the
+enterprises and exaggerated narratives of Raleigh have shed so bright
+a splendour.
+
+From the general disposition of the course of the Orinoco, directed
+successively towards the west, the north, and the east, its mouth lies
+almost in the same meridian as its sources: so that by proceeding from
+Vieja Guyana to the south the traveller passes through the whole of
+the country in which geographers have successively placed an inland
+sea (Mar Blanco), and the different lakes which are connected with the
+El Dorado de la Parime. We find first the Rio Carony, which is formed
+by the union of two branches of almost equal magnitude, the Carony
+properly so called, and the Rio Paragua. The missionaries of Piritu
+call the latter river a lake (laguna): it is full of shoals, and
+little cascades; but, passing through a country entirely flat, it is
+subject at the same time to great inundations, and its real bed (su
+verdadera caxa) can scarcely be discovered. The natives have given it
+the name of Paragua or Parava, which means in the Caribbee language
+sea, or great lake. These local circumstances and this denomination no
+doubt have given rise to the idea of transforming the Rio Paragua, a
+tributary stream of the Carony, into a lake called Cassipa, on account
+of the Cassipagotos,* who lived in those countries. (* Raleigh pages
+64 and 69. I always quote, when the contrary is not expressly said,
+the original edition of 1596. Have these tribes of Cassipagtos,
+Epuremei, and Orinoqueponi, so often mentioned by Raleigh,
+disappeared? or did some misapprehension give rise to these
+denominations? I am surprised to find the Indian words [of one of the
+different Carib dialects?] Ezrabeta cassipuna aquerewana, translated
+by Raleigh, the great princes or greatest commander. Since acarwana
+certainly signifies a chief, or any person who commands (Raleigh pages
+6 and 7), cassipuna perhaps means great, and lake Cassipa is
+synonymous with great lake. In the same manner Cass-iquiare may be a
+great river, for iquiare, like veni, is, an the north of the Amazon, a
+termination common to all rivers. Goto, however, in Cassipa-goto, is a
+Caribbee term denoting a tribe.) Raleigh gives this basin forty miles
+in breadth; and, as all the lakes of Parima must have auriferous
+sands, he does not fail to assert that in summer, when the waters
+retire, pieces of gold of considerable weight are found there.
+
+The sources of the tributary streams of the Carony, the Arui, and the
+Caura (Caroli, Arvi, and Caora,* of the ancient geographers (*
+D'Anville names the Rio Caura, Coari; and the Rio Arui, Aroay. I have
+not been able hitherto to guess what is meant by the Aloica (Atoca,
+Atoica of Raleigh), which issues from the lake Cassipa, between the
+Caura and the Arui.)) being very near each other, this suggested the
+idea of making all these rivers take their rise from the pretended
+lake Cassipa.* (* Raleigh makes only the Carony and the Arui issue
+from it (Hondius, Nieuwe Caerte van het wonderbare landt Guiana,
+besocht door Sir Walter Raleigh, 1594 to 1596): but in later maps, for
+instance that of Sanson, the Rio Caura issues also from Lake Cassipa.)
+Sanson has so much enlarged this lake, that he gives it forty-two
+leagues in length, and fifteen in breadth. The ancient geographers
+placed opposite to each other, with very little hesitation, the
+tributary streams of the two banks of a river; and they place the
+mouth of the Carony, and lake Cassipa, which communicates by the
+Carony with the Orinoco, sometimes* ABOVE the confluence of the Meta.
+(* Sanson, Map for the Voyage of Acunha, 1680. Id. South America,
+1659. Coronelli, Indes occidentales, 1689.) Thus it is carried back by
+Hondius as far as the latitudes of 2 and 3 degrees, giving it the form
+of a rectangle, the longest sides of which run from north to south.
+This circumstance is worthy of remark, because, in assigning gradually
+a more southern latitude to lake Cassipa, it has been detached from
+the Carony and the Arui, and has taken the name of Parima. To follow
+this metamorphosis in its progressive development, we must compare the
+maps which have appeared since the voyage of Raleigh till now. La
+Cruz, who has been copied by all the modern geographers, has preserved
+the oblong form of the lake Cassipa for his lake Parima, although this
+form is entirely different from that of the ancient lake Parima, or
+Rupunuwini, of which the great axis was directed from east to west.
+The ancient lake (that of Hondius, Sanson, and Coronelli) was also
+surrounded by mountains, and gave birth to no river; while the lake
+Parima of La Cruz and the modern geographers communicates with the
+Upper Orinoco, as the Cassipa with the Lower Orinoco.
+
+I have stated the origin of the fable of the lake Cassipa, and the
+influence it has had on the opinion that the lake Parima is the source
+of the Orinoco. Let us now examine what relates to this latter basin,
+this pretended interior sea, called Rupunuwini by the geographers of
+the sixteenth century. In the latitude of four degrees or four degrees
+and a half (in which direction unfortunately, south of Santo Thome del
+Angostura to the extent of eight degrees, no astronomical observation
+has been made) is a long and narrow Cordillera, that of Pacaraimo,
+Quimiropaca, and Ucucuamo; which, stretching from east to south-west,
+unites the group of mountains of Parima to the mountains of Dutch and
+French Guiana. It divides its waters between the Carony, the Rupunury
+or Rupunuwini, and the Rio Branco, and consequently between the
+valleys of the Lower Orinoco, the Essequibo, and the Rio Negro. On the
+north-west of the Cordillera de Pacaraimo, which has been traversed
+but by a small number of Europeans (by the German surgeon, Nicolas
+Hortsmann, in 1739; by a Spanish officer, Don Antonio Santos, in 1775;
+by the Portuguese colonel, Barata, in 1791; and by several English
+settlers, in 1811), descend the Noeapra, the Paraguamusi, and the
+Paragua, which fall into the Rio Carony; on the north-east, the
+Rupunuwini, a tributary stream of the Rio Essequibo. Toward the south,
+the Tacutu and the Urariquera form together the famous Rio Parima, or
+Rio Branco.
+
+This isthmus, between the branches of the Rio Essequibo and the Rio
+Branco (that is, between the Rupunuwini on one side, and the Pirara,
+the Mahu, and the Uraricuera or Rio Parima on the other), may be
+considered as the classical soil of the Dorado of Parima. The rivers
+at the foot of the mountains of Pacaraimo are subject to frequent
+overflowings. Above Santa Rosa, the right bank of the Urariapara, a
+tributary stream of the Uraricuera, is called el Valle de la
+Inundacion. Great pools are also found between the Rio Parima and the
+Xurumu. These are marked on the maps recently constructed in Brazil,
+which furnish the most ample details of those countries. More to the
+west, the Cano Pirara, a tributary stream of the Mahu, issues from a
+lake covered with rushes. This is the lake Amucu described by Nicolas
+Hortsmann, and respecting which some Portuguese of Barcelos, who had
+visited the Rio Branco (Rio Parima or Rio Paravigiana), gave me
+precise notions during my stay at San Carlos del Rio Negro. The lake
+Amucu is several leagues broad, and contains two small islands, which
+Santos heard called Islas Ipomucena. The Rupunuwini (Rupunury), on the
+banks of which Hortsmann discovered rocks covered with hieroglyphical
+figures, approaches very near this lake, but does not communicate with
+it. The portage between the Rupunuwini and the Mahu is farther north,
+where the mountain of Ucucuamo* rises, the natives still call the
+mountain of gold. (* I follow the orthography of the manuscript
+journal of Rodriguez; it is the Cerro Acuquamo of Caulin, or rather of
+his commentator. Hist. corogr. page 176.) They advised Hortsmann to
+seek round the Rio Mahu for a mine of silver (no doubt mica with large
+plates), of diamonds, and emeralds. He found nothing but rocky
+crystals. His account seems to prove that the whole length of the
+mountains of the Upper Orinoco (Sierra Parima) toward the east, is
+composed of granitic rocks, full of druses and open veins, the Peak of
+Duida. Near these lands, which still enjoy a great celebrity for their
+riches, on the western limits of Dutch Guiana, live the Macusis,
+Aturajos, and Acuvajos. The traveller Santos found them stationed
+between the Rupunuwini, the Mahu, and the chain of Pacaraimo. It is
+the appearance of the micaceous rocks of the Ucucuamo, the name of the
+Rio Parima, the inundations of the rivers Urariapara, Parima, and
+Xurumu, and more especially the existence of the lake Amucu (near the
+Rio Rupunuwini, and regarded as the principal source of the Rio
+Parima), which have given rise to the fable of the White Sea and the
+Dorado of Parima. All these circumstances (which have served on this
+very account to corroborate the general opinion) are found united on a
+space of ground which is eight or nine leagues broad from north to
+south, and forty long from east to west. This direction, too, was
+always assigned to the White Sea, by lengthening it in the direction
+of the latitude, till the beginning of the sixteenth century. Now this
+White Sea is nothing but the Rio Parima, which is called the White
+River (Rio Branco, or Rio del Aguas blancas), and runs through and
+inundates the whole of this land. The name of Rupunuwini is given to
+the White Sea on the most ancient maps, which identifies the place of
+the fable, since of all the tributary streams of the Rio Essequibo the
+Rupunuwini is the nearest to the lake Amucu. Raleigh, in his first
+voyage (1595), had formed no precise idea of the situation of El
+Dorado and the lake Parima, which he believed to be salt, and which he
+calls another Caspian Sea. It was not till the second voyage (1596),
+performed equally at the expense of Raleigh, that Laurence Keymis
+fixed so well the localities of El Dorado, that he appears to me to
+have no doubt of the identity of the Parima de Manao with the lake
+Amucu, and with the isthmus between the Rupunuwini (a tributary stream
+of the Essequibo) and the Rio Parima or Rio Branco. "The Indians,"
+says Keymis, "go up the Dessekebe [Essequibo] in twenty days, towards
+the south. To mark the greatness of this river, they call it the
+brother of the Orinoco. After twenty days' navigating they convey
+their canoes by a portage of one day, from the river Dessekebe to a
+lake, which the Jaos call Roponowini, and the Caribbees Parime. This
+lake is as large as a sea; it is covered with an infinite number of
+canoes; and I suppose" [the Indians then had told him nothing of this]
+"that this lake is no other than that which contains the town of
+Manoa."* (* Cayley's Life of Raleigh volume 1 pages 159, 236 and 283.
+Masham in the third voyage of Raleigh (1596) repeats these accounts of
+the Lake Rupunuwini.) Hondius has given a curious plate of this
+portage; and, as the mouth of the Carony was then supposed to be in
+latitude 4 degrees (instead of 8 degrees 8 minutes), the portage of
+Parima was placed close to the equator. At the same period the Viapoco
+(Oyapoc) and the Rio Cayenne (Maroni?) were made to issue from this
+lake Parima. The same name being given by the Caribs to the western
+branch of the Rio Branco has perhaps contributed as much to the
+imaginary enlargement of the lake Amucu, as the inundations of the
+various tributary streams of the Uraricuera, from the confluence of
+the Tacutu to the Valle de la Inundacion.
+
+We have shown above that the Spaniards took the Rio Paragua, or
+Parava, which falls into the Carony, for a lake, because the word
+parava signifies sea, lake, river. Parima seems also to denote vaguely
+great water; for the root par is found in the Carib words that
+designate rivers, pools, lakes, and the ocean.* (* In Persian the root
+water (ab) is found also in lake (abdan). For other etymologies of the
+words Parima and Manoa see Gili volume 1 pages 81 and 141; and Gumilla
+volume 1 page 403.) In Arabic and in Persian, bahr and deria are also
+applied at the same time to the sea, to lakes, and to rivers; and this
+practice, common to many nations in both worlds, has, on our ancient
+maps, converted lakes into rivers and rivers into lakes. In support of
+what I here advance, I shall appeal to very respectable testimony,
+that of Father Caulin. "When I inquired of the Indians," says this
+missionary, who sojourned longer than I on the banks of the Lower
+Orinoco, "what Parima was, they answered that it was nothing more than
+a river that issued from a chain of mountains, the opposite side of
+which furnished waters to the Essequibo." Caulin, knowing nothing of
+lake Amucu, attributes the erroneous opinion of the existence of an
+inland sea solely to the inundations of the plains (a las inundaciones
+dilatadas por los bajos del pais). According to him, the mistakes of
+geographers arise from the vexatious circumstance of all the rivers of
+Guiana having different names at their mouths and near their sources.
+"I have no doubt," he adds, "that one of the upper branches of the Rio
+Branco is that very Rio Parima which the Spaniards have taken for a
+lake (a quien suponian laguna)." Such are the opinions which the
+historiographer of the Expedition of the Boundaries had formed on the
+spot. He could not expect that La Cruz and Surville, mingling old
+hypotheses with accurate ideas, would reproduce on their maps the Mar
+Dorado or Mar Blanco. Thus, notwithstanding the numerous proofs which
+I have furnished since my return from America, of the non-existence of
+an inland sea the origin of the Orinoco, a map has been published in
+my name,* on which the Laguna Parima figures anew. (* Carte de
+l'Amerique, dressee sur les Observations de M. de Humboldt, par Fried.
+Vienna 1818.)
+
+From the whole of these statements it follows, first, that the Laguna
+Rupunuwini, or Parima of the voyage of Raleigh and of the maps of
+Hondius, is an imaginary lake, formed by the lake Amucu* (* This is
+the lake Amaca of Surville and La Cruz. By a singular mistake, the
+name of this lake is transformed to a village on Arrowsmith's map.)
+and the tributary streams of the Uraricuera, which often overflow
+their banks; secondly, that the Laguna Parime of Surville's map is the
+lake Amucu, which gives rise to the Rio Pirara and (conjointly with
+the Mahu, the Tacutu, the Uraricuera, or Rio Parima, properly so
+called) to the Rio Branco; thirdly, that the Laguna Parime of La Cruz
+is an imaginary swelling of the Rio Parime (confounded with the
+Orinoco) below the junction of the Mahu with the Xurumu. The distance
+from the mouth of the Mahu to that of the Tacutu is scarcely 0 degrees
+40 minutes; La Cruz enlarges it to 7 degrees of latitude. He calls the
+upper part of the Rio Branco (that which receives the Mahu) Orinoco or
+Purumu. There can be no doubt of its being the Xurumu, one of the
+tributary streams of the Tacutu, which is well known to the
+inhabitants of the neighbouring fort of San Joaquim. All the names
+that figure in the fable of El Dorado are found in the tributary
+streams of the Rio Branco. Slight local circumstances, joined to the
+remembrances of the salt lake of Mexico, more especially of the
+celebrated lake Manoa in the Dorado des Omaguas, have served to
+complete a picture created by the imagination of Raleigh and his two
+lieutenants, Keymis and Masham. The inundations of the Rio Branco, I
+conceive, may be compared at the utmost to those of the Red River of
+Louisiana, between Nachitoches and Cados, but not to the Laguna de los
+Xarayes, which is a temporary swelling of the Rio Paraguay.* (*
+Southey volume 1 page 130. These periodical overflowings of the Rio
+Paraguay have long acted the same part in the southern hemisphere, as
+lake Parima has been made to perform in the northern. Hondius and
+Sanson have made the Rio de la Plata, the Rio Topajos (a tributary
+stream of the Amazon), the Rio Tocantines, and the Rio de San
+Francisco, issue from the Laguna de los Xarayes.)
+
+We have now examined a White Sea,* (* That of D'Anville and La Cruz,
+and of the greater part of the modern maps.) which the principal of
+the Rio Branco is made to traverse; and another,* (* The lake of
+Surville, which takes the place of lake Amucu.) which is placed on the
+east of this river, and communicates with it by the Cano Pirara. A
+third lake* (* The lake which Surville calls Laguna tenida hasta ahora
+or La una Parime.) is figured on the west of the Rio Branco,
+respecting which I found recently some curious details in the
+manuscript journal of the surgeon Hortsmann. "At the distance of two
+days' journey below the confluence of the Mahu (Tacutu) with the Rio
+Parima (Uraricuera) a lake is found on top of a mountain. This lake is
+stocked with the same fish as the Rio Parima; but the waters of the
+former are black, and those of the latter white." May not Surville,
+from a vague notion of this basin, have imagined, in his map prefixed
+to Father Caulin's work, an Alpine lake of ten leagues in length, near
+which, towards the east, rise at the same time the Orinoco, and the
+Rio Idapa, a tributary stream of the Rio Negro? However vague may be
+the account of the surgeon of Hildesheim, it is impossible to admit
+that the mountain, which has a lake at its summit, is to the north of
+the parallel of 2 degrees 30 minutes: and this latitude coincides
+nearly with that of the Cerro Unturan. Hence it follows that the
+Alpine lake of Hortsmann, which has escaped the attention of
+D'Anville, and which is perhaps situate amid a group of mountains,
+lies north-east of the portage from the Idapa to the Mavaca, and
+south-east of the Orinoco, where it goes up above Esmeralda.
+
+Most of the historians who have treated of the first ages of the
+conquest seem persuaded that the name provincias or pais del Dorado
+denoted originally every region abounding in gold. Forgetting the
+precise etymology of the word El Dorado (the gilded), they have not
+perceived that this tradition is a local fable, as were almost all the
+ancient fables of the Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Persians. The
+history of the gilded man belongs originally to the Andes of New
+Grenada, and particularly to the plains in the vicinity of their
+eastern side: we see it progressively advance, as I observed above,
+three hundred leagues toward the east-north-east, from the sources of
+the Caqueta to those of the Rio Branco and the Essequibo. Gold was
+sought in different parts of South America before 1536, without the
+word El Dorado having been ever pronounced, and without the belief of
+the existence of any other centre of civilization and wealth, than the
+empire of the Inca of Cuzco. Countries which now do not furnish
+commerce with the smallest quantities of the precious metals, the
+coast of Paria, Terra Firma (Castillo del Oro), the mountains of Santa
+Marta, and the isthmus of Darien, then enjoyed the same celebrity
+which has been more recently acquired by the auriferous lands of
+Sonora, Choco, and Brazil.
+
+Diego de Ordaz (1531) and Alonzo de Herrera (1535) directed their
+journeys of discovery along the banks of the Lower Orinoco. The former
+is the famous Conquistador of Mexico, who boasted that he had taken
+sulphur out of the crater of the Peak of Popocatepetl, and whom the
+emperor Charles V permitted to wear a burning volcano on his armorial
+bearings. Ordaz, named Adelantado of all the country which he could
+conquer between Brazil and the coast of Venezuela, which was then
+called the country of the German Company of Welsers (Belzares) of
+Augsburg, began his expedition by the mouth of the Maranon. He there
+saw, in the hands of the natives, "emeralds as big as a man's fist."
+They were, no doubt, pieces of that saussurite jade, or compact
+feldspar, which we brought home from the Orinoco, and which La
+Condamine found in abundance at the mouth of the Rio Topayos. The
+Indians related to Diego de Ordaz that on going up during a certain
+number of suns toward the west, he would find a large rock (pena) of
+green stone; but before they reached this pretended mountain of
+emerald (rocks of euphotide?) a shipwreck put an end to all farther
+discovery. The Spaniards saved themselves with difficulty in two small
+vessels. They hastened to get out of the mouth of the Amazon; and the
+currents, which in those parts run with violence to the north-west,
+led Ordaz to the coast of Paria where, in the territory of the cacique
+Yuripari (Uriapari, Viapari), Sedeno had constructed the Casa fuerte
+de Paria. This post being very near the mouth of the Orinoco, the
+Mexican Conquistador resolved to attempt an expedition on this great
+river. He sojourned first at Carao (Caroa, Carora), a large Indian
+village, which appears to me to have been a little to the east of the
+confluence of the Carony; he then went up the Cabruta (Cabuta,
+Cabritu), and to the mouth of the Meta (Metacuyu), where he found
+great difficulty in passing his boats through the Raudal of Cariven.
+The Aruacas, whom Ordaz employed as guides, advised him to go up the
+Meta; where, on advancing towards the west, they asserted he would
+find men clothed, and gold in abundance. Ordaz pursued in preference
+the navigation of the Orinoco, but the cataracts of Tabaje (perhaps
+even those of the Atures) compelled him to terminate his discoveries.
+
+It is worthy of remark that in this voyage, far anterior to that of
+Orellana, and consequently the greatest which the Spaniards had then
+performed on a river of the New World, the name of the Orinoco was for
+the first time heard. Ordaz, the leader of the expedition, affirms
+that the river, from its mouth as far as the confluence of the Meta,
+is called Uriaparia, but that above this confluence it bears the name
+of Orinucu. This word (formed analogously with the words Tamanacu,
+Otomacu, Sinarucu) is, in fact, of the Tamanac tongue; and, as the
+Tamanacs dwell south-east of Encaramada, it is natural that the
+conquistadores heard the actual name of the river only on drawing near
+the Rio Meta.* (* Gili volume 3 page 381. The following are the most
+ancient names of the Orinoco, known to the natives near its mouth, and
+which historians give us altered by the double fault of pronunciation
+and orthography; Yuyapari, Yjupari, Huriaparia, Urapari, Viapari, Rio
+de Paria. The Tamanac word Orinucu was disfigured by the Dutch pilots
+into Worinoque. The Otomacs say Joga-apurura (great river); the Cabres
+and Guaypunabis, Paragua, Bazagua Parava, three words signifying great
+water, river, sea. That part of the Orinoco between the Apure and the
+Guaviare is often denoted by the name of Baraguan. A famous strait,
+which we have described above, bears also this name, which is no doubt
+a corruption of the word Paragua. Great rivers in every zone are
+called by the dwellers on their banks the river, without any
+particular denominations. If other names be added, they change in
+every province. Thus the Rio Turiva, near the Encaramada, has five
+names in the different parts of its course. The Upper Orinoco, or
+Paragua, is called by the Maquiritares (near Esmeralda) Maraguaca, on
+account of the lofty mountains of this name near Duida. Gili volume 1
+pages 22 and 364. Caulin page 75. In most of the names of the rivers
+of America we recognize the root water. Thus yacu in the Peruvian, and
+veni in the Maypure tongues, signify water and river. In the Lule
+dialect I find fo, water; foyavolto, a river; foysi, a lake; as in
+Persian, ab is water; abi frat, the river Euphrates; abdan, a lake.
+The root water is preserved in the derivatives.) On this last
+tributary stream Diego de Ordaz received from the natives the first
+idea of civilized nations who inhabited the table-lands of the Andes
+of New Granada; of a very powerful prince with one eye (Indio tuerto),
+and of animals less than stags, but fit for riding like Spanish
+horses. Ordaz had no idea that these animals were llamas (ovejas del
+Peru). Must we admit that llamas, which were used in the Andes to draw
+the plough and as beasts of burden, but not for riding, were already
+common on the north and east of Quito? I find that Orellana saw these
+animals at the river Amazon, above the confluence of the Rio Negro,
+consequently in a climate very different from that of the table-land
+of the Andes. The table of an army of Omaguas mounted on llamas served
+to embellish the account given by the fellow-travellers of Felipe de
+Urre of their adventurous expedition to the Upper Caqueta. We cannot
+be sufficiently attentive to these traditions, which seem to prove
+that the domestic animals of Quito and Peru had already begun to
+descend the Cordilleras, and spread themselves by degrees in the
+eastern regions of South America.
+
+Herrera, the treasurer of the expedition of Ordaz, was sent in 1553,
+by the governor Geronimo de Ortal, to pursue the discovery of the
+Orinoco and the Meta. He lost nearly thirteen months between Punta
+Barina and the confluence of the Carony in constructing flat-bottomed
+boats, and making the preparations indispensable for a long voyage. We
+cannot read without astonishment the narrative of those daring
+enterprises, in which three or four hundred horses were embarked to be
+put ashore whenever cavalry could act on one of the banks. We find in
+the expedition of Herrera the same stations which we already knew; the
+fortress of Paria, the Indian village of Uriaparia (no doubt below
+Imataca, on a point where the inundations of the delta prevented the
+Spaniards from being able to procure firewood), Caroa, in the province
+of Carora; the rivers Caranaca (Caura?) and Caxavana (Cuchivero?); the
+village of Cabritu (Cabruta), and the Raudal near the mouth of the
+Meta (probably the Raudal of Cariven and the Piedra de la Paciencia).
+As the Rio Meta, on account of the proximity of its sources and of its
+tributary streams to the auriferous Cordilleras of new Grenada
+(Cundinamarca), enjoyed great celebrity, Herrera attempted to go up
+this river. He there found nations more civilized than those of the
+Orinoco, but that fed on the flesh of mute dogs. Herrera was killed in
+battle by an arrow poisoned with the juice of curare (yierva); and
+when dying named Alvaro de Ordaz his lieutenant, who led the remains
+of the expedition (1535) to the fortress of Paria, after having lost
+the few horses which had resisted a campaign of eighteen months.
+
+Confused reports which were circulated of the wealth of the
+inhabitants of the Meta, and the other tributary streams that descend
+from the eastern side of the Cordilleras of New Grenada, engaged
+successively Geronimo de Ortal, Nicolas Federmann, and Jorge de Espira
+(George von Speier), in 1535 and 1536, to undertake expeditions by
+land towards the south and south-west. From the promontory of Paria,
+as far as Cabo de la Vela, little figures of molten gold had been
+found in the hands of the natives, as early as the years 1498 and
+1500. The principal markets for these amulets, which the women used as
+ornaments, were the villages of Curiana (Coro) and Cauchieto (Near the
+Rio la Hacha). The metal employed by the founders of Cauchieto came
+from a mountainous country more to the south. It may be conceived that
+the expeditions of Ordaz and Herrera served to increase the desire of
+drawing nearer to those auriferous countries. George von Speier left
+Coro (1535), and penetrated by the mountains of Merida to the banks of
+the Apure and the Meta. He passed these two rivers near their sources,
+where they have but little breadth. The Indians told him that, farther
+on, white men wandered about the plains. Speier, who imagined that he
+was not far from the banks of the Amazon, had no doubt that these
+wandering Spaniards were men unfortunately shipwrecked in the
+expedition of Ordaz. He crossed the savannahs of San Juan de los
+Llanos, which were said to abound in gold; and made a long stay at an
+Indian village called Pueblo de Nuestra Senora, and afterwards La
+Fragua, south-east of the Paramo de la Suma Paz. I have been on the
+western back of this group of mountains, at Fusagasuga, and there
+heard that the plains by which they are skirted toward the east still
+enjoy some celebrity for wealth among the natives. Speier found in the
+populous village of La Fragua a Casa del Sol (temple of the sun), and
+a convent of virgins similar to those of Peru and New Granada. Were
+these the consequence of a migration of religious rites towards the
+east? or must we admit that the plains of San Juan were their first
+cradle? Tradition, indeed, records that Bochica, the legislator of New
+Granada and high-priest of Iraca, had gone up from the plains of the
+east to the table-land of Bogota. But Bochica being at once the
+offspring and the symbol of the sun, his history may contain
+allegories that are merely astrological. Speier, pursuing his way
+toward the south, and crossing the two branches of the Guaviare, which
+are the Ariare and the Guayavero (Guayare or Canicamare), arrived on
+the banks of the great Rio Papamene or Caqueta. The resistance he met
+with during a whole year in the province de los Choques, put an end,
+in 1537, to this memorable expedition. Nicolas Federmann and Geronimo
+de Ortal (1536), who went from Macarapana and the mouth of the Rio
+Neveri, followed (1535) the traces of Jorge de Espira. The former
+sought for gold in the Rio Grande de la Magdalena; the latter
+endeavoured to discover a temple of the sun (Casa del Sol) on the
+banks of the Meta. Ignorant of the idiom of the natives, they seemed
+to see everywhere, at the foot of the Cordilleras, the reflexion of
+the greatness of the temples of Iraca (Sogamozo), which was then the
+centre of the civilization of Cundinamarca.
+
+I have now examined, in a geographical point of view, the expeditions
+on the Orinoco, and in a western and southern direction on the eastern
+back of the Andes, before the tradition of El Dorado was spread among
+the conquistadores. This tradition, as we have noticed above, had its
+origin in the kingdom of Quito, where Luis Daza (1535) met with an
+Indian of New Grenada who had been sent by his prince (no doubt the
+zippa of Bogota, or the zaque of Tunja), to demand assistance from
+Atahualpa, inca of Peru. This ambassador boasted, as is usual, the
+wealth of his country; but what particularly fixed the attention of
+the Spaniards who were assembled with Daza in the town of Tacunga
+(Llactacunga), was the history of a lord who, his body covered with
+powdered gold, went into a lake amid the mountains. This lake may have
+been the Laguna de Totta, a little to the east of Sogamozo (Iraca) and
+of Tunja (Hunca, the town of Huncahua), where two chiefs,
+ecclesiastical and secular, of the empire of Cundinamarca, or
+Cundirumarca, resided; but no historical remembrance being attached to
+this mountain lake, I rather suppose that it was the sacred lake of
+Guatavita, on the east of the mines of rock-salt of Zipaquira, into
+which the gilded lord was made to enter. I saw on its banks the
+remains of a staircase hewn in the rock, and serving for the
+ceremonies of ablution. The Indians said that powder of gold and
+golden vessels were thrown into this lake, as a sacrifice to the
+adoratorio de Guatavita. Vestiges are still found of a breach which
+was made by the Spaniards for the purpose of draining the lake. The
+temple of the sun at Sogamozo being pretty near the northern coasts of
+Terra Firma, the notions of the gilded man were soon applied to a
+high-priest of the sect of Bochica, or Indacanzas, who every morning,
+before he performed his sacrifice, caused powder of gold to be stuck
+upon his hands and face, after they had been smeared with grease.
+Other accounts, preserved in a letter of Oviedo addressed to the
+celebrated cardinal Bembo, say that Gonzalo Pizarro, when he
+discovered the province of cinnamon-trees, "sought at the same time a
+great prince, noised in those countries, who was always covered with
+powdered gold, so that from head to foot he resembled an image of gold
+fashioned by the hand of a skilful workman (a una figura d'oro
+lavorato di mano d'un buonissimo orefice). The powdered gold is fixed
+to the body by means of an odoriferous resin; but, as this kind of
+garment would be uneasy to him while he slept, the prince washes
+himself every evening, and is gilded anew in the morning, which proves
+that the empire of El Dorado is infinitely rich in mines." It seems
+probable that there was something in the ceremonies of the worship
+introduced by Bochica which gave rise to a tradition so generally
+spread. The strangest customs are found in the New World. In Mexico
+the sacrificers painted their bodies and wore a kind of cape, with
+hanging sleeves of tanned human skin.
+
+On the banks of the Caura, and in other wild parts of Guiana, where
+painting the body is used instead of tattooing, the nations anoint
+themselves with turtle-fat, and stick spangles of mica with a metallic
+lustre, white as silver and red as copper, on their skin, so that at a
+distance they seem to wear laced clothes. The fable of the gilded man
+is, perhaps, founded on a similar custom; and, as there were two
+sovereign princes in New Granada, the lama of Iraca and the secular
+chief or zaque of Tunja, we cannot be surprised that the same ceremony
+was attributed sometimes to the prince and sometimes to the
+high-priest. It is more extraordinary that, as early as the year 1535,
+the country of El Dorado was sought for on the east of the Andes.
+Robertson is mistaken in admitting that Orellana received the first
+notions of it (1540) on the banks of the Amazon. The history of Fray
+Piedro Simon, founded on the memoirs of Queseda, the conqueror of
+Cundirumarca, proves directly the contrary; and Gonzalo Diaz de
+Pineda, as early as 1536, sought for the gilded man beyond the plains
+of the province of Quixos. The ambassador of Bogota, whom Daza met
+with in the kingdom of Quito, had spoken of a country situate toward
+the east. Was this because the table-land of New Granada is not on the
+north, but on the north-east of Quito? We may venture to say that the
+tradition of a naked man covered with powdered gold must have belonged
+originally to a hot region, and not to the cold table-lands of
+Cundirumarca, where I often saw the thermometer sink below four or
+five degrees; however, on account of the extraordinary configuration
+of the country, the climate differs greatly at Guatavita, Tunja,
+Iraca, and on the banks of the Sogamozo. Sometimes, also, religious
+ceremonies are preserved which took rise in another zone; and the
+Muyscas, according to ancient traditions, made Bochica, their first
+legislator and the founder of their worship, arrive from the plains
+situate to the east of the Cordilleras. I shall not decide whether
+these traditions expressed an historical fact, or merely indicated, as
+we have already observed in another place, that the first Lama, who
+was the offspring and symbol of the sun, must necessarily have come
+from the countries of the East. Be it as it may, it is not less
+certain that the celebrity which the expeditions of Ordaz, Herrera,
+and Speier had already given to the Orinoco, the Meta, and the
+province of Papamene, situate between the sources of the Guaviare and
+Caqueta, contributed to fix the fable of El Dorado near to the eastern
+back of the Cordilleras.
+
+The junction of three bodies of troops on the table-land of New
+Granada spread through all that part of America occupied by the
+Spaniards the news of an immensely rich and populous country which
+remained to be conquered. Sebastian de Belalcazar marched from Quito
+by way of Popayan (1536) to Bogota; Nicholas Federmann, coming from
+Venezuela, arrived from the east by the plains of Meta. These two
+captains found, already settled on the table-land of Cundirumarca, the
+famous Adelantado Gonzalo Ximenez de Queseda, one of whose descendants
+I saw near Zipaquira, with bare feet, attending cattle. The fortuitous
+meeting of the three conquistadores, one of the most extraordinary and
+dramatic events of the history of the conquest, took place in 1538.
+Belalcazar's narratives inflamed the imagination of warriors eager for
+adventurous enterprises; and the notions communicated to Luis Daza by
+the Indian of Tacunga were compared with the confused ideas which
+Ordaz had collected on the Meta respecting the treasures of a great
+king with one eye (Indio tuerto), and a people clothed, who rode upon
+llamas. An old soldier, Pedro de Limpias, who had accompanied
+Federmann to the table-land of Bogota, carried the first news of El
+Dorado to Coro, where the remembrance of the expedition of Speier
+(1535 to 1537) to the Rio Papamene was still fresh. It was from this
+same town of Coro that Felipe von Huten (Urre, Utre) undertook his
+celebrated voyage to the province of the Omaguas, while Pizarro,
+Orellana, and Hernan Perez de Quesada, brother of the Adelantado,
+sought for the gold country at the Rio Napo, along the river of the
+Amazons, and on the eastern chain of the Andes of New Grenada. The
+natives, in order to get rid of their troublesome guests, continually
+described Dorado as easy to be reached, and situate at no considerable
+distance. It was like a phantom that seemed to flee before the
+Spaniards, and to call on them unceasingly. It is in the nature of
+man, wandering on the earth, to figure to himself happiness beyond the
+region which he knows. El Dorado, similar to Atlas and the islands of
+the Hesperides, disappeared by degrees from the domain of geography,
+and entered that of mythological fictions.
+
+I shall not here relate the numerous enterprises which were undertaken
+for the conquest of this imaginary country. Unquestionably we are
+indebted to them in great part for our knowledge of the interior of
+America; they have been useful to geography, as errors and daring
+hypotheses are often to the search of truth: but in the discussion on
+which we are employed, it is incumbent on me to rest only upon those
+facts which have had the most direct influence on the construction of
+ancient and modern maps. Hernan Perez de Quesada, after the departure
+of his brother the Adelantado for Europe, sought anew (1539) but this
+time in the mountainous land north-east of Bogota, the temple of the
+sun (Casa del Sol), of which Geronimo de Ortal had heard spoken in
+1536 on the banks of the Meta. The worship of the sun introduced by
+Bochica, and the celebrity of the sanctuary of Iraca, or Sogamozo,
+gave rise to those confused reports of temples and idols of massy
+gold; but on the mountains as in the plains, the traveller believed
+himself to be always at a distance from them, because the reality
+never corresponded with the chimerical dreams of the imagination.
+Francisco de Orellana, after having vainly sought El Dorado with
+Pizarro in the Provincia de los Canelos, and on the auriferous banks
+of the Napo, went down (1540) the great river of the Amazon. He found
+there, between the mouths of the Javari and the Rio de la Trinidad
+(Yupura?) a province rich in gold, called Machiparo (Muchifaro), in
+the vicinity of that of the Aomaguas, or Omaguas. These notions
+contributed to carry El Dorado toward the south-east, for the names
+Omaguas (Om-aguas, Aguas), Dit-Aguas, and Papamene, designated the
+same country--that which Jorge de Espira had discovered in his
+expedition to the Caqueta. The Omaguas, the Manaos or Manoas, and the
+Guaypes (Uaupes or Guayupes) live in the plains on the north of the
+Amazon. They are three powerful nations, the latter of which,
+stretching toward the west along the banks of the Guape or Uaupe, had
+been already mentioned in the voyages of Quesada and Huten. These two
+conquistadores, alike celebrated in the history of America, reached by
+different roads the llanos of San Juan, then called Valle de Nuestra
+Senora. Hernan Perez de Quesada (1541) passed the Cordilleras of
+Cundirumarca, probably between the Paramos of Chingasa and Suma Paz;
+while Felipe de Huten, accompanied by Pedro de Limpias (the same who
+had carried to Venezuela the first news of Dorado from the land of
+Bogota), directed his course from north to south, by the road which
+Speier had taken to the eastern side of the mountains. Huten left
+Coro, the principal seat of the German factory or company of Welser,
+when Henry Remboldt was its director. After having traversed (1541)
+the plains of Casanare, the Meta, and the Caguan, he arrived at the
+banks of the Upper Guaviare (Guayuare), a river which was long
+believed to be the source of the Orinoco, and the mouth of which I saw
+in passing by San Fernando de Atabapo to the Rio Negro. Not far from
+the right bank of the Guaviare, Huten entered Macatoa, the city of the
+Guapes. The people there were clothed, the fields appeared well
+cultivated; everything denoted a degree of civilization unknown in the
+hot region of America which extends to the east of the Cordilleras.
+Speier, in his expedition to the Rio Caqueta and the province of
+Papamene, had probably crossed the Guaviare far above Macatoa, before
+the junction of the two branches of this river, the Ariari and the
+Guayavero. Huten was told that on advancing more to the south-east he
+would enter the territory of the great nation of the Omaguas, the
+priest-king of which was called Quareca, and which possessed numerous
+herds of llamas. These traces of cultivation--these ancient
+resemblances to the table-land of Quito--appear to me very remarkable.
+It has already been said above that Orellana saw llamas at the
+dwelling of an Indian chief on the banks of the Amazon, and that Ordaz
+had heard mention made of them in the plains of Meta.
+
+I pause where ends the domain of geography and shall not follow Huten
+in the description either of that town of immense extent, which he saw
+from afar; or of the battle of the Omaguas, where thirty-nine
+Spaniards (the names of fourteen are recorded in the annals of the
+time) fought against fifteen thousand Indians. These false reports
+contributed greatly to embellish the fable of El Dorado. The name of
+the town of the Omaguas is not found in the narrative of Huten; but
+the Manoas, from whom Father Fritz received, in the seventeenth
+century, plates of beaten gold, in his mission of Yurim-Aguas, are
+neighbours of the Omaguas. The name of Manoa subsequently passed from
+the country of the Amazons to an imaginary town, placed in El Dorado
+de la Parima. The celebrity attached to those countries between the
+Caqueta (Papamene) and the Guaupe (one of the tributary streams of the
+Rio Negro) excited Pedro de Ursua, in 1560, to that fatal expedition,
+which ended by the revolt of the tyrant Aguirre. Ursua, in going down
+the Caqueta to enter the river of the Amazons, heard of the province
+of Caricuri. This denomination clearly indicates the country of gold;
+for I find that this metal is called caricuri in the Tamanac, and
+carucuru in the Caribbee. Is it a foreign word that denotes gold among
+the nations of the Orinoco, as the words sugar and cotton are in our
+European languages? This would prove that these nations learned to
+know the precious metals among the foreign products which came to them
+from the Cordilleras,* or from the plains at the eastern back of the
+Andes. (* In Peruvian or Quichua (lengua del Inca) gold is called
+cori, whence are derived chichicori, gold in powder, and corikoya,
+gold-ore.)
+
+We arrive now at the period when the fable of El Dorado was fixed in
+the eastern part of Guiana, first at the pretended lake Cassipa (on
+the banks of the Paragua, a tributary stream of the Carony), and
+afterwards between the sources of the Rio Essequibo and the Rio
+Branco. This circumstance has had the greatest influence on the state
+of geography in those countries. Antonio de Berrio, son-in-law* (*
+Properly casado con una sobrina. Fray Pedro Simon pages 597 and 608.
+Harris Coll. volume 2 page 212. Laet page 652. Caulin page 175.
+Raleigh calls Quesada Cemenes de Casada. He also confounds the periods
+of the voyages of Ordaz (Ordace), Orellana (Oreliano), and Ursua. See
+Empire of Guiana pages 13 to 20.) and sole heir of the great
+Adelantado Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada, passed the Cordilleras to the
+east of Tunja,* (* No doubt between the Paramos of Chita and of
+Zoraca, taking the road of Chire and Pore. Berrio told Raleigh that he
+came from the Casanare to the Pato, from the Pato to the Meta, and
+from the Meta to the Baraguan (Orinoco). We must not confound this Rio
+Pato (a name connected no doubt with that of the ancient mission of
+Patuto) with the Rio Paute.) embarked on the Rio Casanare, and went
+down by this river, the Meta, and the Orinoco, to the island of
+Trinidad. We scarcely know this voyage except by the narrative of
+Raleigh; it appears to have preceded a few years the first foundation
+of Vieja Guayana, which was in the year 1591. A few years later (1595)
+Berrio caused his maese de campo, Domingo de Vera, to prepare in
+Europe an expedition of two thousand men to go up the Orinoco, and
+conquer El Dorado, which then began to be called the country of the
+Manoa, and even the Laguna de la gran Manoa. Rich landholders sold
+their farms, to take part in a crusade, to which twelve Observantin
+monks, and ten secular ecclesiastics were annexed. The tales related
+by one Martinez* (Juan Martin de Albujar?), who said he had been
+abandoned in the expedition of Diego de Ordaz, and led from town to
+town till he reached the capital of El Dorado, had inflamed the
+imagination of Berrio. (* I believe I can demonstrate that the fable
+of Juan Martinez, spread abroad by the narrative of Raleigh, was
+founded on the adventures of Juan Martin de Albujar, well known to the
+Spanish historians of the Conquest; and who, in the expedition of
+Pedro de Silva (1570), fell into the hands of the Caribs of the Lower
+Orinoco. This Albujar married an Indian woman and became a savage
+himself, as happens sometimes in our own days on the western limits of
+Canada and of the United States. After having long wandered with the
+Caribs, the desire of rejoining the Whites led him by the Rio
+Essequibo to the island of Trinidad. He made several excursions to
+Santa Fe de Bogota, and at length settled at Carora. (Simon page 591).
+I know not whether he died at Porto Rico; but it cannot be doubted
+that it was he who learned from the Carib traders the name of the
+Manoas [of Jurubesh]. As he lived on the banks of the Upper Carony and
+reappeared by the Rio Essequibo, he may have contributed also to place
+the lake Manoa at the isthmus of Rupunuwini. Raleigh makes his Juan
+Martinez embark below Morequito, a village at the east of that
+confluence of the Carony with the Orinoco. Thence he makes him dragged
+by the Caribs from town to town, till he finds at Manoa a relation of
+the inca Atabalipa (Atahualpa), whom he had known before at Caxamarca,
+and who had fled before the Spaniards. It appears that Raleigh had
+forgotten that the voyage of Ordaz (1531) was two years anterior to
+the death of Atahualpa and the entire destruction of the empire of
+Peru! He must have confounded the expedition of Ordaz with that of
+Silva (1570), in which Juan Martin de Albuzar partook. The latter, who
+related his tales at Santa Fe, at Venezuela, and perhaps at Porto
+Rico, must have combined what he had heard from the Caribs with what
+he had learned from the Spaniards respecting the town of the Omaguas
+seen by Huten; of the gilded man who sacrificed in a lake, and of the
+flight of the family of Atahualpa into the forests of Vilcabamba, and
+the eastern Cordillera of the Andes. Garcilasso volume 2 page 194.) It
+is difficult to distinguish what this conquistador had himself
+observed in going down the Orinoco from what he said he had collected
+in a pretended journal of Martinez, deposited at Porto Rico. It
+appears that in general at that period the same ideas prevailed
+respecting America as those which we have long entertained in regard
+to Africa; it was imagined that more civilization would be found
+towards the centre of the continent than on the coasts. Already Juan
+Gonzalez, whom Diego de Ordaz had sent in 1531 to explore the banks of
+the Orinoco, announced that "the farther you went up this river the
+more you saw the population increase." Berrio mentions the
+often-inundated province of Amapaja, between the confluence of the
+Meta and the Cuchivero, where he found many little idols of molten
+gold, similar to those which were fabricated at Cauchieto, east of
+Coro. He believed this gold to be a product of the granitic soil that
+covers the mountainous country between the Carichana, Uruana, and
+Cuchivero. In fact the natives have recently found a mass of native
+gold in the Quebrada del Tigre near the mission of Encaramada. Berrio
+mentions on the east of the province of Amapaja the Rio Carony
+(Caroly), which was said to issue from a great lake, because one of
+the tributary streams of the Carony, the Rio Paragua (river of the
+great water), had been taken for an inland sea, from ignorance of the
+Indian languages. Several of the Spanish historians believed that this
+lake, the source of the Carony, was the Grand Manoa of Berrio; but the
+notions he communicated to Raleigh show that the Laguna de Manoa (del
+Dorado, or de Parime) was supposed to be to the south of the Rio
+Paragua, transformed into Laguna Cassipa. "Both these basins had
+auriferous sands; but on the banks of the Cassipa was situate
+Macureguarai (Margureguaira), the capital of the cacique of Aromaja,
+and the first city of the imaginary empire of Guyana."
+
+As these often-inundated lands have been at all times inhabited by
+nations of Carib race, who carried on a very active inland trade with
+the most distant regions, we must not be surprised that more gold was
+found here in the hands of the Indians than elsewhere. The natives of
+the coast did not employ this metal in the form of ornaments or
+amulets only; but also as a medium of exchange. It is not
+extraordinary, therefore, that gold has disappeared on the coast of
+Paria, and among the nations of the Orinoco, their inland
+communications have been impeded by the Europeans. The natives who
+have remained independent are in our days, no doubt, more wretched,
+more indolent, and in a ruder state, than they were before the
+conquest. The king of Morequito, whose son Raleigh took to England,
+had visited Cumana in 1594, to exchange a great quantity of images of
+massy gold for iron tools, and European merchandise. The unexpected
+appearance of an Indian chief augmented the celebrity of the riches of
+the Orinoco. It was supposed that El Dorado must be near the country
+from which the king of Morequito came; and as this country was often
+inundated, and rivers vaguely called great seas, or great basins of
+water, El Dorado must be on the banks of a lake. It was forgotten that
+the gold brought by the Caribs and other trading people was as little
+the produce of the soil as the diamonds of Brazil and India are the
+produce of the regions of Europe, where they are most abundant. The
+expedition of Berrio which had increased in number during the stay of
+the vessels at Cumana, La Margareta, and the island of Trinidad,
+proceeded by Morequito (near Vieja Guayana) towards the Rio Paragua, a
+tributary stream of the Carony; but sickness, the ferocity of the
+natives, and the want of subsistence, opposed invincible obstacles to
+the progress of the Spaniards. They all perished; except about thirty,
+who returned in a deplorable state to the post of Santo Thome.
+
+These disasters did not calm the ardour displayed during the first
+half of the 17th century in the search of El Dorado. The Governor of
+the island of Trinidad, Antonio de Berrio, became the prisoner of Sir
+Walter Raleigh in the celebrated incursion of that navigator, in 1595,
+on the coast of Venezuela and at the mouths of the Orinoco. Raleigh
+collected from Berrio, and from other prisoners made by Captain
+Preston* at the taking of Caracas, all the information which had been
+obtained at that period on the countries situate to the south of Vieya
+Guayana. (* These prisoners belonged to the expedition of Berrio and
+of Hernandez de Serpa. The English landed at Macuto (then Guayca
+Macuto), whence a white man, Villalpando, led them by a mountain-path
+between Cumbre and the Silla (perhaps passing over the ridge of
+Galipano) to the town of Caracas. Simon page 594; Raleigh page 19.
+Those only who are acquainted with the situation can be sensible how
+difficult and daring this enterprise was.) He lent faith to the fables
+invented by Juan Martin de Albujar, and entertained no doubt either of
+the existence of the two lakes Cassipa and Rupunuwini, or of that of
+the great empire of the Inca, which, after the death of Atahualpa, the
+fugitive princes were supposed to have founded near the sources of the
+Essequibo. We are not in possession of a map that was constructed by
+Raleigh, and which he recommended to lord Charles Howard to keep
+secret. The geographer Hondius has filled up this void; and has even
+added to his map a table of longitudes and latitudes, among which
+figure the laguna del Dorado, and the Ville Imperiale de Manoas.
+Raleigh, when at anchor near the Punta del Gallo* in the island of
+Trinidad (* The northern part of La Punta de Icacos, which is the
+south-east cape of the island of Trinidad. Christopher Columbus cast
+anchor there on August 3, 1498. A great confusion exists in the
+denomination of the different capes of the island of Trinidad; and as
+recently, since the expedition of Fidalgo and Churruca, the Spaniards
+reckon the longitudes in South America west of La Punta de la Galera
+(latitude 10 degrees 50 minutes, longitude 63 degrees 20 minutes), it
+is important to fix the attention of geographers on this point.
+Columbus called the south-east cape of the island Punta Galera, on
+account of the form of a rock. From Punta de la Galera he sailed to
+the west and landed at a low cape, which he calls Punta del Arenal;
+this is our Punta de Icacos. In this passage, near a place (Punta de
+la Playa) where he stopped to take in water (perhaps at the mouth of
+the Rio Erin), he saw to the south, for the first time, the continent
+of America, which he called Isla Santa. It was, therefore, the eastern
+coast of the province of Cumana, to the east of the Cano Macareo, near
+Punta Redonda, and not the mountainous coast of Paria (Isla de Gracia,
+of Columbus), which was first discovered.), made his lieutenants
+explore the mouths of the Orinoco, principally those of Capuri, Grand
+Amana (Manamo Grande), and Macureo (Macareo). As his ships drew a
+great deal of water, he found it difficult to enter the bocas chicas,
+and was obliged to construct flat-bottomed barks. He remarked the
+fires of the Tivitivas (Tibitibies), of the race of the Guaraon
+Indians, on the tops of the mauritia palm-trees; and appears to have
+first brought the fruit to Europe (fructum squamosum, similem palmae
+pini). I am surprised, that he scarcely mentions the settlement, which
+had been made by Berrio under the name of Santo Thome (la Vieja
+Guayana.) This settlement however dates from 1591; and though,
+according to Fray Pedro Simon, "religion and policy prohibited all
+mercantile connection between Christians [Spaniards] and Heretics [the
+Dutch and English]," there was then carried on at the end of the
+sixteenth century, as in our days, an active contraband trade by the
+mouths of the Orinoco. Raleigh passed the river Europa (Guarapo), and
+"the plains of Saymas (Chaymas), which extend, keeping the same level,
+as far as Cumana and Caracas;" he stopped at Morequito (perhaps a
+little to the north of the site of the villa de Upata, in the missions
+of the Carony), where an old cacique confirmed to him all the reveries
+of Berrio on the irruption of foreign nations (Orejones and Epuremei)
+into Guiana. The Raudales or cataracts of the Caroli (Carony), a river
+which was at that period considered as the shortest way for reaching
+the towns of Macureguarai and Manoa, situate on the banks of lake
+Cassipa and of lake Rupunuwini or Dorado, put an end to this
+expedition.
+
+Raleigh went scarcely the distance of sixty leagues along the Orinoco;
+but he names the upper tributary streams, according to the vague
+notions he had collected; the Cari, the Pao, the Apure (Capuri?) the
+Guarico (Voari?) the Meta,* and even, "in the province of Baraguan,
+the great cataract of Athule (Atures), which prevents all further
+navigation." (* Raleigh distinguishes the Meta from the Beta, which
+flows into the Baraguan (the Orinoco) conjointly with the Daune, near
+Athule; as he distinguishes the Casanare, a tributary stream of the
+Meta, and the Casnero, which comes from the south, and appears to be
+the Rio Cuchivero. All above the confluence of the Apure was then very
+confusedly known; and streams that flow into the tributary streams of
+the Orinoco were considered as flowing into this river itself. The
+Apure (Capuri) and Meta appeared long to be the same river on account
+of their proximity, and the numerous branches by which the Arauca and
+the Apure join each other. Is the name of Beta perchance connected
+with that of the nation of Betoyes, of the plains of the Casanare and
+the Meta? Hondius and the geographers who have followed him, with the
+exception of De L'Isle (1700), and of Sanson (1656), place the
+province of Amapaja erroneously to the east of the Orinoco. We see
+clearly by the narrative of Raleigh (pages 26 and 72), that Amapaja is
+the inundated country between the Meta and the Guarico. Where are the
+rivers Dauney and Ubarro? The Guaviare appears to me to be the Goavar
+of Raleigh.) Notwithstanding Raleigh's exaggeration, so little worthy
+of a statesman, his narrative contains important materials for the
+history of geography. The Orinoco above the confluence of the Apure
+was at that period as little known to Europeans, as in our time the
+course of the Niger below Sego. The names of several very remote
+tributary streams were known, but not their situation; and when the
+same name, differently pronounced, or not properly apprehended by the
+ear, furnished different sounds, their number was multiplied. Other
+errors had perhaps their source in the little interest which Antonio
+de Berrio, the Spanish governor, felt in communicating true and
+precise notions to Raleigh, who indeed complains of his prisoner, "as
+being utterly unlearned, and not knowing the east from the west." I
+shall not here discuss the point how far the belief of Raleigh, in all
+he relates of inland seas similar to the Caspian sea; on "the imperial
+and golden city of Manoa," and on the magnificent palaces built by the
+emperor Inga of Guyana, in imitation of those of his ancestors at
+Peru, was real or pretended. The learned historian of Brazil, Mr.
+Southey, and the biographer of Raleigh, Sir G. Cayley, have recently
+thrown much light on this subject. It seems to me difficult to doubt
+of the extreme credulity of the chief of the expedition, and of his
+lieutenants. We see Raleigh adapted everything to the hypotheses he
+had previously formed. He was certainly deceived himself; but when he
+sought to influence the imagination of queen Elizabeth, and execute
+the projects of his own ambitious policy, he neglected none of the
+artifices of flattery. He described to the Queen "the transports of
+those barbarous nations at the sight of her picture;" he would have
+"the name of the august virgin, who knows how to conquer empires,
+reach as far as the country of the warlike women of the Orinoco and
+the Amazon;" he asserts that "at the period when the Spaniards
+overthrew the throne of Cuzco, an ancient prophecy was found, which
+predicted that the dynasty of the Incas would one day owe its
+restoration to Great Britain;" he advises that "on pretext of
+defending the territory against external enemies, garrisons of three
+or four thousand English should be placed in the towns of the Inca,
+obliging this prince to pay a contribution annually to Queen Elizabeth
+of three hundred thousand pounds sterling;" finally he adds, like a
+man who foresees the future, that "all the vast countries of South
+America will one day belong to the English nation."* (* "I showed them
+her Majesty's picture, which the Casigui so admired and honoured, as
+it had been easy to have brought them idolatrous thereof. And I
+further remember that Berreo confessed to me and others (which I
+protest before the majesty of God to be true), that there was found
+among prophecies at Peru (at such a time as the empire was reduced to
+the Spanish obedience) in their chiefest temple, among divers others
+which foreshowed the losse of the said empyre, that from Inglatierra
+those Ingas should be again in time to come restored. The Inga would
+yield to her Majesty by composition many hundred thousand pounds
+yearely as to defend him against all enemies abroad and defray the
+expenses of a garrison of 3000 or 4000 soldiers. It seemeth to me that
+this Empyre of Guiana is reserved for the English nation." (Raleigh
+pages 7, 17, 51 and 100.)
+
+The four voyages of Raleigh to the Lower Orinoco succeeded each other
+from 1595 to 1617. After all these useless attempts the ardour of
+research after El Dorado has greatly diminished. No expeditions have
+since been formed by a numerous band of colonists; but some solitary
+enterprises have been encouraged by the governors of the provinces.
+The notions spread by the journeys of Father Acunha in 1688, and
+Father Fritz in 1637, to the auriferous land of the Manoas of
+Jurubesh, and to the Laguna de Ore, contributed to renew the ideas of
+El Dorado in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies north and south of
+the equator. At Cuenza, in the kingdom of Quito, I met with some men,
+who were employed by the bishop Marfil to seek at the east of the
+Cordilleras, in the plains of Macas, the ruins of the town of Logrono,
+which was believed to be situate in a country rich in gold. We learn
+by the journal of Hortsmann, which I have often quoted, that it was
+supposed, in 1740, El Dorado might be reached from Dutch Guiana by
+going up the Rio Essequibo. Don Manuel Centurion, the governor of
+Santo Thome del Angostura, displayed an extreme ardour for reaching
+the imaginary lake of Manoa. Arimuicaipi, an Indian of the nation of
+the Ipurucotos, went down the Rio Carony, and by his false narrations
+inflamed the imagination of the Spanish colonists. He showed them in
+the southern sky the Clouds of Magellan, the whitish light of which he
+said was the reflection of the argentiferous rocks situate in the
+middle of the Laguna Parima. This was describing in a very poetical
+manner the splendour of the micaceous and talcy slates of his country!
+Another Indian chief, known among the Caribs of Essequibo by the name
+El Capitan Jurado, vainly attempted to undeceive the governor
+Centurion. Fruitless attempts were made by the Caura and the Rio
+Paragua; and several hundred persons perished miserably in these rash
+enterprises, from which, however, geography has derived some
+advantages. Nicolas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos (1775 to 1780) were
+employed by the Spanish governor. Santos, proceeding by the Carony,
+the Paragua, the Paraguamusi, the Anocapra, and the mountains of
+Pacaraymo and Quimiropaca, reached the Uraricuera and the Rio Branco.
+I found some valuable information in the journals of these perilous
+expeditions.
+
+The maritime charts which the Florentine traveller, Amerigo Vespucci,*
+constructed in the early years of the sixteenth century, as Piloto
+mayor de la Casa de Contratacion of Seville, and in which he placed,
+perhaps artfully, the words Tierra de Amerigo, have not reached our
+times. (* He died in 1512, as Mr. Munoz has proved by the documents of
+the archives of Simancas. Hist. del Nuevo Mundo volume 1 page 17.
+Tiraboschi, Storia della Litteratura.) The most ancient monument we
+possess of the geography of the New Continent,* is the map of the
+world by John Ruysch, annexed to a Roman edition of Ptolemy in 1508.
+(* See the learned researches of M. Walckenaer, in the Bibliographie
+Universelle volume 6 page 209 article Buckinck. On the maps added to
+Ptolemy in 1506 we find no trace of the discoveries of Columbus.) We
+there find Yucatan and Honduras (the most southern part of Mexico)*
+figured as an island, by the name of Culicar. (* No doubt the lands
+between Uucatan, Cape Gracias a Dios, and Veragua, discovered by
+Columbus (1502 and 1503), by Solis, and by Pincon (1506).) There is no
+isthmus of Panama, but a passage, which permits of a direct navigation
+from Europe to India. The great southern island (South America) bears
+the name of Terra de Pareas, bounded by two rivers, the Rio Lareno and
+the Rio Formoso. These Pareas are, no doubt, the inhabitants of Paria,
+a name which Christopher Columbus had already heard in 1498, and which
+was long applied to a great part of America. Bishop Geraldini says
+clearly, in a letter addressed to Pope Leo X in 1516: Insula illa,
+quae Europa et Asia est major, quam indocti Continentem Asiae
+appellant, et alii Americam vel Pariam nuncupant [that island, larger
+than Europe and Asia joined together, which the unlearned call the
+continent of Asia, and others America or Paria].* (* Alexandri
+Geraldini Itinerarium page 250.) I find in the map of the world of
+1508 no trace whatever of the Orinoco. This river appears, for the
+first time, by the name of Rio Dolce, on the celebrated map
+constructed in 1529 by Diego Ribeyro, cosmographer of the emperor
+Charles V, which was published, with a learned commentary, by M.
+Sprengel, in 1795. Neither Columbus (1498) nor Alonzo de Ojeda,
+accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci (1499), had seen the real mouth of the
+Orinoco; they confounded it with the northern opening of the Gulf of
+Paria, to which they attributed (by an exaggeration so common to the
+navigators of that time, an immense volume of fresh water. It was
+Vicente Yanez Pincon, who, after having discovered the mouth of the
+Rio Maranon,* first saw, in 1500, that of the Orinoco. (* The name of
+Maranon was known fifty-nine years before the expedition of Lopez de
+Aguirre; the denomination of the river is therefore erroneously
+attributed to the nickname of maranos (hogs), which this adventurer
+gave his companions in going down the river Amazon. Was not this
+vulgar jest rather an allusion to the Indian name of the river?) He
+called this river Rio Dolce--a name which, since Ribeyro, was long
+preserved on our maps, and which has sometimes been given erroneously
+to the Maroni and to the Essequibo.
+
+The great Lake Parima did not appear on our maps* till after the first
+voyage of Raleigh. (* I find no trace of it on a very rare map,
+dedicated to Richard Hakluyt, and constructed on the meridian of
+Toledo. Novus Orbis, Paris 1587. In this map, published before the
+voyage of Quiros, a group of Islands is marked (Infortunatae Insulae)
+where the Friendly Islands actually are. Ortelius (1570) already knew
+them. Were they islands seen by Magellan?) It was Jodocus Hondius who,
+as early as the year 1599, fixed the ideas of geographers and figured
+the interior of Spanish Guiana as a country well known. He transformed
+the isthmus between the Rio Branco and the Rio Rupunuwini (one of the
+tributary streams of the Essequibo) into the lake Rupunuwini, Parima,
+or Dorado, two hundred leagues long, and forty broad, and bounded by
+the latitudes of 1 degree 45 minutes south, and 2 degrees north. This
+inland sea, larger than the Caspian, is sometimes traced in the midst
+of a mountainous country, without communication with any river;* (*
+See, for instance, Hondius, Nieuwe Caerte van het goudrycke landt
+Guiana, 1599; and Sanson's Map of America, in 1656 and 1669.) and
+sometimes the Rio Oyapok (Waiapago, Japoc, Viapoco) and the Rio de
+Cayana are made to issue from it.* (* Brasilia et Caribaua, auct.
+Hondio et Huelsen 1599.) The first of these rivers, confounded in the
+eighth article of the treaty of Utrecht with the Rio de Vicente Pincon
+(Rio Calsoene of D'Anville), has been, even down to the late congress
+of Vienna, the subject of interminable discussions between the French
+and Portuguese diplomatists.* (* I have treated this question in a
+Memoire sur la fixation des limites de La Guyane Francaise, written at
+the desire of the Portuguese government during the negotiations of
+Paris in 1817. (See Schoell, Archives polit. or Pieces inedites volume
+1 pages 48 to 58.) Ribeyro, in his celebrated map of the world of
+1529, places the Rio de Vicente Pincon south of the Amazon, near the
+Gulf of Maranhao. This navigator landed at this spot, after having
+been at Cape Saint Augustin, and before he reached the mouth of the
+Amazon. Herrera dec. I page 107. The narrative of Gomara, Hist. Nat.
+1553 page 48, is very confused in a geographical point of view.) The
+second is an imaginary prolongation either of the Tonnegrande or of
+the Oyac (Wia?). The inland sea (Laguna Parime) was at first placed in
+such a manner that its western extremity coincided with the meridian
+of the confluence of the Apure and the Orinoco. By degrees it was
+advanced toward the east,* the western extremity being found to the
+south of the mouth of the Orinoco. (* Compare the maps of 1599 with
+those of Sanson (1656) and of Blaeuw (1633).) This change produced
+others in the respective situations of the lakes Parima and Cassipa,
+as well as in the direction of the course of the Orinoco. This great
+river is represented as running from its delta as far as beyond the
+Meta, from south to north, like the river Magdalena. The tributary
+streams, therefore, which were made to issue from the lake Cassipa,
+the Carony, the Arui, and the Caura, then took the direction of the
+latitude, while in nature they follow that of a meridian. Beside the
+lakes Parima and Cassipa, a third was traced upon the maps, from which
+the Aprouague (Apurwaca) was made to issue. It was then a general
+practice among geographers to attach all rivers to great lakes. By
+this means Ortelius joined the Nile to the Zaire or Rio Congo, and the
+Vistula to the Wolga and the Dnieper. North of Mexico, in the
+pretended kingdoms of Quivira and Cibola, rendered celebrated by the
+falsehoods of the monk Marcos de Niza, a great inland sea was
+imagined, from which the Rio Colorado of California was made to
+issue.* (* This is the Mexican Dorado, where it was pretended that
+vessels had been found on the coasts [of New Albion?] loaded with the
+merchandise of Catayo and China (Gomara, Hist. Gen. page 117), and
+where Fray Marcos (like Huten in the country of the Omaguas) had seen
+from afar the gilded roofs of a great town, one of the Siete Ciudades.
+The inhabitants have great dogs, en los quales quando se mudan cargan
+su menage. (Herrera dec. 6 pages 157 and 206.) Later discoveries,
+however, leave no doubt that there existed a centre of civilization in
+those countries.) A branch of the Rio Magdalena flowed to the Laguna
+de Maracaybo; and the lake of Xarayes, near which a southern Dorado
+was placed, communicated with the Amazon, the Miari* (Meary) (* As
+this river flows into the gulf of Maranhao (so named because some
+French colonists, Rifault, De Vaux, and Ravadiere, believed they were
+opposite the mouth of the Maranon or Amazon), the ancient maps call
+the Meary Maranon, or Maranham. See the maps of Hondius, and Paulo de
+Forlani. Perhaps the idea that Pincon, to whom the discovery of the
+real Maranon is due, had landed in these parts, since become
+celebrated by the shipwreck of Ayres da Cunha, has also contributed to
+this confusion. The Meary appears to me identical with the Rio de
+Vicente Pincon of Diego Ribeyro, which is more than one hundred and
+forty leagues from that of the modern geographers. At present the name
+of Maranon has remained at the same time to the river of the Amazons,
+and to a province much farther eastward, the capital of which is
+Maranhao, or St. Louis de Maranon.) and the Rio de San Francisco.
+These hydrographic reveries have for the most part disappeared; but
+the lakes Cassipa and Dorado have been long simultaneously preserved
+on our maps.
+
+In following the history of geography we see the Cassipa, figured as a
+rectangular parallelogram, enlarge by degrees at the expense of El
+Dorado. While the latter is sometimes suppressed, no one ventures to
+touch the former,* which is the Rio Paragua (a tributary stream of the
+Caroni) enlarged by temporary inundations. (* Sanson, Course of the
+Amazon, 1680; De L'Isle, Amerique Merid. 1700. D'Anville, first
+edition of his America, 1748.) When D'Anville learned from the
+expedition of Solano that the sources of the Orinoco, far from lying
+to the west, on the back of the Andes of Pasto, came from the east,
+from the mountains of Parima, he restored in the second edition of his
+fine map of America (1760) the Laguna Parime, and very arbitrarily
+made it to communicate with three rivers, the Orinoco, the Rio Branco,
+and the Essequibo, by the Mazuruni and the Cujuni; assigning to it the
+latitude from 3 to 4 degrees north, which had till then been given to
+lake Cassipa.
+
+I have now stated, as I announced above, the variable forms which
+geographical errors have assumed at different periods. I have
+explained what in the configuration of the soil, the course of the
+rivers, the names of the tributary streams, and the multiplicity of
+the portages, may have given rise to the hypothesis of an inland sea
+in the centre of Guiana. However dry discussions of this nature may
+appear, they ought not to be regarded as sterile and fruitless. They
+show travellers what remains to be discovered; and make known the
+degree of certainty which long-repeated assertions may claim. It is
+with maps, as with those tables of astronomical positions which are
+contained in our ephemerides, designed for the use of navigators: the
+most heterogeneous materials have been employed in their construction
+during a long space of time; and, without the aid of the history of
+geography, we could scarcely hope to discover at some future day on
+what authority every partial statement rests.
+
+Before I resume the thread of my narrative, it remains for me to add a
+few general reflections on the auriferous lands situate between the
+Amazon and the Orinoco. We have just shown that the fable of El
+Dorado, like the most celebrated fables of the nations of the ancient
+world, has been applied progressively to different spots. We have seen
+it advance from the south-west to the north-east, from the oriental
+declivity of the Andes towards the plains of Rio Branco and the
+Essequibo, an identical direction with that in which the Caribs for
+ages conducted their warlike and mercantile expeditions. It may be
+conceived that the gold of the Cordilleras might be conveyed from hand
+to hand, through an infinite number of tribes, as far as the shore of
+Guiana; since, long before the fur-trade had attracted English,
+Russian, and American vessels to the north-west coast of America, iron
+tools had been carried from New Mexico and Canada beyond the Rocky
+Mountains. From an error in longitude, the traces of which we find in
+all the maps of the 16th century, the auriferous mountains of Peru and
+New Granada were supposed to be much nearer the mouths of the Orinoco
+and the Amazon than they are in fact. Geographers have the habit of
+augmenting and extending beyond measure countries that are recently
+discovered. In the map of Peru, published at Verona by Paulo di
+Forlani, the town of Quito is placed at the distance of 400 leagues
+from the coast of the South Sea, on the meridian of Cumana; and the
+Cordillera of the Andes there fills almost the whole surface of
+Spanish, French, and Dutch Guiana. This erroneous opinion of the
+breadth of the Andes has no doubt contributed to give so much
+importance to the granitic plains that extend on their eastern side.
+Unceasingly confounding the tributary streams of the Amazon with those
+of the Orinoco, or (as the lieutenants of Raleigh called it, to
+flatter their chief) the Rio Raleana, to the latter were attributed
+all the traditions which had been collected respecting the Dorado of
+Quixos, the Omaguas, and the Manoas.* (* The flight of Manco-Inca,
+brother of Atahualpa, to the east of the Cordilleras, no doubt gave
+rise to the tradition of the new empire of the Incas in Dorado. It was
+forgotten that Caxamarca and Cuzco, two towns where the princes of
+that unfortunate family were at the time of their emigration, are
+situate to the south of the Amazon, in the latitudes seven degrees
+eight minutes, and thirteen degrees twenty-one minutes south, and
+consequently four hundred leagues south-west of the pretended town of
+Manoa on the lake Parima (three degrees and a half north latitude). It
+is probable that, from the extreme difficulty of penetration into the
+plains east of the Andes, covered with forests, the fugitive princes
+never went beyond the banks of the Beni. The following is what I
+learnt with certainty respecting the emigration of the family of the
+Inca, some sad vestiges of which I saw on passing by Caxamarca.
+Manco-Inca, acknowledged as the legitimate successor of Atahualpa,
+made war without success against the Spaniards. He retired at length
+into the mountains and thick forests of Vilcabamba, which are
+accessible either by Huamanga and Antahuaylla, or by the valley of
+Yucay, north of Cuzco. Of the two Sons of Manco-Inca, the eldest,
+Sayri-Tupac, surrendered himself to the Spaniards, upon the invitation
+of the viceroy of Peru, Hurtado de Mendoza. He was received with great
+pomp at Lima, was baptized there, and died peaceably in the fine
+valley of Yucay. The youngest son of Manco-Inca, Tupac-Amaru, was
+carried off by stratagem from the forests of Vilcabamba, and beheaded
+on pretext of a conspiracy formed against the Spanish usurpers. At the
+same period, thirty-five distant relations of the Inca Atahualpa were
+seized, and conveyed to Lima, in order to remain under the inspection
+of the Audiencia. (Garcilasso volume 2 pages 194, 480 and 501.) It is
+interesting to inquire whether any other princes of the family of
+Manco-Capac have remained in the forests of Vilcabamba, and if there
+still exist any descendants of the Incas of Peru between the Apurimac
+and the Beni. This supposition gave rise in 1741 to the famous
+rebellion of the Chuncoes, and to that of the Amages and Campoes led
+on by their chief, Juan Santos, called the false Atahualpa. The late
+political events of Spain have liberated from prison the remains of
+the family of Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, an artful and intrepid man,
+who, under the name of the Inca Tupac-Amaru, attempted in 1781 that
+restoration of the ancient dynasty which Raleigh had projected in the
+time of Queen Elizabeth.) The geographer Hondius supposed that the
+Andes of Loxa, celebrated for their forests of cinchona, were only
+twenty leagues distant from the lake Parima, or the banks of the Rio
+Branco. This proximity procured credit to the tidings of the flight of
+the Inca into the forests of Guiana, and the removal of the treasures
+of Cuzco to the easternmost parts of that country. No doubt in going
+up towards the east, either by the Meta or by the Amazon, the
+civilization of the natives, between the Puruz, the Jupura, and the
+Iquiari, was observed to increase. They possessed amulets, little
+idols of molten gold, and chairs, elegantly carved; but these traces
+of dawning civilization are far distant from those cities and houses
+of stone described by Raleigh and those who followed him. We have made
+drawings of some ruins of great edifices east of the Cordilleras, when
+going down from Loxa towards the Amazon, in the province of Jaen de
+Bracamoros; and thus far the Incas had carried their arms, their
+religion, and their arts. The inhabitants of the Orinoco were also,
+before the conquest, when abandoned to themselves, somewhat more
+civilized than the independent hordes of our days. They had populous
+villages along the river, and a regular trade with more southern
+nations; but nothing indicates that they ever constructed an edifice
+of stone. We saw no vestige of any during the course of our journey.
+
+Though the celebrity of the riches of Spanish Guiana is chiefly
+assignable to the geographical situation of the country and the errors
+of the old maps, we are not justified in denying the existence of any
+auriferous land in the tract of country of eighty-two thousand square
+leagues, which stretches between the Orinoco and the Amazon, on the
+east of the Andes of Quito and New Granada. What I saw of this country
+between the second and eighth degrees of latitude, and the sixty-sixth
+and seventy-first degrees of longitude, is entirely composed of
+granite, and of a gneiss passing into micaceous and talcous slate.
+These rocks appear naked in the lofty mountains of Parima, as well as
+in the plains of the Atabapo and the Cassiquiare. Granite predominates
+there over the other rocks; and though, in both continents, the
+granite of ancient formation is pretty generally destitute of
+gold-ore, we cannot thence conclude that the granite of Parima
+contains no vein, no stratum of auriferous quartz. On the east of the
+Cassiquiare towards the sources of the Orinoco, we observed that the
+number of these strata and these veins increased. The granite of these
+countries, by its structure, its mixture of hornblende, and other
+geological features alike important, appears to me to belong to a more
+recent formation, perhaps posterior to the gneiss, and analogous to
+the stanniferous granites, the hyalomictes, and the pegmatites. Now
+the least ancient granites are also the least destitute of metals; and
+several auriferous rivers and torrents in the Andes, in the Salzburg,
+Fichtelgebirge, and the table-land of the two Castiles, lead us to
+believe that these granites sometimes contain native gold, and
+portions of auriferous pyrites and galena disseminated throughout the
+whole rock, as is the case with tin and magnetic and micaceous iron.
+The group of the mountains of Parima, several summits of which attain
+the height of one thousand three hundred toises, was almost entirely
+unknown before our visit to the Orinoco. This group, however, is a
+hundred leagues long and eighty broad; and though wherever M. Bonpland
+and I traversed this vast group of mountains, its structure seemed to
+us extremely uniform, it would be wrong to affirm that it may not
+contain very metalliferous transition rocks and mica-slates
+superimposed on the granite.
+
+I have already observed that the silvery lustre and frequency of mica
+have contributed to give Guiana great celebrity for metallic wealth.
+The peak of Calitamini, glowing every evening at sunset with a reddish
+fire, still attracts the attention of the inhabitants of Maypures.
+According to the fabulous stories of the natives, the islets of
+mica-slate, situate in lake Amucu, augment by their reflection the
+lustre of the nebulae of the southern sky. "Every mountain," says
+Raleigh, "every stone in the forests of the Orinoco, shines like the
+precious metals; if it be not gold, it is madre del oro (mother of
+gold)." Raleigh asserts that he brought back gangues of auriferous
+white quartz ("harde white sparr"); and to prove the richness of this
+ore he gives an account of the assays that were made by the officers
+of the mint at London.* (* Messrs. Westewood, Dimocke, and Bulmar.) I
+have no reason to believe that the chemists of that time sought to
+lead Queen Elizabeth into error, and I will not insult the memory of
+Raleigh by supposing, like his contemporaries,* that the auriferous
+quartz which he brought home had not been collected in America. (* See
+the defence of Raleigh in the preface to the Discovery of Guiana, 1596
+pages 2 to 4.) We cannot judge of things from which we are separated
+by so long an interval of time. The gneiss of the littoral chain*
+contains traces of the precious metals (* In the southern branch of
+this chain which passes by Yusma, Villa de Cura and Ocumare,
+particularly near Buria, Los Teques and Los Marietas.); and some
+grains of gold have been found in the mountains of Parima, near the
+mission of Encaramada. How can we infer the absolute sterility of the
+primitive rocks of Guiana from testimony merely negative, from the
+circumstance that during a journey of three months we saw no
+auriferous vein appearing above the soil?
+
+In order to bring together whatever may enlighten the government of
+this country on a subject so long disputed, I will enter upon a few
+more geological considerations. The mountains of Brazil,
+notwithstanding the numerous traces of embedded ore which they display
+between Saint Paul and Villa Rica, have furnished only stream-works of
+gold. More than six-sevenths of the seventy-eight thousand marks
+(52,000 pounds) of this metal, with which at the beginning of the 19th
+century America annually supplied the commerce of Europe, have come,
+not from the lofty Cordilleras of the Andes, but from the alluvial
+lands on the east and west of the Cordilleras. These lands are raised
+but little above the level of the sea, like those of Sonora in Mexico,
+and of Choco and Barbacoas in New Granada; or they stretch along in
+table-lands, as in the interior of Brazil.* (* The height of Villa
+Rica is six hundred and thirty toises; but the great table-land of the
+Capitania de Minas Geraes is only three hundred toises in height. See
+the profile which Colonel d'Eschwege has published at Weimar, with an
+indication of the rocks, in imitation of my profile of the Mexican
+table-land.) Is it not probable that some other depositions of
+auriferous earth extend toward the northern hemisphere, as far as the
+banks of the Upper Orinoco and the Rio Negro, two rivers which form
+but one basin with that of the Amazon? I observed, when speaking of El
+Dorado de Canelas, the Omaguas and the Iquiare, that almost all the
+rivers which flow from the west wash down gold in abundance, and very
+far from the Cordilleras. From Loxa to Popayan these Cordilleras are
+composed alternately of trachytes and primitive rocks. The plains of
+Ramora, of Logrono, and of Macas (Sevilla del Oro), the great Rio Napo
+with its tributary streams* (the Ansupi and the Coca, in the province
+of Quixos (* The little rivers Cosanga, Quixos, and Papallacta or
+Maspa, which form the Coca, rise on the eastern slope of the Nevado de
+Antisana. The Rio Ansupi brings down the largest grains of gold: it
+flows into the Napo, south of the Archidona, above the mouth of the
+Misagualli. Between the Misagualli and the Rio Coca, in the province
+of Avila, five other northern tributary streams of the Napo (the
+Siguna, Munino, Suno, Guataracu, and Pucono) are known as being
+singularly auriferous. These local details are taken from several
+manuscript reports of the Governor of Quixos, from which I traced the
+map of the countries east of the Antisana.)), the Caqueta de Mocoa as
+far as the mouth of the Fragua, in fine, all the country comprised
+between Jaen de Bracamoros and the Guaviare,* (* From Rio Santiago, a
+tributary stream of the Upper Maranon, to the Llanos of Caguan and of
+San Juan.) preserve their ancient celebrity for metallic wealth. More
+to the east, between the sources of the Guainia (Rio Negro), the
+Uaupes, the Iquiare, and the Yurubesh, we find a soil incontestably
+auriferous. There Acunha and Father Fritz placed their Laguna del Oro;
+and various accounts which I obtained at San Carlos from Portuguese
+Americans explain perfectly what La Condamine has related of the
+plates of beaten gold found in the hands of the natives. If we pass
+from the Iquiare to the left bank of the Rio Negro, we enter a country
+entirely unknown, between the Rio Branco, the sources of the
+Essequibo, and the mountains of Portuguese Guiana. Acunha speaks of
+the gold washed down by the northern tributary streams of the Lower
+Maranon, such as the Rio Trombetas (Oriximina), the Curupatuba, and
+the Ginipape (Rio de Paru). It appears to me a circumstance worthy of
+attention that all these rivers descend from the same table-land, the
+northern slope of which contains the lake Amucu, the Dorado of Raleigh
+and the Dutch, and the isthmus between the Rupunuri (Rupunuwini) and
+the Rio Mahu. There is no reason for denying the existence of
+auriferous alluvial lands far from the Cordilleras of the Andes on the
+north of the Amazon; as there are on the south in the mountains of
+Brazil. The Caribs of the Carony, the Cuyuni and the Essequibo, have
+practised on a small scale the washing of alluvial earth from the
+remotest times.* (* "On the north of the confluence of the Curupatuba
+and the Amazon," says Acunha, "is the mountain of Paraguaxo, which,
+when illumined by the sun, glows with the most beautiful colours; and
+thence from time to time issues a horrible noise (revienta con grandes
+struenos)." Is there a volcanic phenomenon in this eastern part of the
+New Continent? or is it the love of the marvellous, which has given
+rise to the tradition of the bellowings (bramidos) of Paraguaxo? The
+lustre emitted from the sides of the mountain recalls to mind what we
+have mentioned above of the miraculous rocks of Calitamini, and the
+island Ipomucena, in the imaginary Lake Dorado. In one of the Spanish
+letters intercepted at sea by Captain George Popham, in 1594, it is
+said, "Having inquired of the natives whence they obtained the
+spangles and powder of gold, which we found in their huts, and which
+they stick on their skin by means of some greasy substances, they told
+us that in a certain plain they tore up the grass, and gathered the
+earth in baskets, to subject it to the process of washing." Raleigh
+page 109. Can this passage be explained by supposing that the Indians
+sought thus laboriously, not for gold, but for spangles of mica, which
+the natives of Rio Caura still employ as ornaments, when they paint
+their bodies?) When we examine the structure of mountains and embrace
+in one point of view an extensive surface of the globe, distances
+disappear; and places the most remote insensibly draw near each other.
+The basin of the Upper Orinoco, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon is
+bounded by the mountains of Parime on the north, and by those of Minas
+Geraes, and Matogrosso on the south. The opposite slopes of the same
+valley often display an analogy in their geological relations.
+
+I have described in this and the preceding volume the vast provinces
+of Venezuela and Spanish Guiana. While examining their natural limits,
+their climate, and their productions, I have discussed the influence
+produced by the configuration of the soil on agriculture, commerce,
+and the more or less rapid progress of society. I have successively
+passed over the three regions that succeed each other from north to
+south; from the Mediterranean of the West Indies to the forests of the
+Upper Orinoco and of the Amazon. The fertile land of the shore, the
+centre of agricultural riches, is succeeded by the Llanos, inhabited
+by pastoral tribes. These Llanos are in their turn bordered by the
+region of forests, the inhabitants of which enjoy, I will not say
+liberty, which is always the result of civilization, but a sort of
+savage independence. On the limit of these two latter zones the
+struggle now exists which will decide the emancipation and future
+prosperity of America. The changes which are preparing cannot efface
+the individual character of each region; but the manners and condition
+of the inhabitants will assume a more uniform colour. This
+consideration perhaps adds interest to a tour made in the beginning of
+the nineteenth century. We like to see, traced in the same picture,
+the civilized nations of the sea-shore, and the feeble remains of the
+natives of the Orinoco, who know no other worship than that of the
+powers of nature; and who, like the ancient Germans, deify the
+mysterious object which excites their simple admiration.* (* Deorum
+nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident.
+Tacitus Germania 9.)
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.26.
+
+THE LLANOS DEL PAO, OR EASTERN PART OF THE PLAINS OF VENEZUELA.
+MISSIONS OF THE CARIBS.
+LAST VISIT TO THE COAST OF NUEVA BARCELONA, CUMANA, AND ARAYA.
+
+Night had set in when we crossed for the last time the bed of the
+Orinoco. We purposed to rest near the little fort San Rafael, and on
+the following morning at daybreak to set out on our journey through
+the plains of Venezuela. Nearly six weeks had elapsed since our
+arrival at Angostura; and we earnestly wished to reach the coast, with
+the view of finding, at Cumana, or at Nueva Barcelona, a vessel in
+which we might embark for the island of Cuba, thence to proceed to
+Mexico. After the sufferings to which we had been exposed during
+several months, whilst sailing in small boats on rivers infested by
+mosquitos, the idea of a sea voyage was not without its charms. We had
+no idea of ever again returning to South America. Sacrificing the
+Andes of Peru to the Archipelago of the Philippines (of which so
+little is known), we adhered to our old plan of remaining a year in
+New Spain, then proceeding in a galleon from Acapulco to Manila, and
+returning to Europe by way of Bassora and Aleppo. We imagined that,
+when we had once left the Spanish possessions in America, the fall of
+that ministry which had procured for us so many advantages, could not
+be prejudicial to the execution of our enterprise.
+
+Our mules were in waiting for us on the left bank of the Orinoco. The
+collection of plants, and the different geological series which we had
+brought from the Esmeralda and Rio Negro, had greatly augmented our
+baggage; and, as it would have been dangerous to lose sight of our
+herbals, we expected to make a very slow journey across the Llanos.
+The heat was excessive, owing to the reverberation of the soil, which
+was almost everywhere destitute of vegetation; yet the centigrade
+thermometer during the day (in the shade) was only from thirty to
+thirty-four degrees, and during the night, from twenty-seven to
+twenty-eight degrees. Here, therefore, as almost everywhere within the
+tropics, it was less the absolute degree of heat than its duration
+that affected our sensations. We spent thirteen days in crossing the
+plains, resting a little in the Caribbee (Caraibes) missions and in
+the little town of Pao. The eastern part of the Llanos through which
+we passed, between Angostura and Nueva Barcelona, presents the same
+wild aspect as the western part, through which we had passed from the
+valleys of Aragua to San Fernando de Apure. In the season of drought,
+(which is here called summer,) though the sun is in the southern
+hemisphere, the breeze is felt with greater force in the Llanos of
+Cumana, than in those of Caracas; because those vast plains, like the
+cultivated fields of Lombardy, form an inland basin, open to the east,
+and closed on the north, south and west by high chains of primitive
+mountains. Unfortunately, we could not avail ourselves of this
+refreshing breeze, of which the Llaneros, or the inhabitants of the
+plains, speak with rapture. It was now the rainy season north of the
+equator; and though it did not rain in the plains, the change in the
+declination of the sun had for some time caused the action of the
+polar currents to cease. In the equatorial regions, where the
+traveller may direct his course by observing the direction of the
+clouds, and where the oscillations of the mercury in the barometer
+indicate the hour almost as well as a clock, everything is subject to
+a regular and uniform rule. The cessation of the breezes, the
+setting-in of the rainy season, and the frequency of electric
+explosions, are phenomena which are found to be connected together by
+immutable laws.
+
+On entering the Llanos of Nueva Barcelona, we met with a Frenchman, at
+whose house we passed the first night, and who received us with the
+kindest hospitality. He was a native of Lyons, and he had left his
+country at a very early age. He appeared extremely indifferent to all
+that was passing beyond the Atlantic, or, as they say here,
+disdainfully enough, when speaking of Europe, on the other side of the
+great pool (al otro lado del charco). Our host was employed in joining
+large pieces of wood by means of a kind of glue called guayca. This
+substance, which is used by the carpenters of Angostura, resembles the
+best animal glue. It is found perfectly prepared between the bark and
+the alburnum of a creeper* of the family of the Combretaceae. (*
+Combretum guayca.) It probably resembles in its chemical properties
+birdlime, the vegetable principle obtained from the berries of the
+mistletoe, and the internal bark of the holly. An astonishing
+abundance of this glutinous matter issues from the twining branches of
+the vejuco de guayca when they are cut. Thus we find within the
+tropics a substance in a state of purity and deposited in peculiar
+organs, which in the temperate zone can be procured only by artificial
+means.
+
+We did not arrive until the third day at the Caribbee missions of
+Cari. We observed that the ground was less cracked by the drought in
+this country than in the Llanos of Calabozo. Some showers had revived
+the vegetation. Small gramina and especially those herbaceous
+sensitive-plants so useful in fattening half-wild cattle, formed a
+thick turf. At great distances one from another, there arose a few
+fan-palms (Corypha tectorum), rhopalas* (chaparro (* The Proteaceae
+are not, like the Araucaria, an exclusively southern form. We found
+the Rhopala complicata and the R. obovata, in 2 degrees 30 minutes,
+and in 10 degrees of north latitude.)), and malpighias* with
+coriaceous and glossy leaves. (* A neighbouring genus, Byrsonima
+cocollobaefolia, B. laurifolia, near Matagorda, and B. ropalaefolia.)
+The humid spots are recognized at a distance by groups of mauritia,
+which are the sago-trees of those countries. Near the coast this
+palm-tree constitutes the whole wealth of the Guaraon Indians; and it
+is somewhat remarkable that we also found it one hundred and sixty
+leagues farther south, in the midst of the forests of the Upper
+Orinoco, in the savannahs that surround the granitic peak of Duida.*
+(* The moriche, like the Sagus Rumphii, is a palm-tree of the marshes,
+not a palm-tree of the coast, like the Chamaerops humilis, the common
+cocoa-tree, and the lodoicea.) It was loaded at this season with
+enormous clusters of red fruit, resembling fir-cones. Our monkeys were
+extremely fond of this fruit, which has the taste of an over-ripe
+apple. The monkeys were placed with our baggage on the backs of the
+mules, and they made great efforts to reach the clusters that hung
+over their heads. The plain was undulating from the effects of the
+mirage; and when, after travelling for an hour, we reached the trunks
+of the palm-trees, which appeared like masts in the horizon, we
+observed with astonishment how many things are connected with the
+existence of a single plant. The winds, losing their velocity when in
+contact with the foliage and the branches, accumulate sand around the
+trunk. The smell of the fruit and the brightness of the verdure
+attract from afar the birds of passage, which love to perch on the
+slender, arrow-like branches of the palm-tree. A soft murmuring is
+heard around; and overpowered by the heat, and accustomed to the
+melancholy silence of the plains, the traveller imagines he enjoys
+some degree of coolness on hearing the slightest sound of the foliage.
+If we examine the soil on the side opposite to the wind, we find it
+remains humid long after the rainy season. Insects and worms,
+everywhere else so rare in the Llanos, here assemble and multiply.
+This one solitary and often stunted tree, which would not claim the
+notice of the traveller amid the forests of the Orinoco, spreads life
+around it in the desert.
+
+On the 13th of July we arrived at the village of Cari, the first of
+the Caribbee missions that are under the Observantin monks of the
+college of Piritu. We lodged as usual at the convent, that is, with
+the clergyman. Our host could scarcely comprehend how natives of the
+north of Europe could arrive at his dwelling from the frontiers of
+Brazil by the Rio Negro, and not by way of the coast of Cumana. He
+behaved to us in the most affable manner, at the same time manifesting
+that somewhat importunate curiosity which the appearance of a
+stranger, not a Spaniard, always excites in South America. He
+expressed his belief that the minerals we had collected must contain
+gold; and that the plants, dried with so much care, must be medicinal.
+Here, as in many parts of Europe, the sciences are thought worthy to
+occupy the mind only so far as they confer some immediate and
+practical benefit on society.
+
+We found more than five hundred Caribs in the village of Cari; and saw
+many others in the surrounding missions. It is curious to observe this
+nomad people, recently attached to the soil, and differing from all
+the other Indians in their physical and intellectual powers. They are
+a very tall race of men, their height being from five feet six inches,
+to five feet ten inches. According to a practice common in America,
+the women are more sparingly clothed than the men. The former wear
+only the guajuco, or perizoma, in the form of a band. The men have the
+lower part of the body wrapped in a piece of blue cloth, so dark as to
+be almost black. This drapery is so ample that, on the lowering of the
+temperature towards evening, the Caribs throw it over their shoulders.
+Their bodies tinged with onoto,* (* Rocou, obtained from the Bixa
+orellana. This paint is called in the Carib tongue, bichet.) their
+tall figures, of a reddish copper-colour, and their picturesque
+drapery, when seen from a distance, relieved against the sky as a
+background, resemble antique statues of bronze. The men cut their hair
+in a very peculiar manner, very much in the style of the monks. A part
+of the forehead is shaved, which makes it appear extremely high, and a
+circular tuft of hair is left near the crown of the head. This
+resemblance between the Caribs and the monks is not the result of
+mission life. It is not caused, as had been erroneously supposed, by
+the desire of the natives to imitate their masters, the Franciscan
+monks. The tribes that have preserved their wild independence, between
+the sources of the Carony and the Rio Branco, are distinguished by the
+same cerquillo de frailes,* (* Circular tonsure of the friars.) which
+the early Spanish historians at the time of the discovery of America
+attributed to the nations of the Carib race. All the men of this race
+whom we saw either during our voyage on the Lower Orinoco, or in the
+missions of Piritu, differ from the other Indians not only in the
+tallness of their stature, but also in the regularity of their
+features. Their noses are smaller, and less flattened; the cheek-bones
+are not so high; and their physiognomy has less of the Mongol
+character. Their eyes, which are darker than those of the other hordes
+of Guiana, denote intelligence, and it may even be said, the habit of
+reflection. The Caribs have a gravity of manner, and a certain look of
+sadness which is observable among most of the primitive inhabitants of
+the New World. The expression of severity in their features is
+heightened by the practice of dyeing their eyebrows with the juice of
+caruto: they also lengthen their eyebrows, thereby giving them the
+appearance of being joined together; and they often mark their faces
+all over with black spots to give themselves a more fierce appearance.
+The Carib women are less robust and good-looking than the men, On them
+devolves almost the whole burden of domestic work, as well as much of
+the out-door labour. They asked us eagerly for pins, which they stuck
+under their lower lip, making the head of the pin penetrate deeply
+into the skin. The young girls are painted red, and are almost naked.
+Among the different nations of the old and the new worlds, the idea of
+nudity is altogether relative. A woman in some parts of Asia is not
+permitted to show the tips of her fingers; while an Indian of the
+Carib race is far from considering herself unclothed if she wear round
+her waist a guajuco two inches broad. Even this band is regarded as
+less essential than the pigment which covers the skin. To go out of
+the hut without being painted, would be to transgress all the rules of
+Carib decency.
+
+The Indians of the missions of Piritu especially attracted our
+attention, because they belong to a nation which, by its daring, its
+warlike enterprises, and its mercantile spirit has exercised great
+influence over the vast country extending from the equator towards the
+northern coast. Everywhere on the Orinoco we beheld traces of the
+hostile incursions of the Caribs: incursions which heretofore extended
+from the sources of the Carony and the Erevato as far as the banks of
+the Ventuari, the Atacavi, and the Rio Negro. The Carib language is
+consequently the most general in this part of the world; it has even
+passed (like the language of the Lenni-Lenapes, or Algonkins, and the
+Natchez or Muskoghees, on the west of the Allegheny mountains) to
+tribes which have not a common origin.
+
+When we survey that multitude of nations spread over North and South
+America, eastward of the Cordilleras of the Andes, we fix our
+attention particularly on those who, having long held dominion over
+their neighbours, have acted an important part on the stage of the
+world. It is the business of the historian to group facts, to
+distinguish masses, to ascend to the common sources of many migrations
+and popular movements. Great empires, the regular organization of a
+sacerdotal hierarchy, and the culture which that organization favours
+in the first ages of society, have existed only on the high mountains
+of the western world. In Mexico we see a vast monarchy enclosing small
+republics; at Cundinamarca and Peru we find pure theocracies.
+Fortified towns, highways and large edifices of stone, an
+extraordinary development of the feudal system, the separation of
+castes, convents of men and women, religious congregations regulated
+by discipline more or less severe, complicated divisions of time
+connected with the calendars, the zodiacs, and the astrology of the
+enlightened nations of Asia--all these phenomena in America belong to
+one region only, the long and narrow Alpine band extending from the
+thirtieth degree of north latitude to the twenty-fifth degree of
+south. The migration of nations in the ancient world was from east to
+west; the Basques or Iberians, the Celts, the Germans and the Pelasgi,
+appeared in succession. In the New World similar migrations flowed
+from north to south. Among the nations that inhabit the two
+hemispheres, the direction of this movement followed that of the
+mountains; but in the torrid zone the temperate table-lands of the
+Cordilleras had greater influence on the destiny of mankind, than the
+mountains of Asia and central Europe. As, properly speaking, only
+civilized nations have a history, the history of the Americans is
+necessarily no more than that of a small portion of the inhabitants of
+the mountains. Profound obscurity envelops the vast country which
+stretches from the eastern slope of the Cordilleras towards the
+Atlantic; and for this very reason, whatever in that country relates
+to the preponderance of one nation over others, to distant migrations,
+to the physiognomical features which denote a foreign race, excite our
+deepest interest.
+
+Amidst the plains of North America, some powerful nation, which has
+disappeared, constructed circular, square, and octagonal
+fortifications; walls six thousand toises in length; tumuli from seven
+to eight hundred feet in diameter, and one hundred and forty feet in
+height, sometimes round, sometimes with several stories and containing
+thousands of skeletons. These skeletons are the remains of men less
+slender and more squat than the present inhabitants of those
+countries. Other bones wrapped in fabrics resembling those of the
+Sandwich and Feejee Islands are found in the natural grottoes of
+Kentucky. What is become of those nations of Louisiana anterior to the
+Lenni-Lenapes, the Shawanese, and perhaps even to the Sioux
+(Nadowesses, Nahcotas) of the Missouri, who are strongly mongolised;
+and who, it is believed, according to their own traditions, came from
+the coast of Asia? In the plains of South America we find only a very
+few hillocks of that kind called cerros hechos a mano;* (* Hills made
+by the hand, or artificial hills.) and nowhere any works of
+fortification analogous to those of the Ohio. However, on a vast space
+of ground, at the Lower Orinoco, as well as on the banks of the
+Cassiquiare and between the sources of the Essequibo and the Rio
+Branco, there are rocks of granite covered with symbolic figures.
+These sculptures denote that the extinct generations belonged to
+nations different from those which now inhabit the same regions. There
+seems to be no connection between the history of Mexico and that of
+Cundinamarca and of Peru; but in the plains of the east a warlike and
+long-dominant nation betrays in its features and its physical
+constitution traces of a foreign origin. The Caribs preserve
+traditions that seem to indicate ancient communications between North
+and South America. Such a phenomenon deserves particular attention. If
+it be true that savages are for the most part degenerate races,
+remnants escaped from a common wreck, as their languages, their
+cosmogonic fables, and numerous other indications seem to prove, it
+becomes doubly important to examine the course by which these remnants
+have been driven from one hemisphere to the other.
+
+That fine race of people, the Caribs, now occupy only a small part of
+the country which they inhabited at the time of the discovery of
+America. The cruelties exercised by Europeans have entirely
+exterminated them from the West Indian Islands and the coasts of
+Darien; while under the government of the missions they have formed
+populous villages in the provinces of New Barcelona and Spanish
+Guiana. The Caribs who inhabit the Llanos of Piritu and the banks of
+the Carony and the Cuyuni may be estimated at more than thirty-five
+thousand. If we add to this number the independent Caribs who live
+westward of the mountains of Cayenne and Pacaraymo, between the
+sources of the Essequibo and the Rio Branco, we shall no doubt obtain
+a total of forty thousand individuals of pure race, unmixed with any
+other tribes of natives. Prior to my travels, the Caribs were
+mentioned in many geographical works as an extinct race. Writers
+unacquainted with the interior of the Spanish colonies of the
+continent supposed that the small islands of Dominica, Guadaloupe, and
+St. Vincent had been the principal abodes of that nation of which the
+only vestiges now remaining throughout the whole of the eastern West
+India Islands are skeletons petrified, or rather enveloped in a
+limestone containing madrepores.* (* These skeletons were discovered
+in 1805 by M. Cortez. They are encased in a formation of madrepore
+breccia, which the negroes call God's masonry, and which, like the
+travertin of Italy, envelops fragments of vases and other objects
+created by human skill. M. Dauxion Lavaysse and Dr. Koenig first made
+known in Europe this phenomenon which has greatly interested
+geologists.)
+
+The name of Caribs, which I find for the first time in a letter of
+Peter Martyr d'Anghiera is derived from Calina and Caripuna, the l and
+p being transferred into r and b. It is very remarkable that this
+name, which Columbus heard pronounced by the people of Hayti, was
+known to exist at the same time among the Caribs of the islands and
+those of the continent. From the word Carina, or Calina, has been
+formed Galibi (Caribi). This is the distinctive denomination of a
+tribe in French Guiana,* who are of much more diminutive stature than
+the inhabitants of Cari, but speaking one of the numerous dialects of
+the Carib tongue. (* The Galibis (Calibitis), the Palicours, and the
+Acoquouas, also cut their hair in the style of the monks; and apply
+bandages to the legs of their children for the purpose of swelling the
+muscles. They have the same predilection for green stones (saussurite)
+which we observed among the Carib nations of the Orinoco. There exist,
+besides, in French Guiana, twenty Indian tribes which are
+distinguished from the Galibis though their language proves that they
+have a common origin.) The inhabitants of the islands are called
+Calinago in the language of the men; and in that of the women,
+Callipinan. The difference in the language of the two sexes is more
+striking among the people of the Carib race than among other American
+nations (the Omaguas, the Guaranis, and the Chiquitos) where it
+applies only to a limited number of ideas; for instance, the words
+mother and child. It may be conceived that women, from their separate
+way of life, frame particular terms which men do not adopt. Cicero
+observes* that old forms of language are best preserved by women
+because by their position in society they are less exposed to those
+vicissitudes of life, changes of place and occupation which tend to
+corrupt the primitive purity of language among men. (* Cicero, de
+Orat. lib. 3 cap. 12 paragraph 45 ed. Verburg. Facilius enim mulieres
+incorruptam antiquitatem conservant, quod multorum sermonis expertes
+ea tenent semper, quae prima didicerunt.) But in the Carib nations the
+contrast between the dialect of the two sexes is so great that to
+explain it satisfactorily we must refer to another cause; and this may
+perhaps be found in the barbarous custom, practised by those nations,
+of killing their male prisoners, and carrying the wives of the
+vanquished into captivity. When the Caribs made an irruption into the
+archipelago of the West India Islands, they arrived there as a band of
+warriors, not as colonists accompanied by their families. The language
+of the female sex was formed by degrees, as the conquerors contracted
+alliances with the foreign women; it was composed of new elements,
+words distinct from the Carib words,* which in the interior of the
+gynaeceums were transmitted from generation to generation, but on
+which the structure, the combinations, the grammatical forms of the
+language of the men exercised an influence. (* The following are
+examples of the difference between the language of the men (m), and
+the women (w); isle, oubao (m), acaera (w); man, ouekelli (m), eyeri
+(w); but, irhen (m), atica (w).) There was then manifested in a small
+community the peculiarity which we now find in the whole group of the
+nations of the New Continent. The American languages, from Hudson's
+Bay to the Straits of Magellan, are in general characterized by a
+total disparity of words combined with a great analogy in their
+structure. They are like different substances invested with analogous
+forms. If we recollect that this phenomenon extends over one-half of
+our planet, almost from pole to pole; if we consider the shades in the
+grammatical forms (the genders applied to the three persons of the
+verb, the reduplications, the frequentatives, the duals); it appears
+highly astonishing to find a uniform tendency in the development of
+intelligence and language among so considerable a portion of the human
+race.
+
+We have just seen that the dialect of the Carib women in the West
+India Islands contains the vestiges of a language that was extinct.
+Some writers have imagined that this extinct language might be that of
+the Ygneris, or primitive inhabitants of the Caribbee Islands; others
+have traced in it some resemblance to the ancient idiom of Cuba, or to
+those of the Arowaks, and the Apalachites in Florida: but these
+hypotheses are all founded on a very imperfect knowledge of the idioms
+which it has been attempted to compare one with another.
+
+The Spanish writers of the sixteenth century inform us that the Carib
+nations then extended over eighteen or nineteen degrees of latitude,
+from the Virgin Islands east of Porto Rico, to the mouths of the
+Amazon. Another prolongation toward the west, along the coast-chain of
+Santa Marta and Venezuela, appears less certain. Gomara, however, and
+the most ancient historians, give the name of Caribana, not, as it has
+since been applied, to the country between the sources of the Orinoco
+and the mountains of French Guiana,* (* This name is found in the map
+of Hondius, of 1599, which accompanies the Latin edition of the
+narrative of Raleigh's voyage. In the Dutch edition Nieuwe Caerte van
+het goudrycke landt Guiana, the Llanos of Caracas, between the
+mountains of Merida and the Rio Pao, bear the name of Caribana. We may
+remark here, what we observe so often in the history of geography,
+that the same denomination has spread by degrees from west to east.)
+but to the marshy plains between the mouths of the Rio Atrato and the
+Rio Sinu. I have visited those coasts in going from the Havannah to
+Porto Bello; and I there learned that the cape which bounds the gulf
+of Darien or Uraba on the east, still bears the name of Punta
+Caribana. An opinion heretofore prevailed pretty generally that the
+Caribs of the West India Islands derived their origin, and even their
+name, from these warlike people of Darien. "From the eastern shore
+springs Cape Uraba, which the natives call Caribana, whence the Caribs
+of the island are said to have received their present name."* (* Inde
+Vrabam ab orientali prehendit ora, quam appellant indigenae Caribana,
+unde Caribes insulares originem habere nomenque retinere dicuntur.)
+Thus Anghiera expresses himself in his Oceanica. He had been told by a
+nephew of Amerigo Vespucci that thence, as far as the snowy mountains
+of St. Marta, all the natives were e genere Caribium, vel Canibalium.
+I do not deny that Caribs may have had a settlement near the gulf of
+Darien, and that they may have been driven thither by the easterly
+currents; but it also may have happened that the Spanish navigators,
+little attentive to languages, gave the names Carib and Cannibal to
+every race of people of tall stature and ferocious character. Still it
+is by no means probable that the Caribs of the islands and of Parima
+took to themselves the name of the region which they had originally
+inhabited. On the east of the Andes and wherever civilization has not
+yet penetrated, it is the people who have given names to the places
+where they have settled.* (* These names of places can be perpetuated
+only where the nations succeed immediately to each other, and where
+the tradition is interrupted. Thus in the province of Quito many of
+the summits of the Andes bear names which belong neither to the
+Quichua (the language of Inca) nor to the ancient language of the
+Paruays, governed by the Conchocando of Lican.) The words Caribs and
+Cannibals appear significant; they are epithets referring to valour,
+strength and even superior intelligence.* (* Vespucci says: Charaibi
+magnae sapientiae viri.) It is worthy of remark that, at the arrival
+of the Portuguese, the Brazilians gave to their magicians the name of
+caraibes. We know that the Caribs of Parima were the most wandering
+people of America; possibly some wily individuals of that nation
+played the same part as the Chaldeans of the ancient continent. The
+names of nations readily become affixed to particular professions; and
+when, in the time of the Caesars, the superstitions of the East were
+introduced into Italy, the Chaldeans no more came from the banks of
+the Euphrates than our Gypsies (Egyptians or Bohemians) came from the
+banks of the Nile or the Elbe.
+
+When a continent and its adjacent islands are peopled by one and the
+same race, we may choose between two hypotheses; supposing the
+emigration to have taken place either from the islands to the
+continent, or from the continent to the islands. The Iberians
+(Basques) who were settled at the same time in Spain and in the
+islands of the Mediterranean, afford an instance of this problem; as
+do also the Malays who appear to be indigenous in the peninsula of
+Malacca, and in the district of Menangkabao in the island of Sumatra.*
+(* Crawfurd, Indian Archipelago volume 2 page 371. I make use of the
+word indigenous (autocthoni) not to indicate a fact of creation, which
+does not belong to history, but simply to denote that we are ignorant
+of the autocthoni having been preceded by any other people.) The
+archipelago of the large and small West India Islands forms a narrow
+and broken neck of land, parallel with the isthmus of Panama, and
+supposed by some geographers to join the peninsula of Florida to the
+north-east extremity of South America. It is the eastern shore of an
+inland sea which may be considered as a basin with several outlets.
+This peculiar configuration of the land has served to support the
+different systems of migration, by which it has been attempted to
+explain the settlement of the nations of the Carib race in the islands
+and on the neighbouring continent. The Caribs of the continent admit
+that the small West India Islands were anciently inhabited by the
+Arowaks,* a warlike nation, the great mass of which still inhabit the
+insalubrious shores of Surinam and Berbice. (* Arouaques. The
+missionary Quandt (Nachricht von Surinam, 1807 page 47) calls them
+Arawackes.) They assert that the Arowaks, with the exception of the
+women, were all exterminated by Caribs, who came from the mouths of
+the Orinoco. In support of this tradition they refer to the traces of
+analogy existing between the language of the Arowaks and that of the
+Carib women; but it must be recollected that the Arowaks, though the
+enemies of the Caribs, belonged to the same branch of people; and that
+the same analogy exists between the Arowak and Carib languages as
+between the Greek and the Persian, the German and the Sanscrit.
+According to another tradition, the Caribs of the islands came from
+the south, not as conquerors, but because they were expelled from
+Guiana by the Arowaks, who originally ruled over all the neighbouring
+nations. Finally, a third tradition, much more general and more
+probable, represents the Caribs as having come from Florida, in North
+America. Mr. Bristock, a traveller who has collected every particular
+relating to these migrations from north to south, asserts that a tribe
+of Confachites (Confachiqui* (* The province of Confachiqui, which in
+1541 became subject to a woman, is celebrated by the expedition of
+Hernando de Soto to Florida. Among the nations of the Huron tongue,
+and the Attakapas, the supreme authority was also often exercised by
+women.)) had long waged war against the Apalachites; that the latter,
+having yielded to that tribe the fertile district of Amana, called
+their new confederates Caribes (that is, valiant strangers); but that,
+owing to a dispute respecting their religious rites, the
+Confachite-Caribs were driven from Florida. They went first to the
+Yucayas or Lucayes Islands (to Cigateo and the neighbouring islands);
+thence to Ayay (Hayhay, now Santa Cruz), and to the lesser Caribbee
+Islands; and lastly to the continent of South America.* (* Rochefort,
+Hist. des Antilles volume 1 pages 326 to 353; Garcia page 322;
+Robertson book 3 note 69. The conjecture of Father Gili that the
+Caribs of the continent may have come from the islands at the time of
+the first conquest of the Spaniards (Saggio volume 3 page 204), is at
+variance with all the statements of the early historians.) It is
+supposed that this event took place toward the year 1100 of our era.
+In the course of this long migration the Caribs had not touched at the
+larger islands; the inhabitants of which however also believed that
+they came originally from Florida. The islanders of Cuba, Hayti, and
+Boriken (Porto Rico) were, according to the uniform testimony of the
+first conquistadores, entirely different from the Caribs; and at the
+period of the discovery of America, the latter had already abandoned
+the group of the lesser Lucayes Islands; an archipelago in which there
+prevailed that variety of languages always found in lands peopled by
+shipwrecked men and fugitives.* (* La gente de las islas Yucayas era
+(1492) mas blanca y de major policia que la de Cuba y Haiti. Havia
+mucha diversidad de lenguas. [The people of the Lucayes were (1492) of
+fairer complexion and of more civilized manners than those of Cuba and
+Hayti. They had a great diversity of languages.] Gomara, Hist. de Ind.
+fol. 22.)
+
+The dominion so long exercised by the Caribs over a great part of the
+continent, joined to the remembrance of their ancient greatness, has
+inspired them with a sentiment of dignity and national superiority
+which is manifest in their manners and their discourse. "We alone are
+a nation," say they proverbially; "the rest of mankind (oquili) are
+made to serve us." This contempt of the Caribs for their enemies is so
+strong that I saw a child of ten years of age foam with rage on being
+called a Cabre or Cavere; though he had never in his life seen an
+individual of that unfortunate race of people who gave their name to
+the town of Cabruta (Cabritu); and who, after long resistance, were
+almost entirely exterminated by the Caribs. Thus we find among half
+savage hordes, as in the most civilized part of Europe, those
+inveterate animosities which have caused the names of hostile nations
+to pass into their respective languages as insulting appellations.
+
+The missionary of the village of Cari led us into several Indian huts,
+where extreme neatness and order prevailed. We observed with pain the
+torments which the Carib mothers inflict on their infants for the
+purpose not only of enlarging the calf of the leg, but also of raising
+the flesh in alternate stripes from the ankle to the top of the thigh.
+Narrow ligatures, consisting of bands of leather, or of woven cotton,
+are fixed two or three inches apart from each other, and being
+tightened more and more, the muscles between the bands become swollen.
+The monks of the missions, though ignorant of the works or even of the
+name of Rousseau, attempt to oppose this ancient system of physical
+education: but in vain. Man when just issued from the woods and
+supposed to be so simple in his manners, is far from being tractable
+in his ideas of beauty and propriety. I observed, however, with
+surprise, that the manner in which these poor children are bound, and
+which seems to obstruct the circulation of the blood, does not operate
+injuriously on their muscular movements. There is no race of men more
+robust and swifter in running than the Caribs.
+
+If the women labour to form the legs and thighs of their children so
+as to produce what painters call undulating outlines, they abstain (at
+least in the Llanos), from flattening the head by compressing it
+between cushions and planks from the most tender age. This practice,
+so common heretofore in the islands and among several tribes of the
+Caribs of Parima and French Guiana, is not observed in the missions
+which we visited. The men there have foreheads rounder than those of
+the Chaymas, the Otomacs, the Macos, the Maravitans and most of the
+inhabitants of the Orinoco. A systematizer would say that the form is
+such as their intellectual faculties require. We were so much the more
+struck by this fact as some of the skulls of Caribs engraved in
+Europe, for works on anatomy, are distinguished from all other human
+skulls by the extremely depressed forehead and acute facial angle. In
+some osteological collections skulls supposed to be those of Caribs of
+the island of St. Vincent are in fact skulls shaped by having been
+pressed between planks. They have belonged to Zambos (black Caribs)
+who are descended from Negroes and true Caribs.* (* These unfortunate
+remnants of a nation heretofore powerful were banished in 1795 to the
+Island of Rattam in the Bay of Honduras because they were accused by
+the English Government of having connexions with the French. In 1760
+an able minister, M. Lescallier, proposed to the Court of Versailles
+to invite the Red and Black Caribs from St. Vincent to Guiana and to
+employ them as free men in the cultivation of the land. I doubt
+whether their number at that period amounted to six thousand, as the
+island of St. Vincent contained in 1787 not more than fourteen
+thousand inhabitants of all colours.) The barbarous habit of
+flattening the forehead is practised by several nations,* of people
+not of the same race; and it has been observed recently in North
+America; but nothing is more vague than the conclusion that some
+degree of conformity in customs and manners proves identity of origin.
+(* For instance the Tapoyranas of Guiana (Barrere page 239), the
+Solkeeks of Upper Louisiana (Walckenaer, Cosmos page 583). Los Indios
+de Cumana, says Gomara (Hist. de Ind.), aprietan a los ninos la cabeca
+muy blando, pero mucho, entre dos almohadillas de algodon para
+ensancharlos la cara, que lo tienen por hermosura. Las donzellas traen
+senogiles muy apretados par debaxo y encima de las rodillas, para que
+los muslos y pantorillas engorden mucho. [The Indians of Cumana press
+down the heads of young infants tightly between cushions stuffed with
+cotton for the purpose of giving width to their faces, which they
+regard as a beauty. The young girls wear very tight bandages round
+their knees in order to give thickness to the thighs and calves of the
+legs.]) On observing the spirit of order and submission which prevails
+in the Carib missions, the traveller can scarcely persuade himself
+that he is among cannibals. This American word, of somewhat doubtful
+signification, is probably derived from the language of Hayti, or that
+of Porto Rico; and it has passed into the languages of Europe, since
+the end of the fifteenth century, as synonymous with that of
+anthropophagi. "These newly discovered man-eaters, so greedy of human
+flesh, are called Caribes or Cannibals,"* says Anghiera, in the third
+decade of his Oceanica, dedicated to Pope Leo X. (* Edaces humanarum
+carnium novi helluones anthropophagi, Caribes alias Canibales
+appellati.) There can be little doubt that the Caribs of the islands,
+when a conquering people, exercised cruelties upon the Ygneris, or
+ancient inhabitants of the West Indies, who were weak and not very
+warlike; but we must also admit that these cruelties were exaggerated
+by the early travellers, who heard only the narratives of the old
+enemies of the Caribs. It is not always the vanquished solely, who are
+calumniated by their contemporaries; the insolence of the conquerors
+is punished by the catalogue of their crimes being augmented.
+
+All the missionaries of the Carony, the Lower Orinoco and the Llanos
+del Cari whom we had an opportunity of consulting assured us that the
+Caribs are perhaps the least anthropophagous nations of the New
+Continent. They extend this remark even to the independent hordes who
+wander on the east of the Esmeralda, between the sources of the Rio
+Branco and the Essequibo. It may be conceived that the fury and
+despair with which the unhappy Caribs defended themselves against the
+Spaniards, when in 1504 a royal decree declared them slaves, may have
+contributed to acquire for them a reputation for ferocity. The first
+idea of attacking this nation and depriving it of liberty and of its
+natural rights originated with Christopher Columbus, who was not in
+all instances so humane as he is represented to have been.
+Subsequently the licenciado Rodrigo de Figueroa was appointed by the
+court, in 1520, to determine the tribes of South America, who were to
+be regarded as of Carib race, or as cannibals; and those who were
+Guatiaos,* that is, Indians of peace, and friends of the Castilians.
+(* I had some trouble in discovering the origin of this denomination
+which has become so important from the fatal decrees of Figueroa. The
+Spanish historians often employ the word guatiao to designate a branch
+of nations. To become a guatiao of any one seems to have signified, in
+the language of Hayti, to conclude a treaty of friendship. In the West
+India Islands, as well as in the archipelago of the South Sea, names
+were exchanged in token of alliance. Juan de Esquivel (1502) se hice
+guatiao del cacique Cotubanama; el qual desde adelante se llamo Juan
+de Esquivel, porque era liga de perpetua amistad entre los Indios
+trocarse los nombres: y trocados quedaban guatiaos, que era tanto coma
+confederados y hermanos en armas. Ponce de Leon se hace guatiao con el
+poderoso cacique Agueinaha." Herrera dec. 1 pages 129, 159 and 181.
+[Juan de Esquivel (1502) became the guatiao of the cacique Cotubanama;
+and thenceforth the latter called himself Juan de Esquivel, for among
+the Indians the exchange of names was a bond of perpetual friendship.
+Those who exchanged names became guaitaos, which meant the same as
+confederates or brethren-in-arms. Ponce de Leon became guatiao with
+the powerful cacique Agueinaha.] One of the Lucayes Islands, inhabited
+by a mild and pacific people, was heretofore called Guatao; but we
+will not insist on the etymology of this word, because the languages
+of the Lucayes Islands differed from those of Hayti.) The ethnographic
+document called El Auto de Figueroa is one of the most curious records
+of the barbarism of the first conquistadores. Without any attention to
+the analogy of languages, every nation that could be accused of having
+devoured a prisoner after a battle was arbitrarily declared of Carib
+race. The inhabitants of Uriapari (on the peninsula of Paria) were
+named Caribs; the Urinacos (settled on the banks of the Lower Orinoco,
+or Urinucu), Guatiaos. All the tribes designated by Figueroa as Caribs
+were condemned to slavery; and might at will be sold, or exterminated
+by war. In these sanguinary struggles, the Carib women, after the
+death of their husbands, defended themselves with such desperation
+that Anghiera says they were taken for tribes of Amazons. But amidst
+the cruelties exercised on the Caribs, it is consolatory to find, that
+there existed some courageous men who raised the voice of humanity and
+justice. Some of the monks embraced an opinion different from that
+which they had at first adopted. In an age when there could be no hope
+of founding public liberty on civil institutions, an attempt was at
+least made to defend individual liberty. "That is a most holy law (ley
+sanctissima)," says Gomara, in 1551, "by which our emperor has
+prohibited the reducing of the Indians to slavery. It is just that
+men, who are all born free, should not become the slaves of one
+another."
+
+During our abode in the Carib missions, we observed with surprise the
+facility with which young Indians of eighteen years of age, when
+appointed to the post of alguazil, would harangue the municipality for
+whole hours in succession. Their tone of voice, their gravity of
+deportment, the gestures which accompanied their speech, all denoted
+an intelligent people capable of a high degree of civilization. A
+Franciscan monk, who knew enough of the Carib language to preach in it
+occasionally, pointed out to us that the long and harmonious periods
+which occur in the discourses of the Indians are never confused or
+obscure. Particular inflexions of the verb indicate beforehand the
+nature of the object, whether it be animate or inanimate, singular or
+plural. Little annexed forms (suffixes) mark the gradations of
+sentiment; and here, as in every language formed by a free
+development, clearness is the result of that regulating instinct which
+characterises human intelligence in the various stages of barbarism
+and cultivation. On holidays, after the celebration of mass, all the
+inhabitants of the village assemble in front of the church. The young
+girls place at the feet of the missionary faggots of wood, bunches of
+plantains, and other provision of which he stands in need for his
+household. At the same time the governador, the alguazil, and other
+municipal officers, all of whom are Indians, exhort the natives to
+labour, proclaim the occupations of the ensuing week, reprimand the
+idle, and flog the untractable. Strokes of the cane are received with
+the same insensibility as that with which they are given. It were
+better if the priest did not impose these corporal punishments at the
+instant of quitting the altar, and if he were not, in his sacerdotal
+habits, the spectator of this chastisement of men and women; but this
+abuse is inherent in the principle on which the strange government of
+the missions is founded. The most arbitrary civil power is combined
+with the authority exercised by the priest over the little community;
+and, although the Caribs are not cannibals, and we would wish to see
+them treated with mildness and indulgence, it may be conceived that
+energetic measures are sometimes necessary to maintain tranquillity in
+this rising society.
+
+The difficulty of fixing the Caribs to the soil is the greater, as
+they have been for ages in the habit of trading on the rivers. We have
+already described this active people, at once commercial and warlike,
+occupied in the traffic of slaves, and carrying merchandize from the
+coasts of Dutch Guiana to the basin of the Amazon. The travelling
+Caribs were the Bokharians of equinoctial America. The necessity of
+counting the objects of their little trade, and transmitting
+intelligence, led them to extend and improve the use of the quipos,
+or, as they are called in the missions, the cordoncillos con necos
+(cords with knots). These quipos or knotted cords are found in Canada,
+in Mexico (where Boturini procured some from the Tlascaltecs), in
+Peru, in the plains of Guiana, in central Asia, in China, and in
+India. As rosaries, they have become objects of devotion in the hands
+of the Christians of the East; as suampans, they have been employed in
+the operations of manual arithmetic by the Chinese, the Tartars, and
+the Russians. The independent Caribs who inhabit the little-known
+country situated between the sources of the Orinoco and those of the
+rivers Essequibo, Carony, and Parima, are divided into tribes; and,
+like the nations of the Missouri, of Chili, and of ancient Germany,
+form a political confederation. This system is most in accordance with
+the spirit of liberty prevailing amongst those warlike hordes who see
+no advantage in the ties of society but for common defence. The pride
+of the Caribs leads them to withdraw themselves from every other
+tribe; even from those to whom, by their language, they have some
+affinity.
+
+They claim the same separation in the missions, which seldom prosper
+when any attempt is made to associate them with other mixed
+communities, that is, with villages where every hut is inhabited by a
+family belonging to another nation and speaking another language. The
+authority of the chiefs of the independent Caribs is hereditary in the
+male line only, the children of sisters being excluded from the
+succession. This law of succession which is founded on a system of
+mistrust, denoting no great purity of manners, prevails in India;
+among the Ashantees (in Africa); and among several tribes of the
+savages of North America.* (* Among the Hurons (Wyandots) and the
+Natchez the succession to the magistracy is continued by the women: it
+is not the son who succeeds, but the son of the sister, or of the
+nearest relation in the female line. This mode of succession is said
+to be the most certain because the supreme power remains attached to
+the blood of the last chief; it is a practice that insures legitimacy.
+Ancient traces of this strange mode of succession, so common in Africa
+and in the East Indies, exist in the dynasty of the kings of the West
+India Islands.) The young chiefs and other youths who are desirous of
+marrying, are subject to the most extraordinary fasts and penances,
+and are required to take medicines prepared by the marirris or
+piaches, called in the transalleghenian countries, war-physic. The
+Carribbee marirris are at once priests, jugglers and physicians; they
+transmit to their successors their doctrine, their artifices, and the
+remedies they employ. The latter are accompanied by imposition of
+hands, and certain gestures and mysterious practices, apparently
+connected with the most anciently known processes of animal magnetism.
+Though I had opportunities of seeing many persons who had closely
+observed the confederated Caribs, I could not learn whether the
+marirris belong to a particular caste. It is observed in North America
+that, among the Shawanese,* (* People that came from Florida, or from
+the south (shawaneu) to the north.) divided into several tribes, the
+priests, who preside at the sacrifices, must be (as among the Hebrews)
+of one particular tribe, that of the Mequachakes. Any facts that may
+hereafter be discovered in America respecting the remains of a
+sacerdotal caste appears to me calculated to excite great interest, on
+account of those priest-kings of Peru, who styled themselves the
+children of the Sun; and of those sun-kings among the Natchez, who
+recall to mind the Heliades of the first eastern colony of Rhodes.
+
+On quitting the mission of Cari, we had some difficulties to settle
+with our Indian muleteers. They had discovered that we had brought
+skeletons with us from the cavern of Ataruipe; and they were fully
+persuaded that the beasts of burden which carried the bodies of their
+old relations would perish on the journey.* (* See volume 2.24.) Every
+precaution we had taken was useless; nothing escapes a Carib's
+penetration and keen sense of smell, and it required all the authority
+of the missionary to forward our passage. We had to cross the Rio Cari
+in a boat, and the Rio de agua clara, by fording, or, it may almost be
+said, by swimming. The quicksands of the bed of this river render the
+passage very difficult at the season when the waters are high. The
+strength of the current seems surprising in so flat a country; but the
+rivers of the plains are precipitated, to quote a correct observation
+of Pliny the younger,* "less by the declivity of their course than by
+their abundance, and as it were by their own weight." (* Epist. lib. 8
+ep. 8. Clitumnus non loci devexitate, sed ipsa sui copia et quasi
+pondere impellitur.) We had two bad stations, one at Matagorda and the
+other at Los Riecetos, before we reached the little town of Pao. We
+beheld everywhere the same objects; small huts constructed of reeds,
+and roofed with leather; men on horseback armed with lances, guarding
+the herds; herds of cattle half wild, remarkable for their uniform
+colour, and disputing the pasturage with horses and mules. No sheep or
+goats are found on these immense plains. Sheep do not thrive well in
+equinoctial America, except on table-lands above a thousand toises
+high, where their fleece is long and sometimes very fine. In the
+burning climate of the plains, where the wolves give place to jaguars,
+these small ruminating animals, destitute of means of defence, and
+slow in their movements, cannot be preserved in any considerable
+numbers.
+
+We arrived on the 15th of July at the Fundacion, or Villa, del Pao,
+founded in 1744, and situated very favourably for a commercial station
+between Nueva Barcelona and Angostura. Its real name is El Concepcion
+del Pao. Alcedo, La Cruz, Olmedilla, and many other geographers, have
+mistaken the situation of this small town of the Llanos of Barcelona,
+confounding it either with San Juan Bauptisto del Pao of the Llanos of
+Caracas, or with El Valle del Pao de Zarate. Though the weather was
+cloudy I succeeded in obtaining some heights of alpha Centauri,
+serving to determine the latitude of the place; which is 8 degrees 37
+minutes 57 seconds. Some altitudes of the sun gave me 67 degrees 8
+minutes 12 seconds for the longitude, supposing Angostura to be 66
+degrees 15 minutes 21 seconds. The astronomical determinations of
+Calabozo and Concepcion del Pao are very important to the geography of
+this country, where, in the midst of savannahs, fixed points are
+altogether wanting. Some fruit-trees grow in the vicinity of Pao: they
+are rarely seen in the Llanos. We even found some cocoa-trees, which
+appeared very vigorous, notwithstanding the great distance of the sea.
+I was the more struck with this fact because doubts have recently been
+started respecting the veracity of travellers, who assert that they
+have seen the cocoa-tree, which is a palm of the shore, at Timbuctoo,
+in the centre of Africa. We several times saw cocoa-trees amid the
+cultivated spots on the banks of the Rio Magdalena, more than a
+hundred leagues from the coast.
+
+Five days, which to us appeared very tedious, brought us from Villa
+del Pao to the port of Nueva Barcelona. As we advanced the sky became
+more serene, the soil more dusty, and the atmosphere more hot. The
+heat from which we suffered is not entirely owing to the temperature
+of the air, but is produced by the fine sand mingled with it; this
+sand strikes against the face of the traveller, as it does against the
+ball of the thermometer. I never observed the mercury rise in America,
+amid a wind of sand, above 45.8 degrees centigrade. Captain Lyon, with
+whom I had the pleasure of conversing on his return from Mourzouk,
+appeared to me also inclined to think that the temperature of
+fifty-two degrees, so often felt in Fezzan, is produced in great part
+by the grains of quartz suspended in the atmosphere. Between Pao and
+the village of Santa Cruz de Cachipo, founded in 1749, and inhabited
+by five hundred Caribs, we passed the western elongation of the little
+table-land, known by the name of Mesa de Amana. This table-land forms
+a point of partition between the Orinoco, the Guarapiche, and the
+coast of New Andalusia. Its height is so inconsiderable that it would
+scarcely be an obstacle to the establishment of inland navigation in
+this part of the Llanos. The Rio Mano however, which flows into the
+Orinoco above the confluence of the Carony, and which D'Anville (I
+know not on what authority) has marked in the first edition of his
+great map as issuing from the lake of Valencia, and receiving the
+waters of the Guayra, could never have served as a natural canal
+between two basins of rivers. No bifurcation of this kind exists in
+the Llano. A great number of Carib Indians, who now inhabit the
+missions of Piritu, were formerly on the north and east of the
+table-land of Amana, between Maturin, the mouth of the Rio Arco, and
+the Guarapiche. The incursions of Don Joseph Careno, one of the most
+enterprising governors of the province of Cumana, occasioned a general
+migration of independent Caribs toward the banks of the Lower Orinoco
+in 1720.
+
+The whole of this vast plain consists of secondary formations which to
+the southward rest immediately on the granitic mountains of the
+Orinoco. On the north-west they are separated by a narrow band of
+transition-rocks from the primitive mountains of the shore of Caracas.
+This abundance of secondary rocks, covering without interruption a
+space of more than seven thousand square leagues,* is a phenomenon the
+more remarkable in that region of the globe, because in the whole of
+the Sierra da la Parima, between the right bank of the Orinoco and the
+Rio Negro, there is, as in Scandinavia, a total absence of secondary
+formations. (* Reckoning only that part of the Llanos which is bounded
+by the Rio Apure on the south, and by the Sierra Nevada de Merida and
+the Parima de las Rosas on the west.) The red sandstone, containing
+some vestiges of fossil wood (of the family of monocotyledons) is seen
+everywhere in the plains of Calabozo: farther east it is overlaid by
+calcareous and gypseous rocks which conceal it from the research of
+the geologist. The marly gypsum, of which we collected specimens near
+the Carib mission of Cachipo, appeared to me to belong to the same
+formation as the gypsum of Ortiz. To class it according to the type of
+European formations I would range it among the gypsums, often
+muriatiferous, that cover the Alpine limestone or zechstein. Farther
+north, in the direction of the mission of San Josef de Curataquiche,
+M. Bonpland picked up in the plain some fine pieces of riband jasper,
+or Egyptian pebbles. We did not see them in their native place
+enchased in the rock, and cannot determine whether they belong to a
+very recent conglomerate or to that limestone which we saw at the
+Morro of Nueva Barcelona, and which is not transition limestone though
+it contains beds of schistose jasper (kieselschiefer).
+
+We rested on the night of the 16th of July in the Indian village of
+Santa Cruz de Cachipo. This mission, founded in 1749 by several Carib
+families who inhabited the inundated and unhealthy banks of the
+Lagunetas de Auache, is opposite the confluence of the Zir Puruay with
+the Orinoco. We lodged at the house of the missionary, Fray Jose de
+las Piedras; and, on examining the registers of the parish, we saw how
+rapidly the prosperity of the community has been advanced by his zeal
+and intelligence. Since we had reached the middle of the plains, the
+heat had increased to such a degree that we should have preferred
+travelling no more during the day; but we were without arms and the
+Llanos were then infested by large numbers of robbers who attacked and
+murdered the whites who fell into their hands. Nothing can be worse
+than the administration of justice in these colonies. We everywhere
+found the prisons filled with malefactors on whom sentence is not
+passed till after the lapse of seven or eight years. Nearly a third of
+the prisoners succeed in making their escape; and the unpeopled
+plains, filled with herds, furnish them with booty. They commit their
+depredations on horseback in the manner of the Bedouins. The
+insalubrity of the prisons would be attended with fatal results but
+that these receptacles are cleared from time to time by the flight of
+the prisoners. It also frequently happens that sentences of death,
+tardily pronounced by the Audiencia of Caracas, cannot be executed for
+want of a hangman. In these cases the barbarous custom is observed of
+pardoning one criminal on condition of his hanging the others. Our
+guides related to us that, a short time before our arrival on the
+coast of Cumana, a Zambo, known for the great ferocity of his manners,
+determined to screen himself from punishment by turning executioner.
+The preparations for the execution however, shook his resolution; he
+felt a horror of himself, and preferring death to the disgrace of thus
+saving his life, he called again for his irons which had been struck
+off. He did not long remain in prison, and he underwent his sentence
+through the baseness of one of his accomplices. This awakening of a
+sentiment of honour in the soul of a murderer is a psychologic
+phenomenon worthy of reflection. The man who had so often shed the
+blood of travellers in the plains recoiled at the idea of becoming the
+passive instrument of justice in inflicting upon others a punishment
+which he felt that he himself deserved.
+
+If, even in the peaceful times when M. Bonpland and myself had the
+good fortune to travel through North and South America, the Llanos
+were the refuge of malefactors who had committed crimes in the
+missions of the Orinoco, or who had escaped from the prisons on the
+coast, how much worse must that state of things have been rendered by
+discord during the continuance of that sanguinary struggle which has
+terminated in conferring freedom and independence on those vast
+regions! Our European wastes and heaths are but a feeble image of the
+savannahs of the New Continent which for the space of eight or ten
+thousand square leagues are smooth as the surface of the sea. The
+immensity of their extent insures impunity to robbers, who conceal
+themselves more effectually in the savannahs than in our mountains and
+forests; and it is easy to conceive that even a European police would
+not be very effective in regions where there are travellers and no
+roads, herds and no herdsmen, and farms so solitary that
+notwithstanding the powerful action of the mirage, a journey of
+several days may be made without seeing one appear within the horizon.
+
+Whilst traversing the Llanos of Caracas, New Barcelona, and Cumana,
+which succeed each other from west to east, from the snowy mountains
+of Merida to the Delta of the Orinoco, we feel anxious to know whether
+these vast tracts of land are destined by nature to serve eternally
+for pasture or whether they will at some future time be subject to the
+plough and the spade. This question is the more important as the
+Llanos, situated at the two extremities of South America, are
+obstacles to the political union of the provinces they separate. They
+prevent the agriculture of the coast of Venezuela from extending
+towards Guiana and they impede that of Potosi from advancing in the
+direction of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The intermediate Llanos
+preserve, together with pastoral life, somewhat of a rude and wild
+character which separates and keeps them remote from the civilization
+of countries anciently cultivated. Thus it has happened that in the
+war of independence they have been the scene of struggle between the
+hostile parties; and that the inhabitants of Calabozo have almost seen
+the fate of the confederate provinces of Venezuela and Cundinamarca
+decided before their walls. In assigning limits to the new states and
+to their subdivisions, it is to be hoped there may not be cause
+hereafter to repent having lost sight of the importance of the Llanos,
+and the influence they may have on the disunion of communities which
+important common interests should bring together. These plains would
+serve as natural boundaries like the seas or the virgin forests of the
+tropics, were it not that armies can cross them with greater facility,
+as their innumerable troops of horses and mules and herds of oxen
+furnish every means of conveyance and subsistence.
+
+What we have seen of the power of man struggling against the force of
+nature in Gaul, in Germany and recently (but still beyond the tropics)
+in the United States, scarcely affords any just measure of what we may
+expect from the progress of civilization in the torrid zone. Forests
+disappear but very slowly by fire and the axe when the trunks of trees
+are from eight to ten feet in diameter; when in falling they rest one
+upon another, and the wood, moistened by almost continual rains, is
+excessively hard. The planters who inhabit the Llanos or Pampas do not
+generally admit the possibility of subjecting the soil to cultivation;
+it is a problem not yet solved. Most of the savannahs of Venezuela
+have not the same advantage as those of North America. The latter are
+traversed longitudinally by three great rivers, the Missouri, the
+Arkansas, and the Red River of Nachitoches; the savannahs of Araura,
+Calabozo, and Pao are crossed in a transverse direction only by the
+tributary streams of the Orinoco, the most westerly of which (the
+Cari, the Pao, the Acaru, and the Manapire) have very little water in
+the season of drought. These streams scarcely flow at all toward the
+north; so that in the centre of the Llanos there remain vast tracts of
+land called bancos and mesas* frightfully parched. (* The Spanish
+words banco and mesa signify literally bench and table. In the Llanos
+of South America little elevations rising slightly above the general
+elevation of the plain are called bancos and mesas from their supposed
+resemblance to benches and tables.) The eastern parts, fertilized by
+the Portuguesa, the Masparro, and the Orivante, and by the tributary
+streams of those three rivers, are most susceptible of cultivation.
+The soil is sand mixed with clay, covering a bed of quartz pebbles.
+The vegetable mould, the principal source of the nutrition of plants,
+is everywhere extremely thin. It is scarcely augmented by the fall of
+the leaves, which, in the forests of the torrid zone, is less
+periodically regular than in temperate climates. During thousands of
+years the Llanos have been destitute of trees and brushwood; a few
+scattered palms in the savannah add little to that hydruret of carbon,
+that extractive matter, which, according to the experiments of
+Saussure, Davy, and Braconnot, gives fertility to the soil. The social
+plants which almost exclusively predominate in the steppes, are
+monocotyledons; and it is known how much grasses impoverish the soil
+into which their fibrous roots penetrate. This action of the
+killingias, paspalums and cenchri, which form the turf, is everywhere
+the same; but where the rock is ready to pierce the earth this varies
+according as it rests on red sandstone, or on compact limestone and
+gypsum; it varies according as periodical inundations accumulate mud
+on the lower grounds or as the shock of the waters carries away from
+the small elevations the little soil that has covered them. Many
+solitary cultivated spots already exist in the midst of the pastures
+where running water and tufts of the mauritia palm have been found.
+These farms, sown with maize, and planted with cassava, will multiply
+considerably if trees and shrubs be augmented.
+
+The aridity and excessive heat of the mesas do not depend solely on
+the nature of their surface and the local reverberation of the soil;
+their climate is modified by the adjacent regions; by the whole of the
+Llano of which they form a part. In the deserts of Africa or Arabia,
+in the Llanos of South America, in the vast heaths extending from the
+extremity of Jutland to the mouth of the Scheldt, the stability of the
+limits of the desert, the savannahs, and the downs, depends chiefly on
+their immense extent and the nakedness these plains have acquired from
+some revolution destructive of the ancient vegetation of our planet.
+By their extent, their continuity, and their mass they oppose the
+inroads of cultivation and preserve, like inland gulfs, the stability
+of their boundaries. I will not enter upon the great question, whether
+in the Sahara, that Mediterranean of moving sands, the germs of
+organic life are increased in our days. In proportion as our
+geographical knowledge has extended we have discovered in the eastern
+part of the desert islets of verdure; oases covered with date-trees
+crowd together in more numerous archipelagos, and open their ports to
+the caravans; but we are ignorant whether the form of the oases have
+not remained constantly the same since the time of Herodotus. Our
+annals are too incomplete to enable us to follow Nature in her slow
+and gradual progress. From these spaces entirely bare whence some
+violent catastrophe has swept away the vegetable covering and the
+mould; from those deserts of Syria and Africa which, by their
+petrified wood, attest the changes they have undergone; let us turn to
+the grass-covered Llanos and to the consideration of phenomena that
+come nearer the circle of our daily observations. Respecting the
+possibility of a more general cultivation of the steppes of America,
+the colonists settled there, concur in the opinions I have deduced
+from the climatic action of these steppes considered as surfaces, or
+continuous masses. They have observed that downs enclosed within
+cultivated and wooded land sooner yield to the labours of the
+husbandman than soils alike circumscribed, but forming part of a vast
+surface of the same nature. This observation is extremely just whether
+in reference to soil covered with heath, as in the north of Europe;
+with cistuses, mastic-trees, or palmettos, as in Spain; or with
+cactuses, argemones, or brathys, as in equinoctial America. The more
+space the association occupies the more resistance do the social
+plants oppose to the labourer. With this general cause others are
+combined in the Llanos of Venezuela; namely the action of the small
+grasses which impoverish the soil; the total absence of trees and
+brushwood; the sandy winds, the heat of which is increased by contact
+with a surface absorbing the rays of the sun during twelve hours, and
+unshaded except by the stalks of the aristides, chanchuses, and
+paspalums. The progress observable on the vegetation of large trees
+and the cultivation of dicotyledonous plants in the vicinity of towns,
+(for instance around Calabozo and Pao) prove what may be gained upon
+the Llano by attacking it in small portions, enclosing it by degrees,
+and dividing it by coppices and canals of irrigation. Possibly the
+influence of the winds which render the soil sterile might be
+diminished by sowing on a large scale, for example, over fifteen or
+twenty acres, the seeds of the psidium, the croton, the cassia, or the
+tamarind, which prefer dry, open spots. I am far from believing that
+the savannahs will ever disappear entirely; or that the Llanos, so
+useful for pasturage and the trade in cattle, will ever be cultivated
+like the valleys of Aragua or other parts near the coast of Caracas
+and Cumana: but I am persuaded that in the lapse of ages a
+considerable portion of these plains, under a government favourable to
+industry, will lose the wild aspect which has characterized them since
+the first conquest by Europeans.
+
+After three days' journey we began to perceive the chain of the
+mountains of Cumana, which separates the Llanos, or, as they are often
+called here, the great sea of verdure,* from the coast of the
+Caribbean Sea. (* Los Llanos son como un mar de yerbas--The Llanos are
+like a vast sea of grass--is an observation often repeated in these
+regions.) If the Bergantin be more than eight hundred toises high, it
+may be seen supposing only an ordinary refraction of one fourteenth of
+the arch, at the distance of twenty-seven nautical leagues; but the
+state of the atmosphere long concealed from us the majestic view of
+this curtain of mountains. It appeared at first like a fog-bank which
+hid the stars near the pole at their rising and setting; gradually
+this body of vapour seemed to augment and condense, to assume a bluish
+tint, and become bounded by sinuous and fixed outlines. The same
+effects which the mariner observes on approaching a new land present
+themselves to the traveller on the borders of the Llano. The horizon
+began to enlarge in some part and the vault of heaven seemed no longer
+to rest at an equal distance on the grass-covered soil. A llanero, or
+inhabitant of the Llanos, is happy only when, as expressed in the
+simple phraseology of the country, he can see everywhere well around
+him. What appears to European eyes a covered country, slightly
+undulated by a few scattered hills, is to him a rugged region bristled
+with mountains. After having passed several months in the thick
+forests of the Orinoco, in places where one is accustomed, when at any
+distance from the river, to see the stars only in the zenith, as
+through the mouth of a well, a journey in the Llanos is peculiarly
+agreeable and attractive. The traveller experiences new sensations;
+and, like the Llanero, he enjoys the happiness of seeing well around
+him. But this enjoyment, as we ourselves experienced, is not of long
+duration. There is doubtless something solemn and imposing in the
+aspect of a boundless horizon, whether viewed from the summits of the
+Andes or the highest Alps, amid the expanse of the ocean or in the
+vast plains of Venezuela and Tucuman. Infinity of space, as poets in
+every language say, is reflected within ourselves; it is associated
+with ideas of a superior order; it elevates the mind which delights in
+the calm of solitary meditation. It is true, also, that every view of
+unbounded space bears a peculiar character. The prospect surveyed from
+a solitary peak varies according as the clouds reposing on the plain
+extend in layers, are conglomerated in groups, or present to the
+astonished eye, through broad openings, the habitations of man, the
+labour of agriculture, or the verdant tint of the aerial ocean. An
+immense sheet of water, animated by a thousand various beings even to
+its utmost depths, changing perpetually in colour and aspect, moveable
+at its surface like the element that agitates it, all charm the
+imagination during long voyages by sea; but the dusty and creviced
+Llano, throughout a great part of the year, has a depressing influence
+on the mind by its unchanging monotony. When, after eight or ten days'
+journey, the traveller becomes accustomed to the mirage and the
+brilliant verdure of a few tufts of mauritia* (* The fan-palm, or
+sago-tree of Guiana.) scattered from league to league, he feels the
+want of more varied impressions. He loves again to behold the great
+tropical trees, the wild rush of torrents or hills and valleys
+cultivated by the hand of the labourer. If the deserts of Africa and
+of the Llanos or savannahs of the New Continent filled a still greater
+space than they actually occupy, nature would be deprived of many of
+the beautiful products peculiar to the torrid zone.* (* In calculating
+from maps on a very large scale I found the Llanos of Cumana,
+Barcelona, and Caracas, from the delta of the Orinoco to the northern
+bank of the Apure, 7200 square leagues; the Llanos between the Apure
+and Putumayo, 21,000 leagues; the Pampas on the north-west of Buenos
+Ayres, 40,000 square leagues; the Pampas south of the parallel of
+Buenos Ayres, 37,000 square leagues. The total area of the Llanos of
+South America, covered with gramina, is consequently 105,200 square
+leagues, twenty leagues to an equatorial degree.) The heaths of the
+north, the steppes of the Volga and the Don, are scarcely poorer in
+species of plants and animals than are the twenty-eight thousand
+square leagues of savannahs extending in a semicircle from north-east
+to south-west, from the mouths of the Orinoco to the banks of the
+Caqueta and the Putumayo, beneath the finest sky in the world, and in
+the land of plantains and bread-fruit trees. The influence of the
+equinoctial climate, everywhere else so vivifying, is not felt in
+places where the great associations of gramina almost exclude every
+other plant. Judging from the aspect of the soil we might have
+believed ourselves to be in the temperate zone and even still farther
+northward but that a few scattered palms, and at nightfall the fine
+constellations of the southern sky (the Centaur, Canopus, and the
+innumerable nebulae with which the Ship is resplendent), reminded us
+that we were only eight degrees distant from the equator.
+
+A phenomenon which fixed the attention of De Luc and which in these
+latter years has furnished a subject of speculation to geologists,
+occupied us much during our journey across the Llanos. I allude not to
+those blocks of primitive rock which occur, as in the Jura, on the
+slope of limestone mountains, but to those enormous blocks of granite
+and syenite which, in limits very distinctly marked by nature, are
+found scattered on the north of Holland, Germany and the countries of
+the Baltic. It seems to be now proved that, distributed as in radii,
+they came at the time of the ancient revolutions of our globe from the
+Scandinavian peninsula southward; and that they did not primitively
+belong to the granitic chains of the Harz and Erzgeberg, which they
+approach without, however, reaching their foot.* (* Leopold von Buch,
+Voyage en Norwege volume 1 page 30.) I was surprised at not seeing one
+of these blocks in the Llanos of Venezuela, though these immense
+plains are bounded on the south by the Sierra Parima, a group of
+mountains entirely granitic and exhibiting in its denticulated and
+often columnar peaks traces of the most violent destruction. Northward
+the granitic chain of the Silla de Caracas and Porto Cabello are
+separated from the Llanos by a screen of mountains that are schistose
+between Villa de Cura and Parapara, and calcareous between the
+Bergantin and Caripe. I was no less struck by this absence of blocks
+on the banks of the Amazon. La Condamine affirms that from the Pongo
+de Manseriche to the Strait of Pauxis not the smallest stone is to be
+found. Now the basin of the Rio Negro and of the Amazon is also a
+Llano, a plain like those of Venezuela and Buenos Ayres. The
+difference consists only in the state of vegetation. The two Llanos
+situated at the northern and southern extremities of South America are
+covered with gramina; they are treeless savannahs; but the
+intermediate Llano, that of the Amazon, exposed to almost continual
+equatorial rains, is a thick forest. I do not remember having heard
+that the Pampas of Buenos Ayres or the savannahs of the Missouri* and
+New Mexico contain granitic blocks. (* Are there any isolated blocks
+in North America northward of the great lakes?) The absence of this
+phenomenon appears general in the New World as it probably also is in
+Sahara, in Africa; for we must not confound the rocky masses that
+pierce the soil in the midst of the desert, and of which travellers
+often make mention, with mere scattered fragments. These facts seem to
+prove that the blocks of Scandinavian granite which cover the sandy
+countries on the south of the Baltic, and those of Westphalia and
+Holland, must be traced to some local revolution. The ancient
+conglomerate (red sandstone) which covers a great part of the Llanos
+of Venezuela and of the basin of the Amazon contains no doubt
+fragments of the same primitive rocks which constitute the
+neighbouring mountains; but the convulsions of which these mountains
+exhibit evident marks, do not appear to have been attended with
+circumstances favourable to the removal of great blocks. This
+geognostic phenomenon was to me the more unexpected since there exists
+nowhere in the world so smooth a plain entirely granitic. Before my
+departure from Europe I had observed with surprise that there were no
+primitive blocks in Lombardy and in the great plain of Bavaria which
+appears to be the bottom of an ancient lake, and which is situated two
+hundred and fifty toises above the level of the ocean. It is bounded
+on the north by the granites of the Upper Palatinate; and on the south
+by Alpine limestone, transition-thonschiefer, and the mica-slates of
+the Tyrol.
+
+We arrived, on the 23rd of July, at the town of Nueva Barcelona, less
+fatigued by the heat of the Llanos, to which we had been long
+accustomed, than annoyed by the winds of sand which occasion painful
+chaps in the skin. Seven months previously, in going from Cumana to
+Caracas, we had rested a few hours at the Morro de Barcelona, a
+fortified rock, which, near the village of Pozuelos, is joined to the
+continent only by a neck of land. We were received with the kindest
+hospitality in the house of Don Pedro Lavie, a wealthy merchant of
+French extraction. This gentleman, who was accused of having given
+refuge to the unfortunate Espana when a fugitive on these coasts in
+1796, was arrested by order of the Audiencia, and conveyed as a
+prisoner to Caracas. The friendship of the governor of Cumana and the
+remembrance of the services he had rendered to the rising commerce of
+those countries contributed to procure his liberty. We had endeavoured
+to alleviate his captivity by visiting him in prison; and we had now
+the satisfaction of finding him in the midst of his family. Illness
+under which he was suffering had been aggravated by confinement; and
+he sank into the grave without seeing the dawn of those days of
+independence, which his friend Don Joseph Espana had predicted on the
+scaffold prior to his execution. "I die," said that man, who was
+formed for the accomplishment of grand projects, "I die an ignominious
+death; but my fellow citizens will soon piously collect my ashes, and
+my name will reappear with glory." These remarkable words were uttered
+in the public square of Caracas, on the 8th of May, 1799.
+
+In 1790 Nueva Barcelona contained scarcely ten thousand inhabitants,
+and in 1800, its population was more than sixteen thousand. The town
+was founded in 1637 by a Catalonian conquistador, named Juan Urpin. A
+fruitless attempt was then made, to give the whole province the name
+of New Catalonia. As our maps often mark two towns, Barcelona and
+Cumanagoto, instead of one, and as the two names are considered as
+synonymous, it may be well to explain the cause of this error.
+Anciently, at the mouth of the Rio Neveri, there was an Indian town,
+built in 1588 by Lucas Faxardo, and named San Cristoval de los
+Cumanagotos. This town was peopled solely by natives who came from the
+saltworks of Apaicuare. In 1637 Urpin founded, two leagues farther
+inland, the Spanish town of Nueva Barcelona, which he peopled with
+some of the inhabitants of Cumanagoto, together with some Catalonians.
+For thirty-four years, disputes were incessantly arising between the
+two neighbouring communities till in 1671, the governor Angulo
+succeeded in persuading them to establish themselves on a third spot,
+where the town of Barcelona now stands. According to my observations
+it is situated in latitude 10 degrees 6 minutes 52 seconds.* (* These
+observations were made on the Plaza Major. They are merely the result
+of six circum-meridian heights of Canopus, taken all in one night. In
+Las Memorias de Espinosa the latitude is stated to be 10 degrees 9
+minutes 6 seconds. The result of M. Ferrer's observations made it 10
+degrees 8 minutes 24 seconds.) The ancient town of Cumanagoto is
+celebrated in the country for a miraculous image of the Virgin,* which
+the Indians say was found in the hollow trunk of an old tutumo, or
+calabash-tree (Crescentia cujete). (* La milagrosa imagen de Maria
+Santissima del Socorro, also called La Virgen del Tutumo.) This image
+was carried in procession to Nueva Barcelona; but whenever the clergy
+were dissatisfied with the inhabitants of the new city, the Virgin
+fled at night, and returned to the trunk of the tree at the mouth of
+the river. This miracle did not cease till a fine convent (the college
+of the Propaganda) was built, to receive the Franciscans. In a similar
+case, the Bishop of Caracas caused the image of Our Lady de los
+Valencianos to be placed in the archives of the bishopric, where she
+remained thirty years under seal.
+
+The climate of Barcelona is not so hot as that of Cumana but it is
+extremely damp and somewhat unhealthy in the rainy season. M. Bonpland
+had borne very well the irksome journey across the Llanos; and had
+recovered his strength and activity. With respect to myself, I
+suffered more at Barcelona than I did at Angostura, immediately after
+our passage on the rivers. One of those extraordinary tropical rains
+during which, at sunset, drops of enormous size fall at great
+distances from one another, caused me to experience sensations which
+seemed to threaten an attack of typhus, a disease then prevalent on
+that coast. We remained nearly a month at Barcelona where we found our
+friend Fray Juan Gonzales, of whom I have often spoken, and who had
+traversed the Upper Orinoco before us. He expressed regret that we had
+not been able to prolong our visit to that unknown country; and he
+examined our plants and animals with that interest which must be felt
+by even the most uninformed man for the productions of a region he has
+long since visited. Fray Juan had resolved to go to Europe and to
+accompany us as far as the island of Cuba. We were together for the
+space of seven months, and his society was most agreeable: he was
+cheerful, intelligent and obliging. How little did we anticipate the
+sad fate that awaited him. He took charge of a part of our
+collections; and a friend of his own confided to his care a child who
+was to be conveyed to Spain for its education. Alas! the collection,
+the child and the young ecclesiastic were all buried in the waves.
+
+South-east of Nueva Barcelona, at the distance of two Leagues, there
+rises a lofty chain of mountains, abutting on the Cerro del Bergantin,
+which is visible at Cumana. This spot is known by the name of the hot
+waters, (aguas calientes). When I felt my health sufficiently
+restored, we made an excursion thither on a cool and misty morning.
+The waters, which are loaded with sulphuretted hydrogen, issue from a
+quartzose sandstone, lying on compact limestone, the same as that we
+had examined at the Morro. We again found in this limestone
+intercalated beds of black hornstein, passing into kieselschiefer. It
+is not, however, a transition rock; by its position, its division into
+small strata, its whiteness and its dull and conchoidal fractures
+(with very flattened cavities), it rather approximates to the
+limestone of Jura. The real kieselschiefer and Lydian-stone have not
+been observed hitherto except in the transition-slates and limestones.
+Is the sandstone whence the springs of the Bergantin issue of the same
+formation as the sandstone of the Imposible and the Tumiriquiri? The
+temperature of the thermal waters is only 43.2 degrees centigrade (the
+atmosphere being 27). They flow first to the distance of forty toises
+over the rocky surface of the ground; then they rush down into a
+natural cavern; and finally they pierce through the limestone to issue
+out at the foot of the mountain on the left bank of the little river
+Narigual. The springs, while in contact with the oxygen of the
+atmosphere, deposit a good deal of sulphur. I did not collect, as I
+had done at Mariara, the bubbles of air that rise in jets from these
+thermal waters. They no doubt contain a large quantity of nitrogen
+because the sulphuretted hydrogen decomposes the mixture of oxygen and
+nitrogen dissolved in the spring. The sulphurous waters of San Juan
+which issue from calcareous rock, like those of the Bergantin, have
+also a low temperature (31.3 degrees); while in the same region the
+temperature of the sulphurous waters of Mariara and Las Trincheras
+(near Porto Cabello), which gush immediately from gneiss-granite, is
+58.9 degrees the former, and 90.4 degrees the latter. It would seem as
+if the heat which these springs acquire in the interior of the globe
+diminishes in proportion as they pass from primitive to secondary
+superposed rocks.
+
+Our excursion to the Aguas Calientes of Bergantin ended with a
+vexatious accident. Our host had lent us one of his finest
+saddle-horses. We were warned at the same time not to ford the little
+river of Narigual. We passed over a sort of bridge, or rather some
+trunks of trees laid closely together, and we made our horses swim,
+holding their bridles. The horse I had ridden suddenly disappeared
+after struggling for some time under water: all our endeavours to
+discover the cause of this accident were fruitless. Our guides
+conjectured that the animal's legs had been seized by the caymans
+which are very numerous in those parts. My perplexity was extreme:
+delicacy and the affluent circumstances of my host forbade me to think
+of repairing his loss; and M. Lavie, more considerate of our situation
+than sensible of his own misfortune, endeavoured to tranquillize us by
+exaggerating the facility with which fine horses were procurable from
+the neighbouring savannahs.
+
+The crocodiles of the Rio Neveri are large and numerous, especially
+near the mouth of the river; but in general they are less fierce than
+the crocodiles of the Orinoco. These animals manifest in America the
+same contrasts of ferocity as in Egypt and Nubia: this fact is obvious
+when we compare with attention the narratives of Burckhardt and
+Belzoni. The state of cultivation in different countries and the
+amount of population in the proximity of rivers modify the habits of
+these large saurians: they are timid when on dry ground and they flee
+from man, even in the water, when they are not in want of food and
+when they perceive any danger in attacking. The Indians of Nueva
+Barcelona convey wood to market in a singular manner. Large logs of
+zygophyllum and caesalpinia* are thrown into the river and carried
+down by the stream, while the owners of the wood swim here and there
+to float the pieces that are stopped by the windings of the banks. (*
+The Lecythis ollaria, in the vicinity of Nueva Barcelona, furnishes
+excellent timber. We saw trunks of this tree seventy feet high. Around
+the town, beyond that arid zone of cactus which separates Nueva
+Barcelona from the steppe, grow the Clerodendrum tenuifolium, the
+Ionidium itubu, which resembles the Viola, and the Allionia violacea.)
+This could not be done in the greater part of those American rivers in
+which crocodiles are found. The town of Barcelona has not, like
+Cumana, an Indian suburb; and the only natives who are seen there are
+inhabitants of the neighbouring missions or of huts scattered in the
+plain. Neither the one nor the other are of Carib race, but a mixture
+of the Cumanagotos, Palenkas and Piritus; short, stunted, indolent and
+addicted to drinking. Fermented cassava is here the favourite
+beverage; the wine of the palm-tree, which is used on the Orinoco,
+being almost unknown on the coast. It is curious to observe that men
+in different zones, to satisfy the passion of inebriety, employ not
+only all the families of monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants,
+but even the poisonous Agaric (Amanita muscaria) of which, with
+disgusting economy, the Coriacs have learnt to drink the same juice
+several times during five successive days.* (* Mr. Langsdor
+(Wetterauisches Journal part 1 page 254) first made known this very
+extraordinary physiological phenomenon, which I prefer describing in
+Latin: Coriaecorum gens, in ora Asiae septentrioni opposita, potum
+sibi excogitavit ex succo inebriante agarici muscarii. Qui succus
+(aeque ut asparagorum), vel per humanum corpus transfusus, temulentiam
+nihilominus facit. Quare gens misera et inops, quo rarius mentis sit
+suae, propriam urinam bibit identidem: continuoque mingens rursusque
+hauriens eundem succum (dicas, ne ulla in parte mundi desit ebrietas),
+pauculis agaricis producere in diem quintum temulentiam potest.)
+
+The packet boats (correos) from Corunna bound for the Havannah and
+Mexico had been due three months; and it was believed they had been
+taken by the English cruisers stationed on this coast. Anxious to
+reach Cumana, in order to avail ourselves of the first opportunity
+that might offer for our passage to Vera Cruz, we hired an open boat
+called a lancha, a sort of craft employed habitually in the latitudes
+east of Cape Codera where the sea is scarcely ever rough. Our lancha,
+which was laden with cacao, carried on a contraband trade with the
+island of Trinidad. For this reason the owner imagined we had nothing
+to fear from the enemy's vessels, which then blockaded all the Spanish
+ports. We embarked our collection of plants, our instruments and our
+monkeys; and, the weather being delightful, we hoped to make a very
+short passage from the mouth of the Rio Neveri to Cumana: but we had
+scarcely reached the narrow channel between the continent and the
+rocky isles of Borracha and the Chimanas, when to our great surprise
+we came in sight of an armed boat, which, whilst hailing us from a
+great distance, fired some musket-shot at us. The boat belonged to a
+privateer of Halifax; and I recognized among the sailors a Prussian, a
+native of Memel. I had found no opportunity, since my arrival in
+America, of expressing myself in my native language, and I could have
+wished to have spoken it on a less unpleasant occasion. Our
+protestations were without effect: we were carried on board the
+privateer, and the captain, affecting not to recognize the passports
+delivered by the governor of Trinidad for the illicit trade, declared
+us to be a lawful prize. Being a little in the habit of speaking
+English, I entered into conversation with the captain, begging not to
+be taken to Nova Scotia, but to be put on shore on the neighbouring
+coast. While I endeavoured, in the cabin, to defend my own rights and
+those of the owner of the lancha, I heard a noise on deck. Something
+was whispered to the captain, who left us in consternation. Happily
+for us, an English sloop of war, the Hawk, was cruising in those
+parts, and had signalled the captain to bring to; but the signal not
+being promptly answered, a gun was fired from the sloop and a
+midshipman sent on board our vessel. He was a polite young man, and
+gave me hopes that the lancha, which was laden with cacao, would be
+given up, and that on the following day we might pursue our voyage. In
+the meantime he invited me to accompany him on board the sloop,
+assuring me that his commander, Captain Garnier, would furnish me with
+better accommodation for the night than I should find in the vessel
+from Halifax.
+
+I accepted these obliging offers and was received with the utmost
+kindness by Captain Garnier, who had made the voyage to the north-west
+coast of America with Vancouver, and who appeared to be highly
+interested in all I related to him respecting the great cataracts of
+Atures and Maypures, the bifurcation of the Orinoco and its
+communication with the Amazon. He introduced to me several of his
+officers who had been with Lord Macartney in China. I had not, during
+the space of a year, enjoyed the society of so many well-informed
+persons. They had learned from the English newspapers the object of my
+enterprise. I was treated with great confidence and the commander gave
+me up his own state-room. They gave me at parting the astronomical
+Ephemerides for those years which I had not been able to procure in
+France or Spain. I am indebted to Captain Garnier for the observations
+I was enabled to make on the satellites beyond the equator and I feel
+it a duty to record here the gratitude I feel for his kindness. Coming
+from the forests of Cassiquiare, and having been confined during whole
+months to the narrow circle of missionary life, we felt a high
+gratification at meeting for the first time with men who had sailed
+round the world, and whose ideas were enlarged by so extensive and
+varied a course. I quitted the English vessel with impressions which
+are not yet effaced from my remembrance, and which rendered me more
+than ever satisfied with the career on which I had entered.
+
+We continued our passage on the following day; and were surprised at
+the depth of the channels between the Caracas Islands, where the sloop
+worked her way through them almost touching the rocks. How much do
+these calcareous islets, of which the form and direction call to mind
+the great catastrophe that separated from them the mainland, differ in
+aspect from the volcanic archipelago on the north of Lanzerote where
+the hills of basalt seem to have been heaved up from the bottom of the
+sea! Numbers of pelicans and of flamingos, which fished in the nooks
+or harassed the pelicans in order to seize their prey, indicated our
+approach to the coast of Cumana. It is curious to observe at sunrise
+how the sea-birds suddenly appear and animate the scene, reminding us,
+in the most solitary regions, of the activity of our cities at the
+dawn of day. At nine in the morning we reached the gulf of Cariaco
+which serves as a roadstead to the town of Cumana. The hill, crowned
+by the castle of San Antonio, stood out, prominent from its whiteness,
+on the dark curtain of the inland mountains. We gazed with interest on
+the shore, where we first gathered plants in America, and where, some
+months later, M. Bonpland had been in such danger. Among the cactuses,
+that rise in columns twenty feet high, appear the Indian huts of the
+Guaykeries. Every part of the landscape was familiar to us; the forest
+of cactus, the scattered huts and that enormous ceiba, beneath which
+we loved to bathe at the approach of night. Our friends at Cumana came
+out to meet us: men of all castes, whom our frequent herborizations
+had brought into contact with us, expressed the greater joy at sight
+of us, as a report that we had perished on the banks of the Orinoco
+had been current for several months. These reports had their origin
+either in the severe illness of M. Bonpland, or in the fact of our
+boat having been nearly lost in a gale above the mission of Uruana.
+
+We hastened to visit the governor, Don Vicente Emparan, whose
+recommendations and constant solicitude had been so useful to us
+during the long journey we had just terminated. He procured for us, in
+the centre of the town, a house which, though perhaps too lofty in a
+country exposed to violent earthquakes, was extremely useful for our
+instruments. We enjoyed from its terraces a majestic view of the sea,
+of the isthmus of Araya, and the archipelago of the islands of
+Caracas, Picuita and Borracha. The port of Cumana was every day more
+and more closely blockaded, and the vain expectation of the arrival of
+Spanish packets detained us two months and a half longer. We were
+often nearly tempted to go to the Danish islands which enjoyed a happy
+neutrality; but we feared that, if we left the Spanish colonies, we
+might find some obstacles to our return. With the ample freedom which
+in a moment of favour had been granted to us, we did not consider it
+prudent to hazard anything that might give umbrage to the local
+authorities. We employed our time in completing the Flora of Cumana,
+geologically examining the eastern part of the peninsula of Araya, and
+observing many eclipses of satellites, which confirmed the longitude
+of the place already obtained by other means. We also made experiments
+on the extraordinary refractions, on evaporation and on atmospheric
+electricity.
+
+The living animals which we had brought from the Orinoco were objects
+of great curiosity to the inhabitants of Cumana. The capuchin of the
+Esmeralda (Simia chiropotes), which so much resembles man in the
+expression of its physiognomy; and the sleeping monkey (Simia
+trivirgata), which is the type of a new group; had never yet been seen
+on that coast. We destined them for the menagerie of the Jardin des
+Plantes at Paris. The arrival of a French squadron which had failed in
+an attack upon Curacao furnished us, unexpectedly, with an excellent
+opportunity for sending them to Guadaloupe; and General Jeannet,
+together with the commissary Bresseau, agent of the executive power at
+the Antilles, promised to convey them. The monkeys and birds died at
+Guadaloupe but fortunately the skin of the Simia chiropotes, the only
+one in Europe, was sent a few years ago to the Jardin des Plantes,
+where the couxio (Simia satanas) and the stentor or alouate of the
+steppes of Caracas (Simia ursina) had been already received. The
+arrival of so great a number of French military officers and the
+manifestation of political and religious opinions not altogether
+conformable with the interests of the governments of Europe excited
+singular agitation in the population of Cumana. The governor treated
+the French authorities with the forms of civility consistent with the
+friendly relations subsisting at that period between France and Spain.
+In the streets the coloured people crowded round the agent of the
+French Directory, whose dress was rich and theatrical. White men, too,
+with indiscreet curiosity, whenever they could make themselves
+understood, made enquiries concerning the degree of influence granted
+by the republic to the colonists in the government of Guadaloupe. The
+king's officers doubled their zeal in furnishing provision for the
+little squadron. Strangers, who boasted that they were free, appeared
+to these people troublesome guests; and in a country of which the
+growing prosperity depended on clandestine communication with the
+islands, and on a freedom of trade forced from the ministry, the
+European Spaniards extolled the wisdom of the old code of laws (leyes
+de Indias) which permitted the entrance of foreign vessels into their
+ports only in extreme cases of want or distress. These contrasts
+between the restless desires of the colonists and the distrustful
+apathy of the government, throw some light on the great political
+events which, after long preparation, have separated Spain from her
+colonies.
+
+We again passed a few agreeable days, from the third to the fifth of
+November, at the peninsula of Araya, situated beyond the gulf of
+Cariaco, opposite to Cumana.* (* I have already described the pearls
+of Araya; its sulphurous deposits and submarine springs of liquid and
+colourless petroleum. See volume 1.5.) We were informed that the
+Indians carried to the town from time to time considerable quantities
+of native alum, found in the neighbouring mountains. The specimens
+shown to us sufficiently indicated that it was neither alunite,
+similar to the rock of Tolfa and Piombino, nor those capillary and
+silky salts of alkaline sulphate of alumina and magnesia that line the
+clefts and cavities of rocks, but real masses of native alum, with a
+conchoidal or imperfectly lamellar fracture. We were led to hope that
+we should find the mine of alum (mina de alun) in the slaty cordillera
+of Maniquarez, and so new a geological phenomenon was calculated to
+rivet our attention. The priest Juan Gonzales, and the treasurer, Don
+Manuel Navarete, who had been useful to us from our first arrival on
+this coast, accompanied us in our little excursion. We disembarked
+near Cape Caney and again visited the ancient salt-pit (which is
+converted into a lake by the irruption of the sea), the fine ruins of
+the castle of Araya and the calcareous mountain of the Barigon, which,
+from its steepness on the western side is somewhat difficult of
+access. Muriatiferous clay mixed with bitumen and lenticular gypsum
+and sometimes passing to a darkish brown clay, devoid of salt, is a
+formation widely spread through this peninsula, in the island of
+Margareta and on the opposite continent, near the castle of San
+Antonio de Cumana. Probably the existence of this formation has
+contributed to produce those ruptures and rents in the ground which
+strike the eye of the geologist when he stands on one of the eminences
+of the peninsula of Araya. The cordillera of this peninsula, composed
+of mica-slate and clay-slate, is separated on the north from the chain
+of mountains of the island of Margareta (which are of a similar
+composition) by the channel of Cubagua; and on the south it is
+separated from the lofty calcareous chain of the continent, by the
+gulf of Cariaco. The whole intermediate space appears to have been
+heretofore filled with muriatiferous clay; and no doubt the continual
+erosions of the ocean have removed this formation and converted the
+plain, first into lakes, then into gulfs, and finally into navigable
+channels. The account of what has passed in the most modern times at
+the foot of the castle of Araya, the irruption of the sea into the
+ancient salt-pit, the formation of the laguna de Chacopata and a lake,
+four leagues in length, which cuts the island of Margareta nearly into
+two parts, afford evident proofs of these successive erosions. In the
+singular configuration of the coasts in the Morro of Chacopata; in the
+little islands of the Caribbees, the Lobos and Tunal; in the great
+island of Coche, and the capes of Carnero and Mangliers there still
+seem to be apparent the remains of an isthmus which, stretching from
+north to south, formerly joined the peninsula of Araya to the island
+of Margareta. In that island a neck of very low land, three thousand
+toises long, and less than two hundred toises broad, conceals on the
+northern sides the two hilly groups, known by the names of La Vega de
+San Juan and the Macanao. The Laguna Grande of Margareta has a very
+narrow opening to the south and small boats pass by portage over the
+neck of land or northern dyke. Though the waters on these shores seem
+at present to recede from the continent it is nevertheless very
+probable that in the lapse of ages, either by an earthquake or by a
+sudden rising of the ocean, the long island of Margareta will be
+divided into two rocky islands of a trapezoidal form.
+
+The limestone of the Barigon, which is a part of the great formation
+of sandstone or calcareous breccia of Cumana, is filled with fossil
+shells in as perfect preservation as those of other tertiary
+limestones in France and Italy. We detached some blocks containing
+oysters eight inches in diameter, pectens, venuses, and lithophyte
+polypi. I recommend to naturalists better versed in the knowledge of
+fossils than I then was, to examine with care this mountainous coast
+(which is easy of access to European vessels) in their way to Cumana,
+Guayra or Curacao. It would be curious to discover whether any of
+these shells and these species of petrified zoophytes still inhabit
+the seas of the West Indies, as M. Bonpland conjectured, and as is the
+case in the island of Timor and perhaps in Guadaloupe.
+
+We sailed on the 4th of November, at one o'clock in the morning, in
+search of the mine of native alum. I took with me the chronometer and
+my large Dollond telescope, intending to observe at the Laguna Chica
+(Small Lake), east of the village of Maniquarez, the immersion of the
+first satellite of Jupiter; this design, however, was not
+accomplished, contrary winds having prevented our arrival before
+daylight. The spectacle of the phosphorescence of the ocean and the
+sports of the porpoises which surrounded our canoe somewhat atoned for
+this disappointment. We again passed those spots where springs of
+petroleum gush from mica-slate at the bottom of the sea and the smell
+of which is perceptible from a considerable distance. When it is
+recollected that farther eastward, near Cariaco, the hot and submarine
+waters are sufficiently abundant to change the temperature of the gulf
+at its surface, we cannot doubt that the petroleum is the effect of
+distillation at an immense depth, issuing from those primitive rocks
+beneath which lies the focus of all volcanic commotion.
+
+The Laguna Chica is a cove surrounded by perpendicular mountains, and
+connected with the gulf of Cariaco only by a narrow channel
+twenty-five fathoms deep. It seems, like the fine port of Acapulco, to
+owe its existence to the effect of an earthquake. A beach shows that
+the sea is here receding from the land, as on the opposite coast of
+Cumana. The peninsula of Araya, which narrows between Cape Mero and
+Cape las Minas to one thousand four hundred toises, is little more
+than four thousand toises in breadth near the Laguna Chica, reckoning
+from one sea to the other. We had to cross this distance in order to
+find the native alum and to reach the cape called the Punta de
+Chuparuparu. The road is difficult only because no path is traced; and
+between precipices of some depth we were obliged to step over ridges
+of bare rock, the strata of which are much inclined. The principal
+point is nearly two hundred and twenty toises high; but the mountains,
+as it often happens in a rocky isthmus, display very singular forms.
+The Paps (tetas) of Chacopata and Cariaco, midway between the Laguna
+Chica and the town of Cariaco, are peaks which appear isolated when
+viewed from the platform of the castle of Cumana. The vegetable earth
+in this country is only thirty toises above sea level. Sometimes there
+is no rain for the space of fifteen months; if, however, a few drops
+fall immediately after the flowering of the melons and gourds, they
+yield fruit weighing from sixty to seventy pounds, notwithstanding the
+apparent dryness of the air. I say apparent dryness, for my
+hygrometric observations prove that the atmosphere of Cumana and Araya
+contains nearly nine-tenths of the quantity of watery vapour necessary
+to its perfect saturation. It is this air, at once hot and humid, that
+nourishes those vegetable reservoirs, the cucurbitaceous plants, the
+agaves and melocactuses half-buried in the sand. When we visited the
+peninsula the preceding year there was a great scarcity of water; the
+goats for want of grass died by hundreds. During our stay at the
+Orinoco the order of the seasons seemed to be entirely changed. At
+Araya, Cochen, and even in the island of Margareta it had rained
+abundantly; and those showers were remembered by the inhabitants in
+the same way as a fall of aerolites would be noted in the recollection
+of the naturalists of Europe.
+
+The Indian who was our guide scarcely knew in what direction we should
+find the alum; he was ignorant of its real position. This ignorance of
+localities characterises almost all the guides here, who are chosen
+from among the most indolent class of the people. We wandered for
+eight or nine hours among rocks totally bare of vegetation. The
+mica-slate passes sometimes to clay-slate of a darkish grey. I was
+again struck by the extreme regularity in the direction and
+inclination of the strata. They run north 50 degrees east, inclining
+from 60 to 70 degrees north-west. This is the general direction which
+I had observed in the gneiss-granite of Caracas and the Orinoco, in
+the hornblende-slates of Angostura, and even in the greater part of
+the secondary rocks we had just examined. The beds, over a vast extent
+of land, make the same angle with the meridian of the place; they
+present a parallelism, which may be considered as one of the great
+geologic laws capable of being verified by precise measures. Advancing
+toward Cape Chuparuparu, the veins of quartz that cross the mica-slate
+increase in size. We found some from one to two toises broad, full of
+small fasciculated crystals of rutile titanite. We sought in vain for
+cyanite, which we had discovered in some blocks near Maniquarez.
+Farther on the mica-state presents not veins, but little beds of
+graphite or carburetted iron. They are from two to three inches thick
+and have precisely the same direction and inclination as the rock.
+Graphite, in primitive soils, marks the first appearance of carbon on
+the globe--that of carbon uncombined with hydrogen. It is anterior to
+the period when the surface of the earth became covered with
+monocotyledonous plants. From the summit of those wild mountains there
+is a majestic view of the island of Margareta. Two groups of mountains
+already mentioned, those of Macanao and La Vega de San Juan, rise from
+the bosom of the waters. The capital of the island, La Asuncion, the
+port of Pampatar, and the villages of Pueblo de la Mar, Pueblo del
+Norte and San Juan belong to the second and most easterly of these
+groups. The western group, the Macanao, is almost entirely
+uninhabited. The isthmus that divides these large masses of mica-slate
+was scarcely visible; its form appeared changed by the effect of the
+mirage and we recognized the intermediate part, through which runs the
+Laguna Grande, only by two small hills of a sugarloaf form, in the
+meridian of the Punta de Piedras. Nearer we look down on the small
+desert archipelago of the four Morros del Tunal, the Caribbee and the
+Lobos Islands.
+
+After much vain search we at length found, before we descended to the
+northern coast of the peninsula of Araya, in a ravine of very
+difficult access (Aroyo del Robalo), the mineral which had been shown
+to us at Cumana. The mica-slate changed suddenly into carburetted and
+shining clay-slate. It was an ampelite; and the waters (for there are
+small springs in those parts, and some have recently been discovered
+near the village of Maniquarez) were impregnated with yellow oxide of
+iron and had a styptic taste. We found the sides of the neighbouring
+rocks lined with capillary sulphate of alumina in effervescence; and
+real beds, two inches thick, full of native alum, extending as far as
+the eye could reach in the clay slate. The alum is greyish white,
+somewhat dull on the surface and of an almost glassy lustre
+internally. Its fracture is not fibrous but imperfectly conchoidal. It
+is slightly translucent when its fragments are thin; and has a
+sweetish and astringent taste without any bitter mixture. When on the
+spot, I proposed to myself the question whether this alum, so pure,
+and filling beds in the clay-slate without leaving the smallest void,
+be of a formation contemporary with the rock, or whether it be of a
+recent, and in some sort secondary, origin, like the muriate of soda,
+found sometimes in small veins, where strongly concentrated springs
+traverse beds of gypsum or clay. In these parts nothing seems to
+indicate a process of formation likely to be renewed in our days. The
+slaty rock exhibits no open cleft; and none is found parallel with the
+direction of the slates. It may also be inquired whether this
+aluminous slate be a transition-formation lying on the primitive
+mica-slate of Araya, or whether it owe its origin merely to a change
+of composition and texture in the beds of mica-slate. I lean to the
+latter proposition; for the transition is progressive, and the
+clay-slate (thonschiefer) and mica-slate appear to me to constitute
+here but one formation. The presence of cyanite, rutile-titanite, and
+garnets, and the absence of Lydian stone, and all fragmentary or
+arenaceous rocks, seem to characterise the formation we describe as
+primitive. It is asserted that even in Europe ampelite and green stone
+are found, though rarely, in slates anterior to transition-slate.
+
+When, in 1785, after an earthquake, a great rocky mass was broken off
+in the Aroyo del Robalo, the Guaykeries of Los Serritos collected
+fragments of alum five or six inches in diameter, extremely pure and
+transparent. It was sold in my time at Cumana to the dyers and
+tanners, at the price of two reals* per pound, while alum from Spain
+cost twelve reals. (* The real is about 6 1/2 English pence.) This
+difference of price was more the result of prejudice and of the
+impediments to trade, than of the inferior quality of the alum of the
+country, which is fit for use without undergoing any purification. It
+is also found in the chain of mica-slate and clay-slate, on the
+north-west coast of the island of Trinidad, at Margareta and near Cape
+Chuparuparu, north of the Cerro del Distiladero.* (* Another place was
+mentioned to us, west of Bordones, the Puerto Escondido. But that
+coast appeared to me to be wholly calcareous; and I cannot conceive
+where could be the situation of ampelite and native alum on this
+point. Was it in the beds of slaty clay that alternate with the alpine
+limestone of Cumanacoa? Fibrous alum is found in Europe only in
+formations posterior to those of transition, in lignites and other
+tertiary formations belonging to the lignites.) The Indians, who are
+naturally addicted to concealment, are not inclined to make known the
+spots whence they obtain native alum; but it must be abundant, for I
+have seen very considerable quantities of it in their possession at a
+time.
+
+South America at present receives its alum from Europe, as Europe in
+its turn received it from the natives of Asia previous to the
+fifteenth century. Mineralogists, before my travels, knew no
+substances which, without addition, calcined or not calcined, could
+directly yield alum (sulphate of alumina and potash), except rocks of
+trachytic formation, and small veins traversing beds of lignite and
+bituminous wood. Both these substances, so different in their origin,
+contain all that constitutes alum, that is to say, alumina, sulphuric
+acid and potash. The ores of Tolfa, Milo and Nipoligo; those of
+Montione, in which silica does not accompany the alumina; the
+siliceous breccia of Mont Dore, which contains sulphur in its
+cavities; the alumiferous rocks of Parad and Beregh in Hungary, which
+belong also to trachytic and pumice conglomerates, may no doubt be
+traced to the penetration of sulphurous acid vapours. They are the
+products of a feeble and prolonged volcanic action, as may be easily
+ascertained in the solfataras of Puzzuoli and the Peak of Teneriffe.
+The alumite of Tolfa, which, since my return to Europe, I have
+examined on the spot, conjointly with Gay-Lussac, has, by its
+oryctognostic characters and its chemical composition, a considerable
+affinity to compact feldspar, which constitutes the basis of so many
+trachytes and transition-porphyries. It is a siliciferous subsulphate
+of alumina and potash, a compact feldspar, with the addition of
+sulphuric acid completely formed in it. The waters circulating in
+these alumiferous rocks of volcanic origin do not, however, deposit
+masses of native alum, to yield which the rocks must be roasted. I
+know not of any deposits analogous to those I brought from Cumana; for
+the capillary and fibrous masses found in veins traversing beds of
+lignites (as on the banks of the Egra, between Saatz and Commothau in
+Bohemia), or efflorescing in cavities (as at Freienwalde in
+Brandenburg, and at Segario in Sardinia), are impure salts, often
+destitute of potash, and mixed with the sulphates of ammonia and
+magnesia. A slow decomposition of the pyrites, which probably act as
+so many little galvanic piles, renders the waters alumiferous, that
+circulate across the bituminous lignites and carburetted clays. These
+waters, in contact with carbonate of lime, even give rise to the
+deposits of subsulphate of alumina (destitute of potash), found near
+Halle, and formerly believed erroneously to be pure alumina belonging,
+like the porcelain earth (kaolin) of Morl, to porphyry of red
+sandstone. Analogous chemical actions may take place in primitive and
+transition slates as well as in tertiary formations. All slates, and
+this fact is very important, contain nearly five per cent of potash,
+sulphuret of iron, peroxide of iron, carbon, etc. The contact of so
+many moistened heterogeneous substances must necessarily lead them to
+a change of state and composition. The efflorescent salts that
+abundantly cover the aluminous slates of Robalo, show how much these
+chemical effects are favoured by the high temperature of the climate;
+but, I repeat, in a rock where there are no crevices, no vacuities
+parallel to the direction and inclination of the strata, native alum,
+semitransparent and of conchoidal fracture, completely filling its
+place (its beds), must be regarded as of the same age with the rock in
+which it is contained. The term contemporary formation is here taken
+in the sense attached to it by geologists, in speaking of beds of
+quartz in clay-slate, granular limestone in mica-slate or feldspar in
+gneiss.
+
+After having for a long time wandered over barren scenes amidst rocks
+entirely devoid of vegetation, our eyes dwelt with pleasure on tufts
+of malpighia and croton, which we found in descending toward the
+coast. These arborescent crotons were of two new species,* very
+remarkable for their form, and peculiar to the peninsula of Araya. (*
+Croton argyrophyllus and C. marginatus.) We arrived too late at the
+Laguna Chica to visit another rock situated farther east and
+celebrated by the name of the Laguna Grande, or the Laguna del
+Obispo.* (* Great Lake, or the Bishop's Lake.) We contented ourselves
+with admiring it from the height of the mountains that command the
+view; and, excepting the ports of Ferrol and Acapulco, there is
+perhaps none presenting a more extraordinary configuration. It is an
+inland gulf two miles and a half long from east to west, and one mile
+broad. The rocks of mica-slate that form the entrance of the port
+leave a free passage only two hundred and fifty toises broad. The
+water is everywhere from fifteen to twenty-five fathoms deep. Probably
+the government of Cumana will one day take advantage of the possession
+of this inland gulf and of that of Mochima,* eight leagues east of the
+bad road of Nueva Barcelona. (* This is a long narrow gulf, three
+miles from north to south, similar to the fiords of Norway.) The
+family of M. Navarete were waiting for us with impatience on the
+beach; and, though our boat carried a large sail, we did not arrive at
+Maniquarez before night.
+
+We prolonged our stay at Cumana only a fortnight. Having lost all hope
+of the arrival of a packet from Corunna, we availed ourselves of an
+American vessel, laden at Nueva Barcelona with salt provision for the
+island of Cuba. We had now passed sixteen months on this coast and in
+the interior of Venezuela, and on the 16th of November we parted from
+our friends at Cumana to make the passage for the third time across
+the gulf of Cariaco to Nueva Barcelona. The night was cool and
+delicious. It was not without emotion that we beheld for the last time
+the disc of the moon illuminating the summit of the cocoa-trees that
+surround the banks of the Manzanares. The breeze was strong and in
+less than six hours we anchored near the Morro of Nueva Barcelona,
+where the vessel which was to take us to the Havannah was ready to
+sail.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.27.
+
+POLITICAL STATE OF THE PROVINCES OF VENEZUELA.
+EXTENT OF TERRITORY.
+POPULATION.
+NATURAL PRODUCTIONS.
+EXTERNAL TRADE.
+COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT PROVINCES COMPRISING THE REPUBLIC
+OF COLUMBIA.
+
+Before I quit the coasts of Terra Firma and draw the attention of the
+reader to the political importance of Cuba, the largest of the West
+India Islands, I will collect into one point of view all those facts
+which may lead to a just appreciation of the future relations of
+commercial Europe with the united Provinces of Venezuela. When, soon
+after my return to Germany, I published the Essai Politique sur la
+Nouvelle-Espagne, I at the same time made known some of the facts I
+had collected in relation to the territorial riches of South America.
+This comparative view of the population, agriculture and commerce of
+all the Spanish colonies was formed at a period when the progress of
+civilization was restrained by the imperfection of social
+institutions, the prohibitory system and other fatal errors in the
+science of government. Since the time when I developed the immense
+resources which the people of both North and South America might
+derive from their own position and their relations with commercial
+Europe and Asia, one of those great revolutions which from time to
+time agitate the human race has changed the state of society in the
+vast regions through which I travelled. The continental part of the
+New World is at present in some sort divided between three nations of
+European origin; one (and that the most powerful) is of Germanic race:
+the two others belong by their language, their literature, and their
+manners to Latin Europe. Those parts of the old world which advance
+farthest westward, the Spanish Peninsula and the British Islands, are
+those of which the colonies are most extensive; but four thousand
+leagues of coast, inhabited solely by the descendants of Spaniards and
+Portuguese, attest the superiority which in the fifteenth and
+sixteenth centuries the peninsular nations had acquired, by their
+maritime expeditions, over the navigators of other countries. It may
+be fairly asserted that their languages, which prevail from California
+to the Rio de la Plata and along the back of the Cordilleras, as well
+as in the forests of the Amazon, are monuments of national glory that
+will survive every political revolution.
+
+The inhabitants of Spanish and Portuguese America form together a
+population twice as numerous as the inhabitants of English race. The
+French, Dutch, and Danish possessions of the new continent are of
+small extent; but, to complete the general view of the nations which
+may influence the destiny of the other hemisphere, we ought not to
+forget the colonists of Scandinavian origin who are endeavouring to
+form settlements from the peninsula of Alashka as far as California;
+and the free Africans of Hayti who have verified the prediction made
+by the Milanese traveller Benzoni in 1545. The situation of these
+Africans in an island more than three times the size of Sicily, in the
+middle of the West Indian Mediterranean, augments their political
+importance. Every friend of humanity prays for the development of the
+civilization which is advancing in so calm and unexpected a manner. As
+yet Russian America is less like an agricultural colony than the
+factories established by Europeans on the coast of Africa, to the
+great misfortune of the natives; they contain only military posts,
+stations of fishermen, and Siberian hunters. It is a curious
+phenomenon to find the rites of the Greek Church established in one
+part of America and to see two nations which inhabit the eastern and
+western extremities of Europe (the Russians and the Spaniards) thus
+bordering on each other on a continent on which they arrived by
+opposite routes; but the almost savage state of the unpeopled coasts
+of Ochotsk and Kamtschatka, the want of resources furnished by the
+ports of Asia, and the barbarous system hitherto adopted in the
+Scandinavian colonies of the New World, are circumstances which will
+hold them long in infancy. Hence it follows that if in the researches
+of political economy we are accustomed to survey masses only, we
+cannot but admit that the American continent is divided, properly
+speaking, between three great nations of English, Spanish, and
+Portuguese race. The first of these three nations, the
+Anglo-Americans, is, next to the English of Europe, that whose flag
+waves over the greatest extent of sea. Without any distant colonies,
+its commerce has acquired a growth attained in the old world by that
+nation alone which communicated to North America its language, its
+literature, its love of labour, its predilection for liberty, and a
+portion of its civil institutions.
+
+The English and Portuguese colonists have peopled only the coasts
+which lie opposite to Europe; the Castilians, on the contrary, in the
+earliest period of the conquest, crossed the chain of the Andes and
+made settlements in the most western regions. There only, at Mexico,
+Cundinamarca, Quito and Peru, they found traces of ancient
+civilization, agricultural nations and flourishing empires. This
+circumstance, together with the increase of the native mountain
+population, the almost exclusive possession of great metallic wealth,
+and the commercial relations established from the beginning of the
+sixteenth century with the Indian archipelago, have given a peculiar
+character to the Spanish possessions in equinoctial America. In the
+East Indies, the people who fell into the hands of the English and
+Portuguese settlers were wandering tribes or hunters. Far from forming
+a portion of the agricultural and laborious population, as on the
+tableland of Anahuac, at Guatimala and in Upper Peru, they generally
+withdrew at the approach of the whites. The necessity of labour, the
+preference given to the cultivation of the sugar-cane, indigo, and
+cotton, the cupidity which often accompanies and degrades industry,
+gave birth to that infamous slave-trade, the consequences of which
+have been alike fatal to the old and the new world. Happily, in the
+continental part of Spanish America, the number of African slaves is
+so inconsiderable that, compared with the slave population of Brazil,
+or with that of the southern part of the United States, it is found to
+be in the proportion of one to fourteen. The whole of the Spanish
+colonies, without excluding the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, have
+not, over a surface which exceeds at least by one-fifth that of
+Europe, as many negroes as the single state of Virginia. The Spanish
+Americans, in the union of New Spain and Guatimala, present an
+example, unique in the torrid zone, namely, a nation of eight millions
+of inhabitants governed conformably with European institutions and
+laws, cultivating sugar, cacao, wheat and grapes, and having scarcely
+a slave brought from Africa.
+
+The population of the New Continent as yet surpasses but little that
+of France or Germany. It doubles in the United States in twenty-three
+or twenty-five years; and at Mexico, even under the government of the
+mother country, it doubles in forty or forty-five years. Without
+indulging too flattering hopes of the future, it may be admitted that
+in less than a century and a half the population of America will equal
+that of Europe. This noble rivalry in civilization and the arts of
+industry and commerce, far from impoverishing the old continent, as
+has often been supposed it might at the expense of the new one, will
+augment the wants of the consumer, the mass of productive labour, and
+the activity of exchange. Doubtless, in consequence of the great
+revolutions which human society undergoes, the public fortune, the
+common patrimony of civilization, is found differently divided among
+the nations of the old and the new world: but by degrees the
+equilibrium is restored; and it is a fatal, I had almost said an
+impious prejudice, to consider the growing prosperity of any other
+part of our planet as a calamity to Europe. The independence of the
+colonies will not contribute to isolate them from the old civilized
+nations, but will rather bring all more closely together. Commerce
+tends to unite countries which a jealous policy has long separated. It
+is the nature of civilization to go forward without any tendency to
+decline in the spot that gave it birth. Its progress from east to
+west, from Asia to Europe, proves nothing against this axiom. A clear
+light loses none of its brilliancy by being diffused over a wider
+space. Intellectual cultivation, that fertile source of national
+wealth, advances by degrees and extends without being displaced. Its
+movement is not a migration: and though it may seem to be such in the
+east, it is because barbarous hordes possessed themselves of Egypt,
+Asia Minor, and of once free Greece, the forsaken cradle of the
+civilization of our ancestors.
+
+The barbarism of nations is the consequence of oppression exercised by
+internal despotism or foreign conquest; and it is always accompanied
+by progressive impoverishment, by a diminution of the public fortune.
+Free and powerful institutions, adapted to the interests of all,
+remove these dangers; and the growing civilization of the world, the
+competition of labour and of trade, are not the ruin of states whose
+welfare flows from a natural source. Productive and commercial Europe
+will profit by the new order of things in Spanish America, as it would
+profit from events that might put an end to barbarism in Greece, on
+the northern coast of Africa and in other countries subject to Ottoman
+tyranny. What most menaces the prosperity of the ancient continent is
+the prolongation of those intestine struggles which check production
+and diminish at the same time the number and wants of consumers. This
+struggle, begun in Spanish America six years after my departure, is
+drawing gradually to an end. We shall soon see both shores of the
+Atlantic peopled by independent nations, ruled by different forms of
+Government, but united by the remembrance of a common origin,
+uniformity of language, and the wants which civilization creates. It
+may be said that the immense progress of the art of navigation has
+contracted the boundaries of the seas. The Atlantic already assumes
+the form of a narrow channel which no more removes the New World from
+the commercial states of Europe, than the Mediterranean, in the
+infancy of navigation, removed the Greeks of Peloponnesus from those
+of Ionia, Sicily, and the Cyrenaic region.
+
+I have thought it right to enter into these general considerations on
+the future connection of the two continents, before tracing the
+political sketch of the provinces of Venezuela. These provinces,
+governed till 1810 by a captain-general residing at Caracas, are now
+united to the old viceroyalty of New Grenada, or Santa Fe, under the
+name of the Republic of Columbia. I will not anticipate the
+description which I shall have hereafter to give of New Grenada; but,
+in order to render my observations on the statistics of Venezuela more
+useful to those who would judge of the political importance of the
+country and the advantages it may offer to the trade of Europe, even
+in its present unadvanced state of cultivation, I will describe the
+United Provinces of Venezuela in their relations with Cundinamarca, or
+New Grenada, and as forming part of the new state of Columbia. M.
+Bonpland and I passed nearly three years in the country which now
+forms the territory of the republic of Columbia; sixteen months in
+Venezuela and eighteen in New Grenada. We crossed the territory in its
+whole extent; on one hand from the mountains of Paria as far as
+Esmeralda on the Upper Orinoco, and San Carlo del Rio Negro, situated
+near the frontiers of Brazil; and on the other, from Rio Sinu and
+Carthagena as far as the snowy summits of Quito, the port of Guayaquil
+on the coast of the Pacific, and the banks of the Amazon in the
+province of Jaen de Bracamoros. So long a stay and an expedition of
+one thousand three hundred leagues in the interior of the country, of
+which more than six hundred and fifty were by water, have furnished me
+with a pretty accurate knowledge of local circumstances.
+
+I am aware that travellers, who have recently visited America, regard
+its progress as far more rapid than my statistical researches seem to
+indicate. For the year 1913 they promise one hundred and twelve
+millions of inhabitants in Mexico, of which they believe that the
+population is doubled every twenty-two years; and during the same
+interval one hundred and forty millions in the United States. These
+numbers, I confess, do not appear to me to be alarming from the
+motives that may excite fear among the disciples of Malthus. It is
+possible that some time or other, two or three hundred millions of men
+may find subsistence in the vast extent of the new continent between
+the lake of Nicaragua and lake Ontario. I admit that the United States
+will contain above eighty millions of inhabitants a hundred years
+hence, allowing a progressive change in the period of doubling from
+twenty-five to thirty-five and forty years; but, notwithstanding the
+elements of prosperity to be found in equinoctial America, I doubt
+whether the increase of the population in Venezuela, Spanish Guiana,
+New Grenada and Mexico can be in general so rapid as in the United
+States. The latter, which are situated entirely in the temperate zone,
+destitute of high chains of mountains, embrace an immense extent of
+country easy of cultivation. The hordes of Indian hunters flee both
+from the colonists, whom they abhor, and the methodist missionaries,
+who oppose their taste for indolence and a vagabond life. The more
+fertile land of Spanish America produces indeed on the same surface a
+greater amount of nutritive substances. On the table lands of the
+equinoctial regions wheat doubtless yields annually from twenty to
+twenty-four for one; but Cordilleras furrowed by almost inaccessible
+crevices, bare and arid steppes, forests that resist both the axe and
+fire, and an atmosphere filled with venomous insects, will long
+present powerful obstacles to agriculture and industry. The most
+active and enterprising colonists cannot, in the mountainous districts
+of Merida, Antioquia, and Los Pastos, in the llanos of Venezuela and
+Guaviare, in the forests of the Rio Magdalena, the Orinoco, and the
+province of Las Esmeraldas, west of Quito, extend their agricultural
+conquests as they have done in the woody plains westward of the
+Alleghenies, from the sources of the Ohio, the Tennessee and the
+Alabama, as far as the banks of the Missouri and the Arkansas. Calling
+to mind the account of my voyage on the Orinoco, it may be easy to
+appreciate the obstacles which nature opposes to the efforts of man in
+hot and humid climates. In Mexico, large extents of soil are destitute
+of springs; rain seldom falls, and the want of navigable rivers
+impedes communication. As the ancient native population is
+agricultural, and had been so long before the arrival of the
+Spaniards, the lands most easy of access and cultivation have already
+their proprietors. Fertile tracts of country, at the disposal of the
+first occupier, or ready to be sold in lots for the profit of the
+state, are much less common than Europeans imagine. Hence it follows
+that the progress of colonization cannot be everywhere as free and
+rapid in Spanish America as it has hitherto been in the western
+provinces of the United States. The population of that union is
+composed wholly of whites, and of negros, who, having been torn from
+their country, or born in the New World, have become the instruments
+of the industry of the whites. In Mexico, Guatimala, Quito, and Peru,
+on the contrary, there exist in our day more than five millions and a
+half of natives of copper-coloured race, whose isolated position,
+partly forced and partly voluntary, together with their attachment to
+ancient habits, and their mistrustful inflexibility of character, will
+long prevent their participation in the progress of the public
+prosperity, notwithstanding the efforts employed to disindianize them.
+
+I dwell on the differences between the free states of temperate and
+equinoctial America, to show that the latter have to contend against
+obstacles connected with their physical and moral position; and to
+remind the reader that the countries embellished with the most varied
+and precious productions of nature, are not always susceptible of an
+easy, rapid, and uniformly extended cultivation. If we consider the
+limits which the population may attain as depending solely on the
+quantity of subsistence which the land is capable of producing, the
+most simple calculations would prove the preponderance of the
+communities established in the fine regions of the torrid zone; but
+political economy, or the positive science of government, is
+distrustful of ciphers and vain abstractions. We know that by the
+multiplication of one family only, a continent previously desert may
+reckon in the space of eight centuries more than eight millions of
+inhabitants; and yet these estimates, founded on the hypothesis of a
+continuous doubling in twenty-five or thirty years, are contradicted
+by the history of every country already advanced in civilization. The
+destinies which await the free states of Spanish America are too
+glorious to require to be embellished by illusions and chimerical
+calculations.
+
+Among the thirty-four million inhabitants spread over the vast surface
+of continental America, in which estimate are comprised the savage
+natives, we distinguish, according to the three preponderant races,
+sixteen millions and a half in the possessions of the Spanish
+Americans, ten millions in those of the Anglo-Americans, and nearly
+four millions in those of the Portuguese Americans. The population of
+these three great divisions is, at the present time, in the proportion
+of 4, 2 1/2, 1; while the extent of surface over which the population
+is spread is, as the numbers 1.5, 0.7, 1. The area of the United
+States* is nearly one-fourth greater than that of Russia west of the
+Ural mountains; and Spanish America is in the same proportion more
+extensive than the whole of Europe. (* Notwithstanding the political
+changes which have taken place in the South American colonies, I shall
+throughout this work designate the country inhabited by the Spanish
+Americans by the denomination of Spanish America. I call the country
+of the Anglo-Americans the United States, without adding of North
+America, although other United States exist in South America. It is
+embarrassing to speak of nations who play a great part on the scene of
+the world without having collective names. The term American can no
+longer be applied solely to the citizens of the United States of North
+America; and it were to be wished that the nomenclature of the
+independent nations of the New Continent should be fixed in a manner
+at once convenient, harmonious, and precise.) The United States
+contain five-eighths of the proportion of the Spanish possessions, and
+yet their area is not one-half so large. Brazil comprehends tracts of
+country so desert toward the west that over an extent only a third
+less than that of Spanish America its population is in the proportion
+of one to four. The following table contains the results of an attempt
+which I made, conjointly with M. Mathieu, member of the Academy of
+Sciences, and of the Bureau des Longitudes, to estimate with precision
+the extent of the surface of the various states of America. We made
+use of maps on which the limits had been corrected according to the
+statements published in my Recueil d'Observations Astronomiques. Our
+scales were, generally speaking, so large that spaces from four to
+five leagues square were not omitted. We observed this degree of
+precision that we might not add the uncertainty of the measure of
+triangles, trapeziums, and the sinuosities of the coasts, to the
+uncertainty of geographical statements.
+
+TABLE OF GREAT POLITICAL DIVISIONS.
+
+COLUMN 1 : NAME.
+
+COLUMN 2 : SURFACE IN SQUARE LEAGUES OF 20 TO AN EQUINOCTIAL DEGREE.
+
+COLUMN 3 : POPULATION (1823).
+
+                                          Surface          Pop.
+
+1. Possessions of the Spanish Americans : 371,380 : 16,785,000.
+
+   Mexico or New Spain                  :  75,830 :  6,800,000.
+   Guatemala                            :  16,740 :  1,600,000.
+   Cuba and Porto Rico                  :   4,430 :    800,000.
+   Columbia--Venezuela                  :  33,700 :    785,000.
+   Columbia--New Grenada and Quito      :  58,250 :  2,000,000.
+   Peru                                 :  41,420 :  1,400,000.
+   Chili                                :  14,240 :  1,100,000.
+   Buenos Ayres                         : 126,770 :  2,300,000.
+
+2. Possessions of the Portuguese
+   Americans (Brazil)                   : 256,990 :  4,000,000.
+
+3. Possessions of the
+   Anglo-Americans (United States)      : 174,300 : 10,220,000.
+
+From the statistical researches which have been made in several
+countries of Europe, important results have been obtained by a
+comparison of the relative population of maritime and inland
+provinces. In Spain these relations are to one another as nine to
+five; in the United Provinces of Venezuela, and, above all, in the
+ancient Capitania-General of Caracas, they are as thirty-five to one.
+How powerful soever may be the influence of commerce on the prosperity
+of states, and the intellectual development of nations, it would be
+wrong to attribute in America, as we do in Europe, to that cause alone
+the differences just mentioned. In Spain and Italy, if we except the
+fertile plains of Lombardy, the inland districts are arid and
+abounding in mountains or high table-lands: the meteorological
+circumstances on which the fertility of the soil depends are not the
+same in the lands bordering on the sea, as they are in the central
+provinces. Colonization in America has generally begun on the coast,
+and advanced slowly towards the interior; such is its progress in
+Brazil and in Venezuela. It is only where the coast is unhealthy, as
+in Mexico and New Grenada, or sandy and exempt from rain as in Peru,
+that the population is concentrated on the mountains, and the
+table-lands of the interior. These local circumstances are too often
+overlooked in considerations on the future fate of the Spanish
+colonies; they communicate a peculiar character to some of those
+countries, the physical and moral analogies of which are less striking
+than is commonly supposed. Considered with reference to the
+distribution of the population, the two provinces of New Grenada and
+Venezuela, which have been united in one political body, exhibit the
+most complete contrast. Their capitals (and the position of capitals
+always denotes where population is most concentrated) are at such
+unequal distances from the trading coasts of the Caribbean Sea, that
+the town of Caracas, to be placed on the same parallel with Santa-Fe
+de Bogota, must be transplanted southward to the junction of the
+Orinoco with the Guaviare, where the mission of San Fernando de
+Atabapo is situated.
+
+The republic of Columbia is, with Mexico and Guatemala, the only state
+of Spanish America which occupies at once the coasts opposite to
+Europe and to Asia. From Cape Paria to the western extremity of
+Veragua is a distance of 400 sea leagues: and from Cape Burica to the
+mouth of Rio Tumbez the distance is 260. The shore possessed by the
+republic of Columbia consequently equals in length the line of coasts
+extending from Cadiz to Dantzic, or from Ceuta to Jaffa. This immense
+resource for national industry is combined with a degree of
+cultivation of which the importance has not hitherto been sufficiently
+acknowledged. The isthmus of Panama forms part of the territory of
+Columbia, and that neck of land, if traversed by good roads and
+stocked with camels, may one day serve as a portage for the commerce
+of the world, even though the plains of Cupica, the bay of Mandinga or
+the Rio Chagre should not afford the possibility of a canal for the
+passage of vessels proceeding from Europe to China,* or from the
+United States to the north-west coast of America. (* The old
+vice-royalty of Buenos Ayres extended also along a small portion of
+the South Sea coast.)
+
+When considering the influence which the configuration of countries
+(that is, the elevation and the form of coasts) exercises in every
+district on the progress of civilization and the destiny of nations, I
+have pointed out the disadvantages of those vast masses of triangular
+continents, which, like Africa and the greater part of South America,
+are destitute of gulfs and inland seas. It cannot be doubted that the
+existence of the Mediterranean has been closely connected with the
+first dawn of human cultivation among the nations of the west, and
+that the articulated form of the land, the frequency of its
+contractions and the concatenation of peninsulas favoured the
+civilization of Greece, Italy, and perhaps of all Europe westward of
+the meridian of the Propontis. In the New World the uninterruptedness
+of the coasts and the monotony of their straight lines are most
+remarkable in Chili and Peru. The shore of Columbia is more varied,
+and its spacious gulfs, such as that of Paria, Cariaco, Maracaybo, and
+Darien, were, at the time of the first discovery better peopled than
+the rest and facilitated the interchange of productions. That shore
+possesses an incalculable advantage in being washed by the Caribbean
+Sea, a kind of inland sea with several outlets, and the only one
+pertaining to the New Continent. This basin, whose various shores form
+portions of the United States, of the republic of Columbia, of Mexico
+and several maritime powers of Europe, gives birth to a peculiar and
+exclusively American system of trade. The south-east of Asia with its
+neighbouring archipelago and, above all, the state of the
+Mediterranean in the time of the Phoenician and Greek colonies, prove
+that the nearness of opposite coasts, not having the same productions
+and not inhabited by nations of different races, exercises a happy
+influence on commercial industry and intellectual cultivation. The
+importance of the inland Caribbean Sea, bounded by Venezuela on the
+south, will be further augmented by the progressive increase of
+population on the banks of the Mississippi; for that river, the Rio
+del Norte and the Magdalena are the only great navigable streams which
+the Caribbean Sea receives. The depth of the American rivers, their
+immense branches, and the use of steam-boats, everywhere facilitated
+by the proximity of forests, will, to a certain extent, compensate for
+the obstacles which the uniform line of the coasts and the general
+configuration of the continent oppose to the progress of industry and
+civilization.
+
+On comparing the extent of the territory with the absolute population,
+we obtain the result of the connection of those two elements of public
+prosperity, a connection that constitutes the relative population of
+every state in the New World. We shall find to every square sea
+league, in Mexico, 90; in the United States, 58; in the republic of
+Columbia, 30; and in Brazil, 15 inhabitants; while Asiatic Russia
+furnishes 11; the whole Russian Empire, 87; Sweden with Norway, 90;
+European Russia, 320; Spain, 763; and France, 1778. But these
+estimates of relative population, when applied to countries of immense
+extent, and of which a great part is entirely uninhabited, merely
+furnish mathematical abstractions of but little value. In countries
+uniformly cultivated--in France, for example--the number of
+inhabitants to the square league, calculated by separate departments,
+is in general only a third, more or less, than the relative population
+of the sum of all the departments. Even in Spain the deviations from
+the average number rise, with few exceptions, only from half to
+double. In America, on the contrary, it is only in the Atlantic
+states, from South Carolina to New Hampshire, that the population
+begins to spread with any uniformity. In that most civilized portion
+of the New World, from 130 to 900 inhabitants are reckoned to the
+square league, while the relative population on all the Atlantic
+states, considered together, is 240. The extremes (North Carolina and
+Massachusetts) are only in the relation of 1 to 7, nearly as in
+France, where the extremes, in the departments of the Hautes Alpes and
+the Cote-du-Nord are also in the relation of 1 to 6.7. The variations
+from the average number, which we generally find restricted to narrow
+limits in the civilized countries of Europe, exceed all measure in
+Brazil, in the Spanish colonies and even in the confederation of the
+United States, in its whole extent. We find in Mexico in some of the
+intendencias, for example, La Sonora and Durango, from 9 to 15
+inhabitants to the square league, while in others, on the central
+table-land, there are more than 500. The relative population of the
+country situated between the eastern bank of the Mississippi and the
+Atlantic states is scarcely 47; while that of Connecticut, Rhode
+island, and Massachusetts is more than 800. Westward of the
+Mississippi as well as in the interior of Spanish Guiana there are not
+two inhabitants to the square league over much larger extents of
+territory than Switzerland or Belgium. The state of these countries is
+like that of the Russian Empire, where the relative population of some
+of the Asiatic governments (Irkutsk and Tobolsk) is to that of the
+best cultivated European districts as 1 to 300.
+
+The enormous difference existing, in countries newly cultivated,
+between the extent of territory and the number of inhabitants, renders
+these partial estimates necessary. When we learn that New Spain and
+the United States, taking their entire extent at 75,000 and 174,000
+square sea-leagues, give respectively 90 and 58 souls to each league,
+we no more obtain a correct idea of that distribution of the
+population on which the political power of nations depends, than we
+should of the climate of a country, that is to say, of the
+distribution of the heat in the different seasons, by the mere
+knowledge of the mean temperature of the whole year. If we take from
+the United States all their possessions west of the Mississippi, their
+relative population would be 121 instead of 58 to the square league;
+consequently much greater than that of New Spain. Taking from the
+latter country the Provincias internas (north and north-east of Nueva
+Galicia) we should find 190 instead of 90 souls to the square league.
+
+The provinces of Caracas, Maracaybo, Cumana and Barcelona, that is,
+the maritime provinces of the north, are the most populous of the old
+Capitania-General of Caracas; but, in comparing this relative
+population with that of New Spain, where the two intendencias of
+Mexico and Puebla alone contain, on an extent scarcely equal to the
+superficies of the province of Caracas, a greater population than that
+of the whole republic of Columbia, we see that some Mexican
+intendencias which, with respect to the concentration of their
+culture, occupy but the seventh or eighth rank (Zacatecas and
+Guadalajara), contain more inhabitants to the square league than the
+province of Caracas. The average of the relative population of Cumana,
+Barcelona, Caracas and Maracaybo, is fifty-six; and, as 6200 square
+leagues, that is, one half of the extent of these four provinces are
+almost desert Llanos, we find, in reckoning the superficies and the
+scanty population of the plains, 102 inhabitants to the square league.
+An analogous modification gives the province of Caracas alone a
+relative population of 208, that is, only one-seventh less than that
+of the Atlantic States of North America.
+
+As in political economy numerical statements become instructive only
+by a comparison with analogous facts I have carefully examined what,
+in the present state of the two continents, might be considered as a
+small relative population in Europe, and a very great relative
+population in America. I have, however, chosen examples only from
+among the provinces which have a continued surface of more than 600
+square leagues in order to exclude the accidental accumulations of
+population which occur around great cities; for instance, on the coast
+of Brazil, in the valley of Mexico, on the table-lands of Santa Fe de
+Bogota and Cuzco; or finally, in the smaller West India Islands
+(Barbadoes, Martinique and St. Thomas) of which the relative
+population is from 3000 to 4700 inhabitants to the square league, and
+consequently equal to the most fertile parts of Holland, France and
+Lombardy.
+
+MINIMUM OF EUROPE:
+
+INHABITANTS TO THE SQUARE LEAGUE.
+
+The four least populous Governments of European Russia:
+Archangel                                               :   10.
+Olonez                                                  :   42.
+Wologda and Astracan                                    :   52.
+Finland                                                 :  106.
+
+The least populous Province of Spain, that of Cuenca    :  311.
+
+The Duchy of Luneburg (on account of the heaths)        :  550.
+
+The least populous Department of Continental France     :  758.
+(Hautes Alps)
+
+Departments of France thinly peopled (the Creuse,       : 1300.
+the Var and the Aude)
+
+MAXIMUM OF AMERICA.
+
+The central part of the Intendencias of                 : 1300.
+Mexico and Puebla, above
+
+In the United States, Massachusetts, but having
+only 522 square leagues of surface                      :  900.
+
+Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together  :  840.
+
+The whole Intendencia of Puebla                         :  540.
+
+The whole Intendencia of Mexico                         :  460.
+
+These two Mexican Intendencias together are nearly a third of the
+superficial extent of France, with a suitable population (in 1823
+nearly 2,800,000 souls) to prevent the towns of Mexico and Puebla from
+having a sensible influence on the relative population.
+
+Northern part of the Province of Caracas                :  208.
+(without the Llanos)
+
+This table shows that those parts of America which we now consider as
+the most populous attain the relative population of the kingdom of
+Navarre, of Galicia and the Asturias, which, next to the province of
+Guipuscoa, and the kingdom of Valencia, reckon the greatest number of
+inhabitants to the square league in all Spain; the maximum of America
+is, however, below the relative population of the whole of France
+(1778 to the square league), and would, in the latter country, be
+considered as a very thin population. If, taking a survey of the whole
+surface of America, we direct our attention to the Capitania-General
+of Venezuela, we find that the most populous of its subdivisions, the
+province of Caracas, considered as a whole, without excepting the
+Llanos, has, as yet, only the relative population of Tennessee; and
+that this province, without the Llanos, furnishes in its northern
+part, or more than 1800 square leagues, the relative population of
+South Carolina. Those 1800 square leagues, the centre of agriculture,
+are twice as numerously peopled as Finland, but still a third less
+than the province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain.
+We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling. Such is the
+state to which colonial politics and maladministration have, during
+three centuries, reduced a country which, for natural wealth, may vie
+with all that is most wonderful on earth. For a region equally desert,
+we must look either to the frozen regions of the north, or westward of
+the Allegheny mountains towards the forests of Tennessee, where the
+first clearings have only begun within the last eighty years!
+
+The most cultivated part of the province of Caracas, the basin of the
+lake of Valencia, commonly called Los Valles de Aragua, contained in
+1810 nearly 2000 inhabitants to the square league. Supposing a
+relative population three times less, and taking off from the whole
+surface of the Capitania-General nearly 24,000 square leagues as being
+occupied by the Llanos and the forests of Guiana, and, therefore,
+presenting great obstacles to agricultural labourers, we should still
+obtain a population of six millions for the remaining 9700 square
+leagues. Those who, like myself, have lived long within the tropics,
+will find no exaggeration in these calculations; for I suppose for the
+portion the most easily cultivated a relative population equal to that
+in the intendencias of Puebla and Mexico,* full of barren mountains,
+and extending towards the coast of the Pacific over regions almost
+desert. (* These two Intendencias contain together 5520 square leagues
+and a relative population of 508 inhabitants to the square
+sea-league.) If the territories of Cumana, Barcelona, Caracas,
+Maracaybo, Varinas and Guiana should be destined hereafter to enjoy
+good provincial and municipal institutions as confederate states, they
+will not require a century and a half to attain a population of six
+millions of inhabitants. Venezuela, the eastern part of the republic
+of Columbia, would not, even with nine millions, have a more
+considerable population than Old Spain; and can it be doubted that
+that part of Venezuela which is most fertile and easy of cultivation,
+that is, the 10,000 square leagues remaining after deducting the
+Llanos and the almost impenetrable forests between the Orinoco and the
+Cassiquiare, could support in the fine climate of the tropics as many
+inhabitants as 10,000 square leagues of Estramadura, the Castiles, and
+other provinces of the table-land of Spain? These predictions are by
+no means problematical, inasmuch as they are founded on physical
+analogies and on the productive power of the soil; but before we can
+indulge the hope that they will be actually accomplished, we must be
+secure of another element less susceptible of calculation--that
+national wisdom which subdues hostile passions, destroys the germs of
+civil discord and gives stability to free and energetic institutions.
+
+When we take a view of the soil of Venezuela and New Grenada we
+perceive that no other country of Spanish America furnishes commerce
+with such various and rich productions of the vegetable kingdom. If we
+add the harvests of the province of Caracas to those of Guayaquil, we
+find that the republic of Columbia alone can furnish nearly all the
+cacao annually demanded by Europe. The union of Venezuela and New
+Grenada has also placed in the hands of one people the greater part of
+the quinquina exported from the New Continent. The temperate mountains
+of Merida, Santa Fe, Popayan, Quito and Loxa produce the finest
+qualities of this febrifugal bark hitherto known. I might swell the
+list of these valuable productions by the coffee and indigo of
+Caracas, so long esteemed in commerce; the sugar, cotton and flour of
+Bogota; the ipecacuanha of the banks of the Magdelena; the tobacco of
+Varinas; the Cortex Angosturae of Caroni; the balsam of the plains of
+Tolu; the skins and dried provisions of the Llanos; the pearls of
+Panama, Rio Hacha and Marguerita; and finally the gold of Popayan and
+the platinum which is nowhere found in abundance but at Choco and
+Barbacoa: but conformably with the plan I have adopted, I shall
+confine myself to the old Capitania-General of Caracas.
+
+Owing to a peculiar disposition of the soil in Venezuela the three
+zones of agricultural, pastoral and hunting-life succeed each other
+from north to south along the coast in the direction of the equator.
+Advancing in that direction we may be said to traverse, in respect to
+space, the different stages through which the human race has passed in
+the lapse of ages, in its progress towards cultivation and in laying
+the foundations of civilized society. The region of the coast is the
+centre of agricultural industry; the region of the Llanos serves only
+for the pasturage of the animals which Europe has given to America and
+which live there in a half-wild state. Each of those regions includes
+from seven to eight thousand square leagues; further south, between
+the delta of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, lies a
+vast extent of land as large as France, inhabited by hunting nations,
+covered with thick forests and impassable swamps. The productions of
+the vegetable kingdom belong to the zones at each extremity; the
+intermediary savannahs, into which oxen, horses, and mules were
+introduced about the year 1548, afford food for some millions of those
+animals. At the time when I visited Venezuela the annual exportation
+from thence to the West India Islands amounted to 30,000 mules,
+174,000 ox-hides and 140,000 arrobas (of twenty-five pounds) of
+tasajo,* or dried meat slightly salted. (* The back of the animal is
+cut in slices of moderate thickness. An ox or cow of the weight of 25
+arrobas produces only 4 to 5 arrobas of tasajo or tasso. In 1792 the
+port of Barcelona alone exported 98,017 arrobas to the island of Cuba.
+The average price is 14 reals and varies from 10 to 18 (the real is
+worth about 6 1/2 pence English). M. Urquinasa estimates the total
+exportation of Venezuela in 1809 at 200,000 arrobas of tasajo.) It is
+not from the advancement of agriculture or the progressive
+encroachments on the pastoral lands that the hatos (herds and flocks)
+have diminished so considerably within twenty years; it is rather
+owing to the disorders of every kind that have prevailed, and the want
+of security for property. The impunity conceded to the skin-stealers
+and the accumulation of marauders in the savannahs preceded that
+destruction of cattle caused by the ravages of civil war and the
+supplies required for troops. A very considerable number of goat-skins
+is exported to the island of Marguerita, Punta Araya and Corolas;
+sheep abound only in Carora and Tocuyo. The consumption of meat being
+immense in this country the diminution of animals has a greater
+influence here than in any other district on the well-being of the
+inhabitants. The town of Caracas, of which the population in my time
+was one-tenth of that of Paris, consumed more than one-half the
+quantity of beef annually used in the capital of France.
+
+I might add to the productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms of
+Venezuela the enumeration of the minerals, the working of which is
+worthy the attention of the government; but having from my youth been
+engaged in the practical labours of mines I know how vague and
+uncertain are the judgments formed of the metallic wealth of a country
+from the mere appearance of the rocks and of the veins in their beds.
+The utility of such labours can be determined only by well directed
+experiments by means of shafts or galleries. All that has been done in
+researches of this kind, under the dominion of the mother-country, has
+left the question wholly undecided and the most exaggerated ideas have
+been recently spread through Europe concerning the riches of the mines
+of Caracas. The common denomination of Columbia given to Venezuela and
+New Grenada has doubtless contributed to foster those illusions. It
+cannot be doubted that the gold-washings of New Grenada furnished, in
+the last years of public tranquillity, more than 18,000 marks of gold;
+that Choco and Barbacoa supply platinum in abundance; the valley of
+Santa Rosa in the province of Antioquia, the Andes of Quindiu and
+Gauzum near Cuenca, yield sulphuretted mercury; the table-land of
+Bogota (near Zipaquira and Canoas), fossil-salt and pit-coal; but even
+in New Grenada subterranean labours on the silver and gold veins have
+hitherto been very rare. I am far, however, from wishing to discourage
+the miners of those countries: I merely conceive that for the purpose
+of proving to the old world the political importance of Venezuela, the
+amazing territorial wealth of which is founded on agriculture and the
+produce of pastoral life, it is not necessary to describe as
+realities, or as the acquisitions of industry, what is, as yet,
+founded solely on hopes and probabilities more or less uncertain. The
+republic of Columbia also possesses on its coast, on the island of
+Marguerita, on the Rio Hacha and in the gulf of Panama pearl fisheries
+of ancient celebrity. In the present state of things, however, fishing
+for these pearls is an object of as little importance as the
+exportation of the metals of Venezuela. The existence of metallic
+veins on several points of the coast cannot be doubted. Mines of gold
+and silver were worked at the beginning of the conquest at Buria, near
+Barquesimeto, in the province of Los Mariches, at Baruta, on the south
+of Caracas, and at Real de Santa Barbara near the Villa de Cura.
+Grains of gold are found in the whole mountainous territory between
+Rio Yaracuy, the Villa de San Felipe and Nirgua, as well as between
+Guigue and Los Moros de San Juan. M. Bonpland and myself, during our
+long journey, saw nothing in the gneiss granite of Spanish Guiana to
+confirm the old faith in the metallic wealth of that district; yet it
+seems certain from several historical notices that there exist two
+groups of auriferous alluvial land; one between the sources of the Rio
+Negro, the Uaupes and the Iquiare; the other between the sources of
+the Essequibo, the Caroni and the Rupunuri. Hitherto only one working
+is found in Venezuela, that of Aroa: it furnished, in 1800, near 1500
+quintals of copper of excellent quality. The green-stone rocks of the
+transition mountains of Tucutunemo (between Villa de Cura and
+Parapara) contain veins of malachite and copper pyrites. The
+indications of both ochreous and magnetic iron in the coast-chain, the
+native alum of Chuparipari, the salt of Araya, the kaolin of the
+Silla, the jade of the Upper Orinoco, the petroleum of Buen-Pastor and
+the sulphur of the eastern part of New Andalusia equally merit the
+attention of the government.
+
+It is easy to ascertain the existence of some mineral substances which
+afford hopes of profitable working but it requires great
+circumspection to decide whether the mineral be sufficiently abundant
+and accessible to cover the expense.* (* In 1800 a day-labourer (peon)
+employed in working the ground gained in the province of Caracas 15
+sous, exclusive of his food. A man who hewed building timber in the
+forests on the coast of Paria was paid at Cumana 45 to 50 sous a day,
+without his food. A carpenter gained daily from 3 to 6 francs in New
+Andalusia. Three cakes of cassava (the bread of the country), 21
+inches in diameter, 1 1/2 lines thick, and 2 1/2 pounds weight, cost
+at Caracas one half-real, or 6 1/2 sous. A man eats daily not less
+than 2 sous' worth of cassava, that food being constantly mixed with
+bananas, dried meat (tasajo) and panelon, or unrefined sugar.) Even in
+the eastern part of South America gold and silver are found dispersed
+in a manner that surprises the European geologist; but that
+dispersion, together with the divided and entangled state of the veins
+and the appearance of some metals only in masses, render the working
+extremely expensive. The example of Mexico sufficiently proves that
+the interest attached to the labours of the mines is not prejudicial
+to agricultural pursuits, and that those two branches of industry may
+simultaneously promote each other. The failure of the attempts made
+under the intendant, Don Jose Avalo, must be attributed solely to the
+ignorance of the persons employed by the Spanish government who
+mistook mica and hornblende for metallic substances. If the government
+would order the Capitania-General of Caracas to be carefully examined
+during a series of years by men of science, well versed in geognosy
+and chemistry, the most satisfactory results might be expected.
+
+The description above given of the productions of Venezuela and the
+development of its coast sufficiently shows the importance of the
+commerce of that rich country. Even under the thraldom of the colonial
+system, the value of the exported products of agriculture and of the
+gold-washings amount to eleven or twelve millions of piastres in the
+countries at present united under the denomination of the Republic of
+Columbia. The exports of the Capitania-General of Caracas alone,
+exclusive of the precious metals which are the objects of regular
+working, was (with the contraband) from five to six millions of
+piastres at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Cumana,
+Barcelona, La Guayra, Porto Cabello and Maracaybo are the most
+important parts of the coast; those that lie most eastward have the
+advantage of an easier communication with the Virgin Islands,
+Guadaloupe, Martinique and St. Vincent. Angostura, the real name of
+which is Santo Tome de Nueva Guiana, may be considered as the port of
+the rich province of Varinas. The majestic river on whose banks this
+town is built, affords by its communications with the Apure, the Meta
+and the Rio Negro the greatest advantages for trade with Europe.
+
+The shores of Venezuela, from the beauty of their ports, the
+tranquillity of the sea by which they are washed and the fine timber
+that covers them, possess great advantages over the shores of the
+United States. In no part of the world do we find firmer anchorage or
+better positions for the establishment of ports. The sea of this coast
+is constantly calm, like that which extends from Lima to Guayaquil.
+The storms and hurricanes of the West Indies are never felt on the
+Costa Firme; and when, after the sun has passed the meridian, thick
+clouds charged with electricity accumulate on the mountains of the
+coasts, a pilot accustomed to these latitudes knows that this
+threatening aspect of the sky denotes only a squall. The
+virgin-forests near the sea, in the eastern part of New Andalusia,
+present valuable resources for the establishment of dockyards. The
+wood of the mountains of Paria may vie with that of the island of
+Cuba, Huasacualco, Guayaquil and San Blas. The Spanish Government at
+the close of the last century fixed its attention on this important
+object. Marine engineers were sent to mark the finest trunks of
+Brazil-wood, mahogany, cedrela and laurinea between Angostura and the
+mouth of the Orinoco, as well as on the banks of the Gulf of Paria,
+commonly called the Golfo triste. It was not intended to establish
+docks on that spot, but to hew the weighty timber into the forms
+necessary for ship-building, and to transport it to Caraque, near
+Cadiz. Though trees fit for masts are not found in this country, it
+was nevertheless hoped that the execution of this project would
+considerably diminish the importation of timber from Sweden and
+Norway. The experiment of forming this establishment was tried in a
+very unhealthy spot, the valley of Quebranta, near Guirie; I have
+already adverted to the causes of its destruction. The insalubrity of
+the place would, doubtless, have diminished in proportion as the
+forest (el monte virgen) should have been removed from the dwellings
+of the inhabitants. Mulattos, and not whites, ought to have been
+employed in hewing the wood, and it should have been remembered that
+the expense of the roads (arastraderos) for the transport of the
+timber, when once laid out, would not have been the same, and that, by
+the increase of the population, the price of day labour would
+progressively have diminished. It is for ship-builders alone, who
+determine the localities, to judge whether, in the present state of
+things, the freight of merchant-vessels be not far too high to admit
+of sending to Europe large quantities of roughly-hewn wood; but it
+cannot be doubted that Venezuela possesses on its maritime coast, as
+well as on the banks of the Orinoco, immense resources for
+ship-building. The fine ships which have been launched from the
+dockyards of the Havannah, Guayaquil and San Blas have, no doubt, cost
+more than those constructed in Europe; but from the nature of tropical
+wood they possess the advantages of hardness and amazing durability.
+
+The great struggle during which Venezuela has fought for independence
+has lasted more than twelve years. That period has been no less
+fruitful than civil commotions usually are in heroic and generous
+actions, guilty errors and violent passions. The sentiment of common
+danger has strengthened the ties between men of various races who,
+spread over the plains of Cumana or insulated on the table-land of
+Cundinamarca, have a physical and moral organization as different as
+the climates in which they live. The mother-country has several times
+regained possession of some districts; but as revolutions are always
+renewed with more violence when the evils that produce them can no
+longer be remedied these conquests have been transitory. To facilitate
+and give greater energy to the defence of this country the governments
+have been concentrated, and a vast state has been formed, extending
+from the mouth of the Orinoco to the other side of the Andes of
+Riobamba and the banks of the Amazon. The Capitania-General of Caracas
+has been united to the Vice-royalty of New Grenada, from which it was
+only separated entirely in 1777. This union, which will always be
+indispensable for external safety, this centralization of powers in a
+country six times larger than Spain, has been prompted by political
+views. The tranquil progress of the new government has justified the
+wisdom of those views, and the Congress will find still fewer
+obstacles in the execution of its beneficent projects for national
+industry and civilization, in proportion as it can grant increased
+liberty to the provinces, must render the people sensible to the
+advantages of institutions which they have purchased at the price of
+their blood. In every form of government, in republics as well as in
+limited monarchies, improvements, to be salutary, must be progressive.
+New Andalusia, Caracas, Cundinamarca, Popayan and Quito, are not
+confederate states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. Without
+juntas, or provincial legislatures, all those countries are directly
+subject to the congress and government of Columbia. In conformity with
+the constitutional act, the intendants and governors of the
+departments and provinces are nominated by the president of the
+republic. It may be naturally supposed that such dependence has not
+always been deemed favourable to the liberty if the communes, which
+love to discuss their own local interests. The ancient kingdom of
+Quito, for instance, is connected by the habits and language of its
+mountainous inhabitants with Peru and New Grenada. If there were a
+provincial junta, if the congress alone determined the taxes necessary
+for the defence and general welfare of Columbia, the feeling of an
+individual political existence would render the inhabitants less
+interested in the choice of the spot which is the seat of the central
+government. The same argument applies to New Andalusia or Guiana which
+are governed by intendants named by the president. It may be said that
+these provinces have hitherto been in a position differing but little
+from those territories of the United States which have a population
+below 60,000 souls. Peculiar circumstances, which cannot be justly
+appreciated at such a distance, have doubtless rendered great
+centralization necessary in the civil administration; every change
+would be dangerous as long as the state has external enemies; but the
+forms useful for defence are not always those which, after the
+struggle, sufficiently favour individual liberty and the development
+of public prosperity.
+
+The powerful union of North America has long been insulated and
+without contact with any states having analogous institutions.
+Although the progress America is making from east to west is
+considerably retarded near the right bank of the Mississippi, she will
+advance without interruption towards the internal provinces of Mexico,
+and will there find a European people of another race, other manners,
+and a different religious faith. Will the feeble population of those
+provinces, belonging to another dawning federation, resist; or will it
+be absorbed by the torrent from the east and transformed into an
+Anglo-American state, like the inhabitants of Lower Louisiana? The
+future will soon solve this problem. On the other hand, Mexico is
+separated from Columbia only by Guatimala, a country and extreme
+fertility which has recently assumed the denomination of the republic
+of Central America. The political divisions between Oaxaca and Chiapa,
+Costa Rica and Veragua, are not founded either on the natural limits
+or the manners and languages of the natives, but solely on the habit
+of dependence on the Spanish chiefs who resided at Mexico, Guatimala
+or Santa Fe de Bogota. It seems natural that Guatimala should one day
+join the isthmuses of Veragua and Panama to the isthmus of Costa Rica;
+and that Quito should connect New Grenada with Peru, as La Paz,
+Charcas and Potosi link Peru with Buenos-Ayres. The intermediate parts
+from Chiapa to the Cordilleras of Upper Peru form a passage from one
+political association to another, like those transitory forms which
+link together the various groups of the organic kingdom in nature. In
+neighbouring monarchies the provinces that adjoin each other present
+those striking demarcations which are the effect of great
+centralization of power in federal republics, states situated at the
+extremities of each system are some time before they acquire a stable
+equilibrium. It would be almost a matter of indifference to the
+provinces between Arkansas and the Rio del Norte whether they send
+their deputies to Mexico or to Washington. Were Spanish America one
+day to show a more uniform tendency towards the spirit of federalism,
+which the example of the United States has created on several points,
+there would result from the contact of so many systems or groups of
+states, confederations variously graduated. I here only touch on the
+relations that arise from this assemblage of colonies on an
+uninterrupted line of 1600 leagues in length. We have seen in North
+America, one of the old Atlantic states divided into two, and each
+having a different representation. The separation of Maine and
+Massachusetts in 1820 was effected in the most peaceable manner.
+Schisms of this kind will, it may be feared, render such changes
+turbulent. It may also be observed that the importance of the
+geographical divisions of Spanish America, founded at the same time on
+the relations of local position and the habits of several centuries,
+have prevented the mother-country from retarding the separation of the
+colonies by attempting to establish Spanish princes in the New World.
+In order to rule such vast possessions it would have been requisite to
+form six or seven centres of government; and that multiplicity of
+centres was hostile to the establishment of new dynasties at the
+period when they might still have been salutary to the mother country.
+
+Bacon somewhere observes that it would be happy if nations would
+always follow the example of time, the greatest of all innovators, but
+who acts calmly and almost without being perceived. This happiness
+does not belong to colonies when they reach the critical juncture of
+emancipation; and least of all to Spanish America, engaged in the
+struggle at first not to obtain complete independence, but to escape
+from a foreign yoke. May these party agitations be succeeded by a
+lasting tranquillity! May the germ of civil discord, disseminated
+during three centuries to secure the dominion of the mother-country,
+gradually perish; and may productive and commercial Europe be
+convinced that to perpetuate the political agitations of the New World
+would be to impoverish herself by diminishing the consumption of her
+productions and losing a market which already yields more than seventy
+millions of piastres. Many years must no doubt elapse before seventeen
+millions of inhabitants, spread over a surface one-fifth greater than
+the whole of Europe, will have found a stable equilibrium in governing
+themselves. The most critical moment is that when nations, after long
+oppression, find themselves suddenly at liberty to promote their own
+prosperity. The Spanish Americans, it is unceasingly repeated, are not
+sufficiently advanced in intellectual cultivation to be fitted for
+free institutions. I remember that at a period not very remote, the
+same reasoning was applied to other nations who were said to have made
+too great an advance in civilization. Experience, no doubt, proves
+that nations, like individuals, find that intellect and learning do
+not always lead to happiness; but without denying the necessity of a
+certain mass of knowledge and popular instruction for the stability of
+republics or constitutional monarchies, we believe that stability
+depends much less on the degree of intellectual improvement than on
+the strength of the national character; on that balance of energy and
+tranquillity of ardour and patience which maintains and perpetuates
+new institutions; on the local circumstances in which a nation is
+placed; and on the political relations of a country with neighbouring
+states.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.28.
+
+PASSAGE FROM THE COAST OF VENEZUELA TO THE HAVANNAH.
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE POPULATION OF THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS, COMPARED
+WITH THE POPULATION OF THE NEW CONTINENT, WITH RESPECT TO DIVERSITY OF
+RACES, PERSONAL LIBERTY, LANGUAGE, AND WORSHIP.
+
+We sailed from Nueva Barcelona on the 24th of November at nine o'clock
+in the evening; and we doubled the small rocky island of Borachita.
+The night was marked by coolness which characterizes the nights of the
+tropics, and the agreeable effect of which can only be conceived by
+comparing the nocturnal temperature, from 23 to 24 degrees centigrade,
+with the mean temperature of the day, which in those latitudes is
+generally, even on the coast, from 28 to 29 degrees. Next day, soon
+after the observation of noon, we reached the meridian of the island
+of Tortugas. It is destitute of vegetation; and like the little
+islands of Coche and Cabagua is remarkable for its small elevation
+above the level of the sea.
+
+In the forenoon of the 26th we began to lose sight of the island of
+Marguerita and I endeavoured to verify the height of the rocky group
+of Macanao. It appeared under an angle of 0 degrees 16 minutes 35
+seconds; which in a distance estimated at sixty miles would give the
+mica-slate group of Macanao the elevation of about 660 toises, a
+result which, in a zone where the terrestrial refractions are so
+unchanging, leads me to think that the island was less distant than we
+supposed. The dome of the Silla of Caracas, lying 62 degrees to the
+south-west, long fixed our attention. At those times when the coast is
+not loaded with vapours the Silla must be visible at sea, without
+reckoning the effects of refraction, at thirty-three leagues distance.
+During the 26th, and the three following days, the sea was covered
+with a bluish film which, when examined by a compound microscope,
+appeared formed of an innumerable quantity of filaments. We frequently
+find these filaments in the Gulf-stream, and the Channel of Bahama, as
+well as near the coast of Buenos Ayres. Some naturalists are of
+opinion that they are vestiges of the eggs of mollusca: but they
+appear to be more like fragments of fuci. The phosphorescence of
+sea-water seems however to be augmented by their presence, especially
+between 28 and 30 degrees of north latitude, which indicates an origin
+of some sort of animal nature.
+
+On the 27th we slowly approached the island of Orchila. Like all the
+small islands in the vicinity of the fertile coast of the continent it
+has never been inhabited. I found the latitude of the northern cape 11
+degrees 51 minutes 44 seconds and the longitude of the eastern cape 68
+degrees 26 minutes 5 seconds (supposing Nueva Barcelona to be 67
+degrees 4 minutes 48 seconds). Opposite the western cape there is a
+small rock against which the waves beat turbulently. Some angles taken
+with the sextant gave, for the length of the island from east to west,
+8.4 miles (950 toises); and for the breadth scarcely three miles. The
+island of Orchila which, from its name, I figured to myself as a bare
+rock covered with lichens, was at that period beautifully verdant. The
+hills of gneiss were covered with grasses. It appears that the
+geological constitution of Orchila resembles, on a small scale, that
+of Marguerita. It consists of two groups of rocks joined by a neck of
+land; it is an isthmus covered with sand which seems to have issued
+from the floods by the successive lowering of the level of the sea.
+The rocks, like all those which are perpendicular and insulated in the
+middle of the sea, appear much more elevated than they really are, for
+they scarcely exceed from 80 to 90 toises. The Punta rasa stretches to
+the north-west and is lost, like a sandbank, below the waters. It is
+dangerous for navigators, and so is likewise the Mogote which, at the
+distance of two miles from the western cape, is surrounded by
+breakers. On a very near examination of these rocks we saw the strata
+of gneiss inclined towards the north-west and crossed by thick layers
+of quartz. The destruction of these layers has doubtless created the
+sands of the surrounding beach. Some clumps of trees shade the
+valleys, the summits of the hills are crowned with fan-leaved
+palm-trees; probably the palma de sombrero of the Llanos (Corypha
+tectorum). Rain is not abundant in these countries; but probably some
+springs might be found on the island of Orchila if sought for with the
+same care as in the mica-slate rocks of Punta Araya. When we recollect
+how many bare and rocky islands are inhabited and cultivated between
+the 17th and 26th degrees of latitude in the archipelago of the Lesser
+Antilles and Bahama islands, we are surprised to find those islands
+desert which are near to the coast of Cumana, Barcelona and Caracas.
+They would long have ceased to be so had they been under the dominion
+of any other government than that to which they belong. Nothing can
+engage men to circumscribe their industry within the narrow limits of
+a small island when a neighbouring continent offers them greater
+advantages.
+
+We perceived at sunset the two points of the Roca de afuera, rising
+like towers in the midst of the ocean. A survey taken with the compass
+placed the most easterly of the points or roques at 0 degrees 19
+minutes west of the western cape of Orchila. The clouds continued long
+accumulated over that island and showed its position from afar. The
+influence of a small tract of land in condensing the vapours suspended
+at an elevation of 800 toises is a very extraordinary phenomenon,
+although familiar to all mariners. From this accumulation of clouds
+the position of the lowest island may be recognized at a great
+distance.
+
+On the 29th November we still saw very distinctly, at sunrise, the
+summit of the Silla of Caracas just rising above the horizon of the
+sea. At noon everything denoted a change of weather in the direction
+of the north: the atmosphere suddenly cooled to 12.6 degrees, while
+the sea maintained a temperature of 25.6 degrees at its surface. At
+the moment of the observation of noon the oscillations of the horizon,
+crossed by streaks or black bands of very variable size, produced
+changes of refraction from 3 to 4 degrees. The sea became rough in
+very calm weather and everything announced a stormy passage between
+Cayman Island and Cape St. Antonio. On the 30th the wind veered
+suddenly to north-north-east and the surge rose to a considerable
+height. Northward a darkish blue tint was observable on the sky, the
+rolling of our small vessel was violent and we perceived amidst the
+dashing of the waves two seas crossing each other, one the from north
+and the other from north-north-east. Waterspouts were formed at the
+distance of a mile and were carried rapidly from north-north-east to
+north-north-west. Whenever the waterspout drew near us we felt the
+wind grow sensibly cooler. Towards evening, owing to the carelessness
+of our American cook, our deck took fire; but fortunately it was soon
+extinguished. On the morning of the 1st of December the sea slowly
+calmed and the breeze became steady from north-east. On the 2nd of
+December we descried Cape Beata, in a spot where we had long observed
+the clouds gathered together. According to the observations of
+Acherner, which I obtained in the night, we were sixty-four miles
+distant. During the night there was a very curious optical phenomenon,
+which I shall not undertake to account for. At half-past midnight the
+wind blew feebly from the east; the thermometer rose to 23.2 degrees,
+the whalebone hygrometer was at 57 degrees. I had remained upon the
+deck to observe the culmination of some stars. The full-moon was high
+in the heavens. Suddenly, in the direction of the moon, 45 degrees
+before its passage over the meridian, a great arch was formed tinged
+with the prismatic colours, though not of a bright hue. The arch
+appeared higher than the moon; this iris-band was near 2 degrees
+broad, and its summit seemed to rise nearly from 80 to 85 degrees
+above the horizon of the sea. The sky was singularly pure; there was
+no appearance of rain; and what struck me most was that this
+phenomenon, which perfectly resembled a lunar rainbow, was not in the
+direction opposite to the moon. The arch remained stationary, or at
+least appeared to do so, during eight or ten minutes; and at the
+moment when I tried if it were possible to see it by reflection in the
+mirror of the sextant, it began to move and descend, crossing
+successively the Moon and Jupiter. It was 12 hours 54 minutes (mean
+time) when the summit of the arch sank below the horizon. This
+movement of an arch, coloured like the rainbow, filled with
+astonishment the sailors who were on watch on the deck. They alleged,
+as they do on the appearance of every extraordinary meteor, that it
+denoted wind. M. Arago examined the sketch of this arch in my journal;
+and he is of opinion that the image of the moon reflected in the
+waters could not have given a halo of such great dimensions. The
+rapidity of the movement is no small obstacle in the way of
+explanation of a phenomenon well worthy of attention.
+
+On the 3rd of December we felt some uneasiness on account of the
+proximity of a small vessel supposed to be a pirate but which, as it
+drew near, we recognized to be the Balandra del Frayle (the sloop of
+the Monk). I was at a loss to conceive what so strange a denomination
+meant. The bark belonged to a Franciscan missionary, a rich priest of
+am Indian village in the savannahs (Llanos) of Barcelona, who had for
+several years carried on a very lucrative contraband trade with the
+Danish islands. M. Bonpland and several passengers saw in the night at
+the distance of a quarter of a mile, with the wind, a small flame on
+the surface of the ocean; it ran in the direction of south-west and
+lighted up the atmosphere. No shock of earthquake was felt and there
+was no change in the direction of the waves. Was it a phosphoric gleam
+produced by a great accumulation of mollusca in a state of
+putrefaction; or did this flame issue from the depth of the sea, as is
+said to have been sometimes observable in latitudes agitated by
+volcanoes? The latter supposition appears to me devoid of all
+probability. The volcanic flame can only issue from the deep when the
+rocky bed of the ocean is already heaved up so that the flames and
+incandescent scoriae escape from the swelled and creviced part without
+traversing the waters.
+
+At half-past ten in the morning of the 4th of December we were in the
+meridian of Cape Bacco (Punta Abacou) which I found in 76 degrees 7
+minutes 50 seconds, or 9 degrees 3 minutes 2 seconds west of Nueva
+Barcelona. Having attained the parallel of 17 degrees, the fear of
+pirates made us prefer the direct passage across the bank of Vibora,
+better known by the name of the Pedro Shoals. This bank occupies more
+than two hundred and eighty square sea leagues and its configuration
+strikes the eye of the geologist by its resemblance to that of
+Jamaica, which is in its neighbourhood. It forms an island almost as
+large as Porto Rico.
+
+From the 5th of December, the pilots believed they took successively
+the measurement at a distance of the island of Ranas (Morant Keys),
+Cape Portland and Pedro Keys. They may probably have been deceived in
+several of these distances, which were taken from the mast-head. I
+have elsewhere noted these measurements, not with the view of opposing
+them to those which have been made by able English navigators in these
+frequented latitudes, but merely to connect, in the same system of
+observations, the points I determined in the forests of the Orinoco
+and in the archipelago of the West Indies. The milky colour of the
+waters warned us that we were on the eastern part of the bank; the
+centigrade thermometer which at a distance from the bank and on the
+surface of the sea had for several days kept at 27 and 27.3 degrees
+(the air being at 21.2 degrees) sank suddenly to 25.7 degrees. The
+weather was bad from the 4th to the 6th of December: it rained fast;
+thunder rolled at a distance, and the gusts of wind from the
+north-north-east became more and more violent. We were during some
+part of the night in a critical position; we heard before us the noise
+of the breakers over which we had to pass, and we could ascertain
+their direction by the phosphoric gleam reflected from the foam of the
+sea. The scene resembled the Raudal of Garzita and other rapids which
+we had seen in the bed of the Orinoco. We succeeded in changing our
+course and in less than a quarter of an hour were out of danger. While
+we traversed the bank of the Vibora from south-south-east to
+north-north-west I repeatedly tried to ascertain the temperature of
+the water on the surface of the sea. The cooling was less sensible on
+the middle of the bank than on its edge, a circumstance which we
+attributed to the currents that there mingle waters from different
+latitudes. On the south of Pedro Keys the surface of the sea, at
+twenty-five fathoms deep, was 26.4 and at fifteen fathoms deep 26.2
+degrees. The temperature of the sea on the east of the bank had been
+26.8 degrees. Some American pilots affirm that among the Bahama
+Islands they often know, when seated in the cabin, that they are
+passing over sand-banks; they allege that the lights are surrounded
+with small coloured halos and that the air exhaled from the lungs is
+visibly condensed. The latter circumstance appears very doubtful;
+below 30 degrees of latitude the cooling produced by the waters of the
+bank is not sufficiently considerable to cause this phenomenon. During
+the time we passed on the bank of the Vibora the constitution of the
+air was quite different from what it had been when we quitted it. The
+rain was circumscribed by the limits of the bank of which we could
+distinguish the form from afar by the mass of vapour with which it was
+covered.
+
+On the 9th of December, as we advanced towards the Cayman Islands,*
+the north-east wind again blew with violence. (* Christopher Columbus
+in 1503 named the Cayman Islands Penascales de las Tortugas on account
+of the sea-tortoises which he saw swimming in those latitudes.) I
+nevertheless obtained some altitudes of the sun at the moment when we
+believed ourselves, though twelve miles distant, in the meridian of
+the centre of the Great Cayman, which is covered with cocoa-trees.
+
+The weather continued bad and the sea extremely rough. The wind at
+length fell as we neared Cape St. Antonio. I found the northern
+extremity of the cape 87 degrees 17 minutes 22 seconds, or 2 degrees
+34 minutes 14 seconds eastward of the Morro of the Havannah: this is
+the longitude now marked on the best charts. We were at the distance
+of three miles from land but we were made aware of the proximity of
+the island of Cuba by a delicious aromatic odour. The sailors affirm
+that this odour is not perceived when they approach from Cape Catoche
+on the barren coast of Mexico. As the weather grew clearer the
+thermometer rose gradually in the shade to 27 degrees: we advanced
+rapidly northward, carried on by a current from south-south-east, the
+temperature of which rose at the surface of the water to 26.7 degrees;
+while out of the current it was 24.6 degrees. We anchored in the port
+of the Havannah on the 19th December after a passage of twenty-five
+days in continuous bad weather.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.29.
+
+POLITICAL ESSAY ON THE ISLAND OF CUBA.
+THE HAVANNAH.
+HILLS OF GUANAVACOA, CONSIDERED IN THEIR GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS.
+VALLEY OF LOS GUINES, BATABANO, AND PORT OF TRINIDAD.
+THE KING AND QUEEN'S GARDENS.
+
+Cuba owes its political importance to a variety of circumstances,
+among which may be enumerated the extent of its surface, the fertility
+of its soil, its naval establishments, and the nature of its
+population, of which three-fifths are free men. All these advantages
+are heightened by the admirable position of the Havannah. The northern
+part of the Caribbean Sea, known by the name of the Gulf of Mexico,
+forms a circular basin more than two hundred and fifty leagues in
+diameter: it is a Mediterranean with two outlets. The island of Cuba,
+or rather its coast between Cape St. Antonio and the town of Matanzas,
+situated at the opening of the old channel, closes the Gulf of Mexico
+on the south-east, leaving the ocean current known by the name of the
+Gulf Stream, no other outlet on the south than a strait between Cape
+St. Antonio and Cape Catoche; and no other on the north than the
+channel of Bahama, between Bahia-Honda and the shoals of Florida. Near
+the northern outlet, where the highways of so many nations may be said
+to cross each other, lies the fine port of the Havannah, fortified at
+once by nature and by art. The fleets which sail from this port and
+which are partly constructed of the cedrela and the mahogany of the
+island of Cuba, might, at the entrance of the Mexican Mediterranean,
+menace the opposite coast, as the fleets that sail from Cadiz command
+the Atlantic near the Pillars of Hercules. In the meridian of the
+Havannah the Gulf of Mexico, the old channel, and the channel of
+Bahama unite. The opposite direction of the currents and the violent
+agitations of the atmosphere at the setting-in of winter impart a
+peculiar character to these latitudes at the extreme limit of the
+equinoctial zone.
+
+The island of Cuba is the largest of the Antilles.* (* Its area is
+little less in extent than that of England not including Wales.) Its
+long and narrow form gives it a vast development of coast and places
+it in proximity with Hayti and Jamaica, with the most southern
+province of the United States (Florida) and the most easterly province
+of the Mexican Confederation (Yucatan).* (* These places are brought
+into communication one with another by a voyage of ten or twelve
+days.) This circumstance claims serious attention when it is
+considered that Jamaica, St. Domingo, Cuba and the southern parts of
+the United States (from Louisiana to Virginia) contain nearly two
+million eight hundred thousand Africans. Since the separation of St.
+Domingo, the Floridas and New Spain from the mother-country, the
+island of Cuba is connected only by similarity of religion, language
+and manners with the neighbouring countries, which, during ages, were
+subject to the same laws.
+
+Florida forms the last link in that long chain, the northern extremity
+of which reaches the basin of St. Lawrence and extends from the region
+of palm-trees to that of the most rigorous winter. The inhabitant of
+New England regards the increasing augmentation of the black
+population, the preponderance of the slave states and the predilection
+for the cultivation of colonial products as a public danger; and
+earnestly wishes that the strait of Florida, the present limit of the
+great American confederation, may never be passed but with the views
+of free trade, founded on equal rights. If he fears events which may
+place the Havannah under the dominion of a European power more
+formidable than Spain, he is not the less desirous that the political
+ties by which Louisiana, Pensacola and Saint Augustin of Florida were
+heretofore united to the island of Cuba may for ever be broken.
+
+The extreme sterility of the soil, joined to the want of inhabitants
+and of cultivation, have at all times rendered the proximity of
+Florida of small importance to the trade of the Havannah; but the case
+is different on the coast of Mexico. The shores of that country,
+stretching in a semicircle from the frequented ports of Tampico, Vera
+Cruz, and Alvarado to Cape Catoche, almost touch, by the peninsula of
+Yucatan, the western part of the island of Cuba. Commerce is extremely
+active between the Havannah and the port of Campeachy; and it
+increases, notwithstanding the new order of things in Mexico, because
+the trade, equally illicit with a more distant coast, that of Caracas
+or Columbia, employs but a small number of vessels. In such difficult
+times the supply of salt meat (tasajo) for the slaves is more easily
+obtained from Buenos Ayres and the plains of Merida than from those of
+Cumana, Barcelona and Caracas. The island of Cuba and the archipelago
+of the Philippines have for ages derived from New Spain the funds
+necessary for their internal administration and for keeping up their
+fortifications, arsenals and dockyards. The Havannah was the military
+port of the New World; and, till 1808, annually received 1,800,000
+piastres from the Mexican treasury. At Madrid it was long the custom
+to consider the island of Cuba and the archipelago of the Philippines
+as dependencies on Mexico, situated at very unequal distances east and
+west of Vera Cruz and Acapulco, but linked to the Mexican metropolis
+(then a European colony) by all the ties of commerce, mutual aid and
+ancient sympathies. Increased internal wealth has rendered unnecessary
+the pecuniary succour formerly furnished to Cuba from the Mexican
+treasury. Of all the Spanish possessions that island has been most
+prosperous: the port of the Havannah has, since the troubles of St.
+Domingo, become one of the most important points of the commercial
+world. A fortunate concurrence of political circumstances, joined to
+the intelligence and commercial activity of the inhabitants, have
+preserved to the Havannah the uninterrupted enjoyment of free
+intercourse with foreign nations.
+
+I twice visited this island, residing there on one occasion for three
+months, and on the other for six weeks; and I enjoyed the confidence
+of persons who, from their abilities and their position, were enabled
+to furnish me with the best information. In company with M. Bonpland I
+visited only the vicinity of the Havannah, the beautiful valley of
+Guines and the coast between Batabano and the port of Trinidad. After
+having succinctly described the aspect of this scenery and the
+singular modifications of a climate so different from that of the
+other islands, I will proceed to examine the general population of the
+Island of Cuba; its area calculated from the most accurate sketch of
+the coast; the objects of trade and the state of the public revenue.
+
+The aspect of the Havannah, at the entrance of the port, is one of the
+gayest and most picturesque on the shore of equinoctial America north
+of the equator. This spot is celebrated by travellers of all nations.
+It boasts not the luxuriant vegetation that adorns the banks of the
+river Guayaquil nor the wild majesty of the rocky coast of Rio de
+Janeiro; but the grace which in those climates embellishes the scenes
+of cultivated nature is at the Havannah mingled with the majesty of
+vegetable forms and the organic vigour that characterizes the torrid
+zone. On entering the port of the Havannah you pass between the
+fortress of the Morro (Castillo de los Santos Reyes) and the fort of
+San Salvador de la Punta: the opening being only from one hundred and
+seventy to two hundred toises wide. Having passed this narrow
+entrance, leaving on the north the fine castle of San Carlos de la
+Cabana and the Casa Blanca, we reach a basin in the form of a trefoil
+of which the great axis, stretching from south-south-west to
+north-north-east, is two miles and one-fifth long. This basin
+communicates with three creeks, those of Regla, Guanavacoa and Atares;
+in this last there are some springs of fresh water. The town of the
+Havannah, surrounded by walls, forms a promontory bounded on the south
+by the arsenal and on the north by the fort of La Punta. After passing
+beyond some wrecks of vessels sunk in the shoals of La Luz, we no
+longer find eight or ten, but five or six fathoms of water. The
+castles of Santo Domingo de Atares and San Carlos del Principe defend
+the town on the westward; they are distant from the interior wall, on
+the land side, the one 660 toises, the other 1240. The intermediate
+space is filled by the suburbs (arrabales or barrios extra muros) of
+the Horcon, Jesu-Maria, Guadaloupe and Senor de la Salud, which from
+year to year encroach on the Field of Mars (Campo de Marte). The great
+edifices of the Havannah, the cathedral, the Casa del Govierno, the
+house of the commandant of the marine, the Correo or General Post
+Office and the factory of Tobacco are less remarkable for beauty than
+for solidity of structure. The streets are for the most part narrow
+and unpaved. Stones being brought from Vera Cruz, and very difficult
+of transport, the idea was conceived a short time before my voyage of
+joining great trunks of trees together, as is done in Germany and
+Russia, when dykes are constructed across marshy places. This project
+was soon abandoned and travellers newly arrived beheld with surprise
+fine trunks of mahogany sunk in the mud of the Havannah. At the time
+of my sojourn there few towns of Spanish America presented, owing to
+the want of a good police, a more unpleasant aspect. People walked in
+mud up to the knee; and the multitude of caleches or volantes (the
+characteristic equipage of the Havannah) of carts loaded with casks of
+sugar, and porters elbowing passengers, rendered walking most
+disagreeable. The smell of tasajo often poisons the houses and the
+winding streets. But it appears that of late the police has interposed
+and that a manifest improvement has taken place in the cleanliness of
+the streets; that the houses are more airy and that the Calle de los
+Mercadores presents a fine appearance. Here, as in the oldest towns of
+Europe. an ill-traced plan of streets can only be amended by slow
+degrees.
+
+There are two fine public walks; one called the Alameda, between the
+hospital of Santa Paula and the theatre, and the other between the
+Castillo de la Punta and the Puerta de la Muralla, called the Paseo
+extra muros; the latter is deliciously cool and is frequented by
+carriages after sunset. It was begun by the Marquis de la Torre,
+governor of the island, who gave the first impulse to the improvement
+of the police and the municipal government. Don Luis de las Casas and
+the Count de Santa Clara enlarged the plantations. Near the Campo de
+Marte is the Botanical Garden which is well worthy to fix the
+attention of the government; and another place fitted to excite at
+once pity and indignation--the barracoon, in front of which the
+wretched slaves are exposed for sale. A marble statue of Charles III
+has been erected since my return to Europe, in the extra muros walk.
+This spot was at first destined for a monument to Christopher Columbus
+whose ashes, after the cession of the Spanish part of St. Domingo,
+were brought to the island of Cuba.*
+
+(* Columbus lies buried in the cathedral of the Havannah, close to the
+wall near the high altar. On the tomb is the following inscription:
+
+    O restos y Imagen del grande Colon;
+    Mil siglos duran guardados en la Urna,
+    Y en remembranca de nuestra Nacion.
+
+    Oh relics and image of the great Colon (Columbus)
+    A thousand ages are encompassed in thy Urn,
+    And in the memory of our Nation.
+
+His remains were first deposited at Valladolid and thence were removed
+to Seville. In 1536 the bodies of Columbus and of his son Diego (El
+Adelantado) were carried to St. Domingo and there interred in the
+cathedral; but they were afterwards removed to the place where they
+now repose.)
+
+The same year the ashes of Fernando Cortez were transferred in Mexico
+from one church to another: thus, at the close of the eighteenth
+century, the remains of the two greatest men who promoted the conquest
+of America were interred in new sepulchres.
+
+The most majestic palm-tree of its tribe, the palma real, imparts a
+peculiar character to the landscape in the vicinity of the Havannah;
+it is the Oreodoxa regia of our description of American palm-trees.
+Its tall trunk, slightly swelled towards the middle, grows to the
+height of 60 or 80 feet; the upper part is glossy, of a delicate
+green, newly formed by the closing and dilatation of the petioles,
+contrasts with the rest, which is whitish and fendilated. It appears
+like two columns, the one surmounting the other. The palma real of the
+island of Cuba has feathery leaves rising perpendicularly towards the
+sky, and curved only at the point. The form of this plant reminded us
+of the vadgiai palm-tree which covers the rocks in the cataracts of
+the Orinoco, balancing its long points over a mist of foam. Here, as
+in every place where the population is concentrated, vegetation
+diminishes. Those palm-trees round the Havannah and in the
+amphitheatre of Regla on which I delighted to gaze are disappearing by
+degrees. The marshy places which I saw covered with bamboos are
+cultivated and drained. Civilization advances; and the soil, gradually
+stripped of plants, scarcely offers any trace of its wild abundance.
+From the Punta to San Lazaro, from Cabana to Regla and from Regla to
+Atares the road is covered with houses, and those that surround the
+bay are of light and elegant construction. The plan of these houses is
+traced out by the owners, and they are ordered from the United States,
+like pieces of furniture. When the yellow fever rages at the Havannah
+the proprietors withdraw to those country houses and to the hills
+between Regla and Guanavacoa to breathe a purer air. In the coolness
+of night, when the boats cross the bay, and owing to the
+phosphorescence of the water, leave behind them long tracks of light,
+these romantic scenes afford charming and peaceful retreats for those
+who wish to withdraw from the tumult of a populous city. To judge of
+the progress of cultivation travellers should visit the small plots of
+maize and other alimentary plants, the rows of pine-apples (ananas) in
+the fields of Cruz de Piedra and the bishop's garden (Quinta del
+Obispo) which of late is become a delicious spot.
+
+The town of the Havannah, properly so called, surrounded by walls, is
+only 900 toises long and 500 broad; yet more than 44,000 inhabitants,
+of whom 26,000 are negroes and mulattoes, are crowded together in this
+narrow space. A population nearly as considerable occupies the two
+great suburbs of Jesu-Maria and La Salud.* (* Salud signifies Health.)
+The latter place does not verify the name it bears; the temperature of
+the air is indeed lower than in the city but the streets might have
+been larger and better planned. Spanish engineers, who have been
+waging war for thirty years past with the inhabitants of the suburbs
+(arrabales), have convinced the government that the houses are too
+near the fortifications, and that the enemy might establish himself
+there with impunity. But the government has not courage to demolish
+the suburbs and disperse a population of 28,000 inhabitants collected
+in La Salud only. Since the great fire of 1802 that quarter has been
+considerably enlarged; barracks were at first constructed, but by
+degrees they have been converted into private houses. The defence of
+the Havannah on the west is of the highest importance: so long as the
+besieged are masters of the town, properly so called, and of the
+southern part of the bay, the Morro and La Cabana, they are
+impregnable because they can be provisioned by the Havannah, and the
+losses of the garrison repaired. I have heard well-informed French
+engineers observe that an enemy should begin his operations by taking
+the town, in order to bombard the Cabana, a strong fortress, but where
+the garrison, shut up in the casemates, could not long resist the
+insalubrity of the climate. The English took the Morro without being
+masters of the Havannah; but the Cabana and the Fort Number 4 which
+commands the Morro did not then exist. The most important works on the
+south and west are the Castillos de Atares y del Principe, and the
+battery of Santa Clara.
+
+We employed the months of December, January and February in making
+observations in the vicinity of the Havannah and the fine plains of
+Guines. We experienced, in the family of Senor Cuesta (who then formed
+with Senor Santa Maria one of the greatest commercial houses in
+America) and in the house of Count O'Reilly, the most generous
+hospitality. We lived with the former and deposited our collections
+and instruments in the spacious hotel of Count O'Reilly, where the
+terraces favoured our astronomical observations. The longitude of the
+Havannah was at this period more than one fifth of a degree
+uncertain.* (* I also fixed, by direct observations, several positions
+in the interior of the island of Cuba: namely Rio Blanco, a plantation
+of Count Jaruco y Mopex; the Almirante, a plantation of the Countess
+Buenavista; San Antonio de Beitia; the village of Managua; San Antonio
+de Bareto; and the Fondadero, near the town of San Antonio de los
+Banos.). It had been fixed by M. Espinosa, the learned director of the
+Deposito hidrografico of Madrid, at 5 degrees 38 minutes 11 seconds,
+in a table of positions which he communicated to me on leaving Madrid.
+M. de Churruca fixed the Morro at 5 hours 39 minutes 1 second. I met
+at the Havannah with one of the most able officers of the Spanish
+navy, Captain Don Dionisio Galeano, who had taken a survey of the
+coast of the strait of Magellan. We made observations together on a
+series of eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter, of which the mean
+result gave 5 hours 38 minutes 50 seconds. M. Oltmanns deduced in 1805
+the whole of those observations which I marked for the Morro, at 5
+hours 38 minutes 52.5 seconds--84 degrees 43 minutes 7.5 seconds west
+of the meridian of Paris. This longitude was confirmed by fifteen
+occultations of stars observed from 1809 to 1811 and calculated by M.
+Ferrer: that excellent observer fixes the definitive result at 5
+degrees 38 minutes 50.9 seconds. With respect to the magnetic dip I
+found it by the compass of Borda (December 1800) 53 degrees 22 minutes
+of the old sexagesimal division: twenty-two years before, according to
+the very accurate observations made by Captain Sabine in his memorable
+voyage to the coasts of Africa, America and Spitzbergen, the dip was
+only 51 degrees 55 minutes; it had therefore diminished 1 degree 27
+minutes.
+
+The island of Cuba being surrounded with shoals and breakers along
+more than two-thirds of its length, and as ships keep out beyond those
+dangers, the real shape of the island was for a long time unknown. Its
+breadth, especially between the Havannah and the port of Batabano, has
+been exaggerated; and it is only since the Deposito hidrografico of
+Madrid published the observations of captain Don Jose del Rio, and
+lieutenant Don Ventura de Barcaiztegui, that the area of the island of
+Cuba could be calculated with any accuracy. Wishing to furnish in this
+work the most accurate result that can be obtained in the present
+state of our astronomical knowledge, I engaged M. Bauza to calculate
+the area. He found, in June, 1835, the surface of the island of Cuba,
+without the Isla dos Pinos, to be 3520 square sea leagues, and with
+that island 3615. From this calculation, which has been twice
+repeated, it results that the island of Cuba is one-seventh less than
+has hitherto been believed; that it is 32/100 larger than Hayti, or
+San Domingo; that its surface equals that of Portugal, and within
+one-eighth that of England without Wales; and that if the whole
+archipelago of the Antilles presents as great an area as the half of
+Spain, the island of Cuba alone almost equals in surface the other
+Great and Small Antilles. Its greatest length, from Cape San Antonio
+to Point Maysi (in a direction from west-south-west to east-north-east
+and from west-north-west to east-south-east) is 227 leagues; and its
+greatest breadth (in the direction north and south), from Point
+Maternillo to the mouth of the Magdalena, near Peak Tarquino, is 37
+leagues. The mean breadth of the island, on four-fifths of its length,
+between the Havannah and Puerto Principe, is 15 leagues. In the best
+cultivated part, between the Havannah and Batabano, the isthmus is
+only eight sea leagues. Among the great islands of the globe, that of
+Java most resembles the island of Cuba in its form and area (4170
+square leagues). Cuba has a circumference of coast of 520 leagues, of
+which 280 belong to the south shore, between Cape San Antonio and
+Punta Maysi.
+
+The island of Cuba, over more than four-fifths of its surface, is
+composed of low lands. The soil is covered with secondary and tertiary
+formations, formed by some rocks of gneiss-granite, syenite and
+euphotide. The knowledge obtained hitherto of the geologic
+configuration of the country, is as unsatisfactory as what is known
+respecting the relative age and nature of the soil. It is only
+ascertained that the highest group of mountains lies at the
+south-eastern extremity of the island, between Cape Cruz, Punta Maysi,
+and Holguin. This mountainous part, called the Sierra or Las Montanas
+del Cobre (the Copper Mountains), situated north-west of the town of
+Santiago de Cuba, appears to be about 1200 toises in height. If this
+calculation be correct, the summits of the Sierra would command those
+of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, and the peaks of La Selle and La
+Hotte in the island of San Domingo. The Sierra of Tarquino, fifty
+miles west of the town of Cuba, belongs to the same group as the
+Copper Mountains. The island is crossed from east-south-east to
+west-north-west by a chain of hills, which approach the southern coast
+between the meridians of La Ciudad de Puerto Principe and the Villa
+Clara; while, further to the westward towards Alvarez and Matanzas,
+they stretch in the direction of the northern coast. Proceeding from
+the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo to the Villa de la Trinidad, I saw on
+the north-west, the Lomas de San Juan, which form needles or horns
+more than 300 toises high, with their declivities sloping regularly to
+the south. This calcareous group presents a majestic aspect, as seen
+from the anchorage near the Cayo de Piedras. Xagua and Batabano are
+low coasts; and I believe that, in general, west of the meridian of
+Matanzas, there is no hill more than 200 toises high, with the
+exception of the Pan de Guaixabon. The land in the interior of the
+island is gently undulated, as in England; and it rises only from 45
+to 50 toises above the level of the sea. The objects most visible at a
+distance, and most celebrated by navigators, are the Pan de Matanzas,
+a truncated cone which has the form of a small monument; the Arcos de
+Canasi, which appear between Puerto Escondido and Jaruco, like small
+segments of a circle; the Mesa de Mariel, the Tetas de Managua, and
+the Pan de Guaixabon. This gradual slope of the limestone formations
+of the island of Cuba towards the north and west indicates the
+submarine connection of those rocks with the equally low lands of the
+Bahama Islands, Florida and Yucatan.
+
+Intellectual cultivation and improvement were so long restricted to
+the Havannah and the neighbouring districts, that we cannot be
+surprised at the ignorance prevailing among the inhabitants respecting
+the geologic formation of the Copper Mountains. Don Francisco Ramirez,
+a traveller versed in chemical and mineralogical science, informed me
+that the western part of the island is granitic, and that he there
+observed gneiss and primitive slate. Probably the alluvial deposits of
+auriferous sand which were explored with much ardour* at the beginning
+of the conquest, to the great misfortune of the natives came from
+those granitic formations (* At Cubanacan, that is, in the interior of
+the island, near Jagua and Trinidad, where the auriferous sands have
+been washed by the waters as far as the limestone soil. Martyr
+d'Anghiera, the most intelligent writer on the Conquest, says: "Cuba
+is richer in gold than Hispaniola (San Domingo); and at the moment I
+am writing, 180,000 castillanos of ore have been collected at Cuba."
+Herrera estimates the tax called King's-fifth (quinto del Rey), in the
+island of Cuba, at 6000 pesos, which indicates an annual product of
+2000 marks of gold, at 22 carats; and consequently purer than the gold
+of Sibao in San Domingo. In 1804 the mines of Mexico altogether
+produced 7000 marks of gold; and those of Peru 3400. It is difficult,
+in these calculations, to distinguish between the gold sent to Spain
+by the first Conquistadores, that obtained by washings, and that which
+had been accumulated for ages in the hands of the natives, who were
+pillaged at will. Supposing that in the two islands of Cuba and San
+Domingo (in Cubanacan and Cibao) the product of the washings was 3000
+marks of gold, we find a quantity three times less than the gold
+furnished annually (1790 to 1805) by the small province of Choco. In
+this supposition of ancient wealth there is nothing improbable; and if
+we are surprised at the scanty produce of the gold-washings attempted
+in our days at Cuba and San Domingo, which were heretofore so
+prolific, it must be recollected that at Brazil also the product of
+the gold-washings has fallen, from 1760 to 1820, from 6600 gold
+kilogrammes to less than 595. Lumps of gold weighing several pounds,
+found in our days in Florida and North and South Carolina, prove the
+primitive wealth of the whole basin of the Antilles from the island of
+Cuba to the Appalachian chain. It is also natural that the product of
+the gold-washings should diminish with greater rapidity than that of
+the subterraneous working of the veins. The metals not being renewed
+in the clefts of the veins (by sublimation) now accumulate in alluvial
+soil by the course of the rivers where the table-lands are higher than
+the level of the surrounding running waters. But in rocks with
+metalliferous veins the miner does not at once know all he has to
+work. He may chance to lengthen the labours, to go deep, and to cross
+other accompanying veins. Alluvial soils are generally of small depth
+where they are auriferous; they most frequently rest upon sterile
+rocks. Their superficial position and uniformity of composition help
+to the knowledge of their limits, and wherever workmen can be
+collected, and where the waters for the washings abound, accelerate
+the total working of the auriferous clay. These considerations,
+suggested by the history of the Conquest, and by the science of
+mining, may throw some light on the problem of the metallic wealth of
+Hayti. In that island, as well as at Brazil, it would be more
+profitable to attempt subterraneous workings (on veins) in primitive
+and intermediary soils than to renew the gold-washings which were
+abandoned in the ages of barbarism, rapine and carnage.); traces of
+that sand are still found in the rivers Holguin and Escambray, known
+in general in the vicinity of Villa-Clara, Santo Espiritu, Puerto del
+Principe de Bayamo and the Bahia de Nipe. The abundance of copper
+mentioned by the Conquistadores of the sixteenth century, at a period
+when the Spaniards were more attentive than they have been in latter
+times to the natural productions of America, may possibly be
+attributed to the formations of amphibolic slate, transition
+clay-slate mixed with diorite, and to euphotides analogous to those I
+found in the mountains of Guanabacoa.
+
+The central and western parts of the island contain two formations of
+compact limestone; one of clayey sandstone and another of gypsum. The
+former has, in its aspect and composition, some resemblance to the
+Jura formation. It is white, or of a clear ochre-yellow, with a dull
+fracture, sometimes conchoidal, sometimes smooth; divided into thin
+layers, furnishing some balls of pyromac silex, often hollow (at Rio
+Canimar two leagues east of Matanzas), and petrifications of pecten,
+cardites, terebratules and madrepores.* (* I saw neither gryphites nor
+ammonites of Jura limestone nor the nummulites and cerites of coarse
+limestone.) I found no oolitic beds, but porous beds almost bulbous,
+between the Potrero del Conde de Mopox, and the port of Batabano,
+resembling the spongy beds of Jura limestone in Franconia, near
+Dondorf, Pegnitz, and Tumbach. Yellowish cavernous strata, with
+cavities from three to four inches in diameter, alternate with strata
+altogether compact,* and poorer in petrifications. (* The western part
+of the island has no deep ravines; and we recognize this alternation
+in travelling from the Havannah to Batabano, the deepest beds
+(inclined from 30 to 40 degrees north-east) appear as we advance.) The
+chain of hills that borders the plain of Guines on the north and is
+linked with the Lomas de Camua, and the Tetas de Managua, belongs to
+the latter variety, which is reddish white, and almost of lithographic
+nature, like the Jura limestone of Pappenheim. The compact and
+cavernous beds contain nests of brown ochreous iron; possibly the red
+earth (tierra colorada) so much sought for by the coffee planters
+(haciendados) owes its origin to the decomposition of some superficial
+beds of oxidated iron, mixed with silex and clay, or to a reddish
+sandstone* (* Sandstone and ferruginous sand; iron-sand?) superposed
+on limestone. The whole of this formation, which I shall designate by
+the name of the limestone of Guines, to distinguish it from another
+much more recent, forms, near Trinidad, in the Lomas of St. Juan,
+steep declivities, resembling the mountains of limestone of Caripe, in
+the vicinity of Cumana. They also contain great caverns, near Matanzas
+and Jaruco, where I have not heard that any fossil bones have been
+found. The frequency of caverns in which the pluvial waters
+accumulate, and where small rivers disappear, sometimes causes a
+sinking of the earth. I am of opinion that the gypsum of the island of
+Cuba belongs not to tertiary but to secondary soil; it is worked in
+several places on the east of Matanzas, at San Antonio de los Banos,
+where it contains sulphur, and at the Cayos, opposite San Juan de los
+Remedios. We must not confound with this limestone of Guines,
+sometimes porous, sometimes compact, another formation so recent that
+it seems to augment in our days. I allude to the calcareous
+agglomerates, which I saw in the islands of Cayos that border the
+coast between the Batabano and the bay of Xagua, principally south of
+the Cienega de Zapata, Cayo Buenito, Cayo Flamenco and Cayo de
+Piedras. The soundings prove that they are rocks rising abruptly from
+a bottom of between twenty and thirty fathoms. Some are at the water's
+edge, others one-fourth or one-fifth of a toise above the surface of
+the sea. Angular fragments of madrepores, and cellularia from two to
+three cubic inches, are found cemented by grains of quartzose sand.
+The inequalities of the rocks are covered by mould, in which, by help
+of a microscope, we only distinguish the detritus of shells and
+corals. This tertiary formation no doubt belongs to that of the coast
+of Cumana, Carthagena, and the Great Land of Guadaloupe, noticed in my
+geognostic table of South America.* (* M. Moreau de Jonnes has well
+distinguished, in his Histoire physique des Antilles Francoises,
+between the Roche a ravets of Martinique and Hayti, which is porous,
+filled with terebratulites, and other vestiges of sea-shells, somewhat
+analogous to the limestone of Guines and the calcareous pelagic
+sediment called at Guadaloupe Platine, or Maconne bon Dieu. In the
+cayos of the island of Cuba, or Jardinillos del Rey y del Reyna, the
+whole coral rock lying above the surface of the water appeared to me
+to be fragmentary, that is, composed of broken blocks. It is, however,
+probable, that in the depth it reposes on masses of polypi still
+living.) MM. Chamiso and Guiamard have recently thrown great light on
+the formation of the coral islands in the Pacific. At the foot of the
+Castillo de in Punta, near the Havannah, on shelves of cavernous
+rocks,* covered with verdant sea-weeds and living polypi, we find
+enormous masses of madrepores and other lithophyte corals set in the
+texture of those shelves. (* The surface of these shelves, blackened
+and excavated by the waters, presents ramifications like the
+cauliflower, as they are observed on the currents of lava. Is the
+change of colour produced by the waters owing to the manganese which
+we recognize by some dendrites? The sea, entering into the clefts of
+the rocks, and in a cavern at the foot of the Castillo del Morro,
+compresses the air and makes it issue with a tremendous noise. This
+noise explains the phenomena of the baxos roncadores (snoring
+bocabeoos), so well known to navigators who cross from Jamaica to the
+mouth of Rio San Juan of Nicaragua, or to the island of San Andres.)
+We are at first tempted to admit that the whole of this limestone
+rock, which constitutes the principal portion of the island of Cuba,
+may be traced to an uninterrupted operation of nature--to the action
+of productive organic forces--an action which continues in our days in
+the bosom of the ocean; but this apparent novelty of limestone
+formations soon vanishes when we quit the shore, and recollect the
+series of coral rocks which contain the formations of different ages,
+the muschelkalk, the Jura limestone and coarse limestone. The same
+coral rocks as those of the Castillo and La Punta are found in the
+lofty inland mountains, accompanied with petrifications of bivalve
+shells, very different from those now seen on the coasts of the
+Antilles. Without positively assigning a determinate place in the
+table of formations to the limestone of Guines, which is that of the
+Castillo and La Punta, I have no doubt of the relative antiquity of
+that rock with respect to the calcareous agglomerate of the Cayos,
+situated south of Batabano, and east of the island of Pinos. The globe
+has undergone great revolutions between the periods when these two
+soils were formed; the one containing the great caverns of Matanzas,
+the other daily augmenting by the agglutination of fragments of coral
+and quartzose sand. On the south of the island of Cuba, the latter
+soil seems to repose sometimes on the Jura limestone of Guines, as in
+the Jardinillos, and sometimes (towards Cape Cruz) immediately over
+primitive rocks. In the lesser Antilles the corals are covered with
+volcanic productions. Several of the Cayos of the island of Cuba
+contain fresh water; and I found this water very good in the middle of
+the Cayo de Piedras. When we reflect on the extreme smallness of these
+islands we can scarcely believe that the fresh-water wells are filled
+with rain-water not evaporated. Do they prove a submarine
+communication between the limestone of the coast with the limestone
+serving as the basis of lithophyte polypi, and is the fresh water of
+Cuba raised up by hydrostatic pressure across the coral rocks of
+Cayos, as it is in the bay of Xagua, where, in the middle of the sea,
+it forms springs frequented by the lamantins?
+
+The secondary formations on the east of the Havannah are pierced in a
+singular manner by syenitic and euphotide rocks united in groups. The
+southern bottom of the bay as well as the northern part (the hills of
+the Morro and the Cabana) are of Jura limestone; but on the eastern
+bank of the two Ensenadas de Regla and Guanabacoa, the whole is
+transition soil. Going from north to south, and first near Marimelena,
+we find syenite consisting of a great quantity of hornblende, partly
+decomposed, a little quartz, and a reddish-white feldspar seldom
+crystallized. This fine syenite, the strata of which incline to the
+north-west, alternates twice with serpentine. The layers of
+intercalated serpentine are three toises thick. Farther south, towards
+Regla and Guanabacoa, the syenite disappears, and the whole soil is
+covered with serpentine, rising in hills from thirty to forty toises
+high, and running from east to west. This rock is much fendillated,
+externally of a bluish-grey, covered with dendrites of manganese, and
+internally of leek and asparagus-green, crossed by small veins of
+asbestos. It contains no garnet or amphibole, but metalloid diallage
+disseminated in the mass. The serpentine is sometimes of an
+esquillous, sometimes of a conchoidal fracture: this was the first
+time I had found metalloid diallage within the tropics. Several blocks
+of serpentine have magnetic poles; others are of such a homogeneous
+texture, and have such a glossiness, that at a distance they may be
+taken for pechstein (resinite). It were to be wished that these fine
+masses were employed in the arts as they are in several parts of
+Germany. In approaching Guanabacoa we find serpentine crossed by veins
+between twelve and fourteen inches thick, and filled with fibrous
+quartz, amethyst, and fine mammelonnes, and stalactiforme
+chalcedonies; it is possible that chrysoprase may also one day be
+found. Some copper pyrites appear among these veins accompanied, it is
+said, by silvery-grey copper. I found no traces of this grey copper:
+it is probably the metalloid diallage that has given the Cerro de
+Guanabacoa the reputation of riches in gold and silver which it has
+enjoyed for ages. In some places petroleum flows* from rents in the
+serpentine. (* Does there exist in the Bay of the Havannah any other
+source of petroleum than that of Guanabacoa, or must it be admitted
+that the betun liquido, which in 1508 was employed by Sebastian de
+Ocampo for the caulking of ships, is dried up? That spring, however,
+fixed the attention of Ocampo on the port of the Havannah, where he
+gave it the name of Puerto de Carenas. It is said that abundant
+springs of petroleum are also found in the eastern part of the island
+(Manantialis de betun y chapapote) between Holguin and Mayari, and on
+the coast of Santiago de Cuba.) Springs of water are frequent; they
+contain a little sulphuretted hydrogen, and deposit oxide of iron. The
+Baths of Bareto are agreeable, but of nearly the same temperature as
+the atmosphere. The geologic constitution of this group of serpentine
+rocks, from its insulated position, its veins, its connection with
+syenite and the fact of its rising up across shell-formations, merits
+particular attention. Feldspar with a basis of souda (compact
+feldspar) forms, with diallage, the euphotide and serpentine; with
+pyroxene, dolerite and basalt; and with garnet, eclogyte. These five
+rocks, dispersed over the whole globe, charged with oxidulated and
+titanious iron, are probably of similar origin. It is easy to
+distinguish two formations in the euphotide; one is destitute of
+amphibole, even when it alternates with amphibolic rocks (Joria in
+Piedmont, Regla in the island of Cuba) rich in pure serpentine, in
+metalloid diallage and sometimes in jasper (Tuscany, Saxony); the
+other, strongly charged with amphibole, often passing to diorite,* has
+no jasper in layers, and sometimes contains rich veins of copper;
+(Silesia, Mussinet in Piedmont, the Pyrenees, Parapara in Venezuela,
+Copper Mountains of North America). (* On a serpentine that flows like
+a penombre, veins of greenstone (diorite) near Lake Clunie in
+Perthshire. See MacCulloch in Edinburgh Journal of Science 1824 July
+pages 3 to 16. On a vein of serpentine, and the alterations it
+produces on the banks of Carity, near West-Balloch in Forfarshire see
+Charles Lyell l.c. volume 3 page 43.) It is the latter formation of
+euphotide which, by its mixture with diorite, is itself linked with
+hyperthenite, in which real beds of serpentine are sometimes developed
+in Scotland and in Norway. No volcanic rocks of a more recent period
+have hitherto been discovered in the island of Cuba; for instance,
+neither trachytes, dolerites, nor basalts. I know not whether they are
+found in the rest of the Great Antilles, of which the geologic
+constitution differs essentially from that of the series of calcareous
+and volcanic islands which stretch from Trinidad to the Virgin
+Islands. Earthquakes, which are in general less fatal at Cuba than at
+Porto Rico and Hayti, are most felt in the eastern part, between Cape
+Maysi, Santiago de Cuba and La Ciudad de Puerto Principe. Perhaps
+towards those regions the action of the crevice extends laterally,
+which is believed to cross the neck of granitic land between
+Port-au-Prince and Cape Tiburon and on which whole mountains were
+overthrown in 1770.
+
+The cavernous texture of the limestone formations (soboruco) just
+described, the great inclination of the shelvings, the smallness of
+the island, the nakedness of the plains and the proximity of the
+mountains that form a lofty chain on the southern coast, may be
+considered as among the principal causes of the want of rivers and the
+drought which is felt, especially in the western part of Cuba. In this
+respect, Hayti, Jamaica, and several of the Lesser Antilles, which
+contain volcanic heights covered with forests, are more favoured by
+nature. The lands most celebrated for their fertility are the
+districts of Xagua, Trinidad, Matanzas and Mariel. The valley of
+Guines owes its reputation to artificial irrigation (sanjas de riego).
+Notwithstanding the want of great rivers and the unequal fertility of
+the soil, the island of Cuba, by its undulated surface, its
+continually renewed verdure, and the distribution of its vegetable
+forms, presents at every step the most varied and beautiful landscape.
+Two trees with large, tough, and glossy leaves, the Mammea and the
+Calophyllum calaba, five species of palm-trees (the palma real, or
+Oreodoxa regia, the common cocoa-tree, the Cocos crispa, the Corypha
+miraguama and the C. maritima), and small shrubs constantly loaded
+with flowers, decorate the hills and the savannahs. The Cecropia
+peltata marks the humid spots. It would seem as if the whole island
+had been originally a forest of palm, lemon, and wild orange trees.
+The latter, which bear a small fruit, are probably anterior to the
+arrival of Europeans,* who transported thither the agrumi of the
+gardens; they rarely exceed the height of from ten to fifteen feet. (*
+The best informed inhabitants of the island assert that the cultivated
+orange-trees brought from Asia preserve the size and all the
+properties of their fruits when they become wild. The Brazilians
+affirm that the small bitter orange which bears the name of loranja do
+terra and is found wild, far from the habitations of man, is of
+American origin. Caldcleugh, Travels in South America.) The lemon and
+orange trees are most frequently separate; and the new planters, in
+clearing the ground by fire, distinguish the quality of the soil
+according as it is covered with one or other of those groups of social
+plants; they prefer the soil of the naranjal to that which produces
+the small lemon. In a country where the making of sugar is not
+sufficiently improved to admit of the employment of any other fuel
+than the bagasse (dried sugar-cane) the progressive destruction of the
+small woods is a positive calamity. The aridity of the soil augments
+in proportion as it is stripped of the trees that sheltered it from
+the heat of the sun; for the leaves, emitting heat under a sky always
+serene, occasion, as the air cools, a precipitation of aqueous
+vapours.
+
+Among the few rivers worthy of attention, the Rio Guines may be
+noticed, the Rio Armendaris or Chorrera, of which the waters are led
+to the Havannah by the Sanja de Antoneli; the Rio Canto on the north
+of the town of Bayamo; the Rio Maximo which rises on the east of
+Puerto Principe; the Rio Sagua Grande near Villa Clara; the Rio de las
+Palmas which issues opposite Cayo Galiado; the small rivers of Jaruco
+and Santa Cruz between Guanabo and Matanzas, navigable at the distance
+of some miles from their mouths and favourable for the shipment of
+sugar-casks; the Rio San Antonio which, like many others, is engulfed
+in the caverns of limestone rocks; the Rio Guaurabo west of the port
+of Trinidad; and the Rio Galafre in the fertile district of Filipinas,
+which throws itself into the Laguna de Cortez. The most abundant
+springs rise on the southern coast where, from Xagua to Punta de
+Sabina, over a length of forty-six leagues, the soil is extremely
+marshy. So great is the abundance of the waters which filter by the
+clefts of the stratified rock that, from the effect of an hydrostatic
+pressure, fresh water springs far from the coast, and amidst salt
+water. The jurisdiction of the Havannah is not the most fertile part
+of the island; and the few sugar-plantations that existed in the
+vicinity of the capital are now converted into farms for cattle
+(potreros) and fields of maize and forage, of which the profits are
+considerable. The agriculturists of the island of Cuba distinguish two
+kinds of earth, often mixed together like the squares of a
+draught-board, black earth (negra o prieta), clayey and full of
+moisture, and red earth (bermeja), more silicious and containing oxide
+of iron. The tierra negra is generally preferred (on account of its
+best preserving humidity) for the cultivation of the sugarcane, and
+the tierra bermeja for coffee; but many sugar plantations are
+established on the red soil.
+
+The climate of the Havannah is in accordance with the extreme limits
+of the torrid zone: it is a tropical climate, in which a more unequal
+distribution of heat at different parts of the year denotes the
+passage to the climates of the temperate zone. Calcutta (latitude 22
+degrees 34 minutes north), Canton (latitude 23 degrees 8 minutes
+north), Macao (latitude 22 degrees 12 minutes north), the Havannah
+(latitude 23 degrees 9 minutes north) and Rio Janeiro (latitude 22
+degrees 54 minutes south) are places which, from their position at the
+level of the ocean near the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn,
+consequently at an equal distance from the equator, afford great
+facilities for the study of meteorology. This study can only advance
+by the determination of certain numerical elements which are the
+indispensable basis of the laws we seek to discover. The aspect of
+vegetation being identical near the limits of the torrid zone and at
+the equator, we are accustomed to confound vaguely the climates of two
+zones comprised between 0 and 10 degrees, and between 15 and 23
+degrees of latitude. The region of palm-trees, bananas and arborescent
+gramina extends far beyond the two tropics: but it would be dangerous
+to apply what has been observed at the extremity of the tropical zone
+to what may take place in the plains near the equator. In order to
+rectify those errors it is important that the mean temperature of the
+year and months be well known, as also the thermometric oscillations
+in different seasons at the parallel of the Havannah; and to prove by
+an exact comparison with other points alike distant from the equator,
+for instance, with Rio Janeiro and Macao, that the lowering of
+temperature observed in the island of Cuba is owing to the irruption
+and the stream of layers of cold air, borne from the temperate zones
+towards the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The mean temperature of
+the Havannah, according to four years of good observations, is 25.7
+degrees (20.6 degrees R.), only 2 degrees centigrade above that of the
+regions of America nearest the equator. The proximity of the sea
+raises the mean temperature of the year on the coast; but in the
+interior of the island, when the north winds penetrate with the same
+force, and where the soil rises to the height of forty toises, the
+mean temperature attains only 23 degrees (18.4 degrees R.) and does
+not exceed that of Cairo and Lower Egypt. The difference between the
+mean temperature of the hottest and coldest months rises to 12 degrees
+in the interior of the island; at the Havannah and on the coast, to 8
+degrees; at Cumana, to scarcely 3 degrees. The hottest months, July
+and August, attain 28.8 degrees, at the island of Cuba, perhaps 29.5
+degrees of mean temperature, as at the equator. The coldest months are
+December and January; their mean temperature in the interior of the
+island, is 17 degrees; at the Havannah, 21 degrees, that is, 5 to 8
+degrees below the same months at the equator, yet still 3 degrees
+above the hottest month at Paris.
+
+It will be interesting to compare the climate of the Havannah with
+that of Macao and Rio Janeiro; two places, one of which is near the
+limit of the northern torrid zone, on the eastern coast of Asia; and
+the other on the eastern coast of America, towards the extremity of
+the southern torrid zone.
+
+The climate of the Havannah, notwithstanding the frequency of the
+north and north-west winds, is hotter than that of Macao and Rio
+Janeiro. The former partakes of the cold which, owing to the frequency
+of the west winds, is felt in winter along all the eastern coast of a
+great continent. The proximity of spaces of land covered with
+mountains and table-lands renders the distribution of heat in
+different months of the year more unequal at Macao and Canton than in
+an island bounded on the west and north by the hot waters of the
+Gulf-stream. The winters are therefore much colder at Canton and Macao
+than at the Havannah: yet the latitude of Macao is 1 degree more
+southerly than that of the Havannah; and the latter town and Canton
+are, within nearly a minute, on the same parallel. The thermometer at
+Canton has sometimes almost reached the point zero; and by the effect
+of reflection, ice has been found on the terraces of houses. Although
+this great cold never lasts more than one day, the English merchants
+residing at Canton like to make chimney-fires in their apartments from
+November to January; while at the Havannah, the artificial warmth even
+of a brazero is not required. Hail is frequent and the hail-stones are
+extremely large in the Asiatic climate of Canton and Macao, while it
+is scarcely seen once in fifteen years at the Havannah. In these three
+places the thermometer sometimes keeps up for several hours between 0
+and 4 degrees (centigrade); and yet (a circumstance which appears to
+be very remarkable) snow has never been seen to fall; and
+notwithstanding the great lowering of the temperature, the bananas and
+the palm-trees are as beautiful around Canton, Macao and the Havannah
+as in the plains nearest the equator.
+
+In the island of Cuba the lowering of the temperature lasts only
+during intervals of such short duration that in general neither the
+banana, the sugar-cane nor other productions of the torrid zone suffer
+much. We know how well plants of vigorous organization resist
+temporary cold, and that the orange trees of Genoa survive the fall of
+snow and endure cold which does not more than exceed 6 or 7 degrees
+below freezing-point. As the vegetation of the island of Cuba bears
+the character of the vegetation of the regions near the equator, we
+are surprised to find even in the plains a vegetable form of the
+temperate climates and mountains of the equatorial part of Mexico. I
+have often directed the attention of botanists to this extraordinary
+phenomenon in the geography of plants. The pine (Pinus occidentalis)
+is not found in the Lesser Antilles; not even in Jamaica (between 17
+3/4 and 18 1/2 degrees of latitude). It is only seen further north, in
+the mountains of San Domingo, and in all that part of the island of
+Cuba situated between 20 and 23 degrees of latitude. It attains a
+height of from sixty to seventy feet; and it is remarkable that the
+cahoba* (mahogany (* Swieteinia Mahogani, Linn.)) and the pine
+vegetate at the island of Pinos in the same plains. We also find pines
+in the south-eastern part of the island of Cuba, on the declivity of
+the Copper Mountains where the soil is barren and sandy. The interior
+table-land of Mexico is covered with the same species of coniferous
+plants; at least the specimens brought by M. Bonpland and myself from
+Acaguisotla, Nevado de Toluca and Cofre de Perote do not appear to
+differ specifically from the Pinus occidentalis of the West India
+Islands described by Schwartz. Now those pines which we see at sea
+level in the island of Cuba, in 20 and 22 degrees of latitude, and
+which belong only to the southern part of that island, do not descend
+on the Mexican continent between the parallels of 17 1/2 and 19 1/2
+degrees, below the elevation of 500 toises. I even observed that, on
+the road from Perote to Xalapa in the eastern mountains opposite to
+the island of Cuba, the limit of the pines is 935 toises; while in the
+western mountains, between Chilpanzingo and Acapulco, near
+Quasiniquilapa, two degrees further south, it is 580 toises and
+perhaps on some points 450. These anomalies of stations are very rare
+in the torrid zone and are probably less connected with the
+temperature than with the nature of the soil. In the system of the
+migration of plants we must suppose that the Pinus occidentalis of
+Cuba came from Yucatan before the opening of the channel between Cape
+Catoche and Cape San Antonio, and not from the United States, so rich
+in coniferous plants; for in Florida the species of which we have here
+traced the botanical geography has not been discovered.
+
+About the end of April, M. Bonpland and myself, having completed the
+observations we proposed to make at the northern extremity of the
+torrid zone, were on the point of proceeding to Vera Cruz with the
+squadron of Admiral Ariztizabal; but being misled by false
+intelligence respecting the expedition of Captain Baudin, we were
+induced to relinquish the project of passing through Mexico on our way
+to the Philippine Islands. The public journals announced that two
+French sloops, the Geographe and Naturaliste, had sailed for Cape
+Horn; that they were to proceed along the coasts of Chili and Peru,
+and thence to New Holland. This intelligence revived in my mind all
+the projects I had formed during my stay in Paris, when I solicited
+the Directory to hasten the departure of Captain Baudin. On leaving
+Spain, I had promised to rejoin the expedition wherever I could reach
+it. M. Bonpland and I resolved instantly to divide our herbals into
+three portions, to avoid exposing to the risks of a long voyage the
+objects we had obtained with so much difficulty on the banks of the
+Orinoco, the Atabapo and the Rio Negro. We sent one collection by way
+of England to Germany, another by way of Cadiz to France, and a third
+remained at the Havannah. We had reason to congratulate ourselves on
+this foresight: each collection contained nearly the same species, and
+no precautions were neglected to have the cases, if taken by English
+or French vessels, remitted to Sir Joseph Banks or to the professors
+of natural history at the Museum at Paris. It happened fortunately
+that the manuscripts which I at first intended to send with the
+collection to Cadiz were not intrusted to our much esteemed friend and
+fellow traveller, Fray Juan Gonzales, of the order of the Observance
+of St. Francis, who had followed us to the Havannah with the view of
+returning to Spain. He left the island of Cuba soon after us, but the
+vessel in which he sailed foundered on the coast of Africa, and the
+cargo and crew were all lost. By this event we lost some of the
+duplicates of our herbals, and what was more important, all the
+insects which M. Bonpland had with great difficulty collected during
+our voyage to the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. By a singular fatality,
+we remained two years in the Spanish colonies without receiving a
+single letter from Europe; and those which arrived in the three
+following years made no mention of what we had transmitted. The reader
+may imagine my uneasiness for the fate of a journal which contained
+astronomical observations and barometrical measurements, of which I
+had not made any copy. After having visited New Grenada, Peru and
+Mexico, and just when I was preparing to leave the New Continent, I
+happened, at a public library of Philadelphia, to cast my eyes on a
+scientific Publication, in which I found these words: "Arrival of M.
+de Humboldt's manuscripts at his brother's house in Paris, by way of
+Spain!" I could scarcely suppress an exclamation of joy.
+
+While M. Bonpland laboured day and night to divide and put our
+collections in order, a thousand obstacles arose to impede our
+departure. There was no vessel in the port of the Havannah that would
+convey us to Porto Bello or Carthagena. The persons I consulted seemed
+to take pleasure in exaggerating the difficulties of the passage of
+the isthmus, and the dangerous voyage from Panama to Guyaquil, and
+from Guyaquil to Lima and Valparaiso. Not being able to find a passage
+in any neutral vessel, I freighted a Catalonian sloop, lying at
+Batabano, which was to be at my disposal to take me either to Porto
+Bello or Carthagena, according as the gales of Saint Martha might
+permit.* (* The gales of Saint Martha blow with great violence at that
+season below latitude 12 degrees.) The prosperous state of commerce at
+the Havannah and the multiplied connections of that city with the
+ports of the Pacific would facilitate for me the means of procuring
+funds for several years. General Don Gonzalo O'Farrill resided at that
+time in my native country as minister of the court of Spain. I could
+exchange my revenues in Prussia for a part of his at the island of
+Cuba; and the family of Don Ygnacio O'Farrill y Herera, brother of the
+general, concurred kindly in all that could favour my new projects. On
+the 6th of March the vessel I had freighted was ready to receive us.
+The road to Batabano led us once more by Guines to the plantation of
+Rio Blanco, the property of Count Jaruco y Mopox.
+
+The road from Rio Blanco to Batabano runs across an uncultivated
+country, half covered with forests; in the open spots the indigo plant
+and the cotton-tree grow wild. As the capsule of the Gossypium opens
+at the season when the northern storms are most frequent, the down
+that envelops the seed is swept from one side to the other; and the
+gathering of the cotton, which is of a very fine quality, suffers
+greatly. Several of our friends, among whom was Senor de Mendoza,
+captain of the port of Valparaiso, and brother to the celebrated
+astronomer who resided so long in London, accompanied us to Potrero de
+Mopox. In herborizing further southward, we found a new palm-tree with
+fan-leaves (Corypha maritima), having a free thread between the
+interstices of the folioles. This Corypha covers a part of the
+southern coast and takes the place of the majestic palma real and the
+Cocos crispa of the northern coast. Porous limestone (of the Jura
+formation) appeared from time to time in the plain.
+
+Batabano was then a poor village and its church had been completed
+only a few years previously. The Sienega begins at the distance of
+half a league from the village; it is a tract of marshy soil,
+extending from the Laguna de Cortez as far as the mouth of the Rio
+Xagua, on a length of sixty leagues from west to east. At Batabano it
+is believed that in those regions the sea continues to gain upon the
+land, and that the oceanic irruption was particularly remarkable at
+the period of the great upheaving which took place at the end of the
+eighteenth century, when the tobacco mills disappeared, and the Rio
+Chorrera changed its course. Nothing can be more gloomy than the
+aspect of these marshes around Batabano. Not a shrub breaks the
+monotony of the prospect: a few stunted trunks of palm-trees rise like
+broken masts, amidst great tufts of Junceae and Irides. As we stayed
+only one night at Batabano, I regretted much that I was unable to
+obtain precise information relative to the two species of crocodiles
+which infest the Sienega. The inhabitants give to one of these animals
+the name of cayman, to the other that of crocodile; or, as they say
+commonly in Spain, of cocodrilo. They assured us that the latter has
+most agility, and measures most in height: his snout is more pointed
+than that of the cayman, and they are never found together. The
+crocodile is very courageous and is said to climb into boats when he
+can find a support for his tail. He frequently wanders to the distance
+of a league from the Rio Cauto and the marshy coast of Xagua to devour
+the pigs on the islands. This animal is sometimes fifteen feet long,
+and will, it is said, pursue a man on horseback, like the wolves in
+Europe; while the animals exclusively called caymans at Batabano are
+so timid that people bathe without apprehension in places where they
+live in bands. These peculiarities, and the name of cocodrilo, given
+at the island of Cuba, to the most dangerous of the carnivorous
+reptiles, appear to me to indicate a different species from the great
+animals of the Orinoco, Rio Magdalena and Saint Domingo. In other
+parts of the Spanish American continent the settlers, deceived by the
+exaggerated accounts of the ferocity of crocodiles in Egypt, allege
+that the real crocodile is only found in the Nile. Zoologists have,
+however, ascertained that there are in America caymans or alligators
+with obtuse snouts, and legs not indented, and crocodiles with pointed
+snouts and indented legs; and in the old continent, both crocodiles
+and gaviales. The Crocodilus acutus of San Domingo, in which I cannot
+hitherto specifically distinguish the crocodiles of the great rivers
+of the Orinoco and the Magdalena, has, according to Cuvier, so great a
+resemblance to the crocodile of the Nile,* that it required a minute
+examination to prove that the rule laid down by Buffon relative to the
+distribution of species between the tropical regions of the two
+continents was correct. (* This striking analogy was ascertained by M.
+Geoffroy de Saint Hilaire in 1803 when General Rochambeau sent a
+crocodile from San Domingo to the Museum of Natural History at Paris.
+M. Bonpland and myself had made drawings and detailed descriptions in
+1801 and 1802 of the same species which inhabit the great rivers of
+South America, during our passage on the Apure, the Orinoco and the
+Magdalena. We committed the mistake so common to travellers, of not
+sending them at once to Europe, together with some young specimens.)
+
+On my second visit to the Havannah, in 1804, I could not return to the
+Sienega of Batabano; and therefore I had the two species, called
+caymans and crocodiles by the inhabitants, brought to me, at a great
+expense. Two crocodiles arrived alive; the oldest was four feet three
+inches long; they had been caught with great difficulty and were
+conveyed, muzzled and bound, on a mule, for they were exceedingly
+vigorous and fierce. In order to observe their habits and movements,*
+we placed them in a great hall, where, by climbing on a very high
+piece of furniture, we could see them attack great dogs. (* M.
+Descourtils, who knows the habits of the crocodile better than any
+other author who has written on that reptile, saw, like Dampier and
+myself, the Crocodilus acutus often touch his tail with his mouth.)
+Having seen much of crocodiles during six months, on the Orinoco, the
+Rio Apure and the Magdalena, we were glad to have another opportunity
+of observing their habits before our return to Europe. The animals
+sent to us from Batabano had the snout nearly as sharp as the
+crocodiles of the Orinoco and the Magdalena (Crocodilus acutus, Cuv.);
+their colour was dark-green on the back, and white below the belly,
+with yellow spots on the flanks. I counted, as in all the real
+crocodiles, thirty-eight teeth in the upper jaw, and thirty in the
+lower; in the former, the tenth and ninth; and in the latter, the
+first and fourth, were the largest. In the description made by M.
+Bonpland and myself on the spot, we have expressly marked that the
+lower fourth tooth rises over the upper jaw. The posterior extremities
+were palmated. These crocodiles of Batabano appeared to us to be
+specifically identical with the Crocodilus acutus. It is true that the
+accounts we heard of their habits did not quite agree with what we had
+ourselves observed on the Orinoco; but carnivorous reptiles of the
+same species are milder and more timid, or fiercer and more
+courageous, in the same river, according to the nature of the
+localities. The animal called the cayman, at Batabano, died on the
+way, and was not brought to us, so that we could make no comparison of
+the two species.* (* The four bags filled with musk (bolzas del
+almizcle) are, in the crocodile of Batabano, exactly in the same
+position as in that of the Rio Magdalena, beneath the lower jaw and
+near the anus. I was much surprised at not perceiving the smell of
+musk at the Havannah, three days after the death of the animal, in a
+temperature of 30 degrees, while at Mompox, on the banks of the
+Magdalena, living crocodiles infected our apartment. I have since
+found that Dampier also remarked an absence of smell in the crocodile
+of Cuba where the caymans spread a very strong smell of musk.) I have
+no doubt that the crocodile with a sharp snout, and the alligator or
+cayman with a snout like a pike,* (* Crocodilus acutus of San Domingo.
+Alligator lucius of Florida and the Mississippi.) inhabit together,
+but in distinct bands, the marshy coast between Xagua, the Surgidero
+of Batabano, and the island of Pinos. In that island Dampier was
+struck with the great difference between the caymans and the American
+crocodiles. After having described, though not always with perfect
+correctness, several of the characteristics which distinguish
+crocodiles from caymans, he traces the geographical distribution of
+those enormous saurians. "In the bay of Campeachy," he says, "I saw
+only caymans or alligators; at the island of Great Cayman, there are
+crocodiles and no alligators; at the island of Pinos, and in the
+innumerable creeks of the coast of Cuba, there are both crocodiles and
+caymans."* (* Dampier's Voyages and Descriptions, 1599.) To these
+valuable observations of Dampier I may add that the real crocodile
+(Crocodilus acutus) is found in the West India Islands nearest the
+mainland, for instance, at the island of Trinidad; at Marguerita; and
+also, probably, at Curacao, notwithstanding the want of fresh water.
+It is observed, further south, in the Neveri, the Rio Magdalena, the
+Apure and the Orinoco, as far as the confluence of the Cassiquiare
+with the Rio Negro (latitude 2 degrees 2 minutes), consequently more
+than four hundred leagues from Batabano. It would be interesting to
+verify on the eastern coast of Mexico and Guatimala, between the
+Mississippi and the Rio Chagres (in the isthmus of Panama), the limit
+of the different species of carnivorous reptiles.
+
+We set sail on the 9th of March, somewhat incommoded by the extreme
+smallness of our vessel, which afforded us no sleeping-place but upon
+deck. The cabin (camera de pozo) received no air or light but from
+above; it was merely a hold for provisions, and it was with difficulty
+that we could place our instruments in it. The thermometer kept up
+constantly at 32 and 33 degrees (centesimal.) Luckily these
+inconveniences lasted only twenty days. Our several voyages in the
+canoes of the Orinoco, and a passage in an American vessel laden with
+several thousand arrobas of salt meat dried in the sun had rendered us
+not very fastidious.
+
+The gulf of Batabano, bounded by a low and marshy coast, looks like a
+vast desert. The fishing birds, which are generally at their post
+whilst the small land birds, and the indolent vultures (Vultur aura.)
+are at roost, are seen only in small numbers. The sea is of a
+greenish-brown hue, as in some of the lakes of Switzerland; while the
+air, owing to its extreme purity, had, at the moment the sun appeared
+above the horizon, a cold tint of pale blue, similar to that which
+landscape painters observe at the same hour in the south of Italy, and
+which makes distant objects stand out in strong relief. Our sloop was
+the only vessel in the gulf; for the roadstead of Batabano is scarcely
+visited except by smugglers, or, as they are here politely called, the
+traders (los tratantes). The projected canal of Guines will render
+Batabano an important point of communication between the island of
+Cuba and the coast of Venezuela. The port is within a bay bounded by
+Punta Gorda on the east, and by Punta de Salinas on the west: but this
+bay is itself only the upper or concave end of a great gulf measuring
+nearly fourteen leagues from south to north, and along an extent of
+fifty leagues (between the Laguna de Cortez and the Cayo de Piedras)
+inclosed by an incalculable number of flats and chains of rocks. One
+great island only, of which the superficies is more than four times
+the dimensions of that of Martinique, with mountains crowned with
+majestic pines, rises amidst this labyrinth. This is the island of
+Pinos, called by Columbus El Evangelista, and by some mariners of the
+sixteenth century, the Isla de Santa Maria. It is celebrated for its
+mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni) which is an important article of
+commerce. We sailed east-south-east, taking the passage of Don
+Cristoval, to reach the rocky island of Cayo de Piedras, and to clear
+the archipelago, which the Spanish pilots, in the early times of the
+conquest, designated by the names of Gardens and Bowers (Jardines y
+Jardinillos). The Queen's Gardens, properly so called, are nearer Cape
+Cruz, and are separated from the archipelago by an open sea
+thirty-five leagues broad. Columbus gave them the name they bear, in
+1494, when, on his second voyage, he struggled during fifty-eight days
+with the winds and currents between the island of Pinos and the
+eastern cape of Cuba. He describes the islands of this archipelago as
+verdant, full of trees and pleasant* (verdes, llenos de arboledas, y
+graciosos). (* There exists great geographical confusion, even at the
+Havannah, in reference to the ancient denominations of the Jardines
+del Rey and Jardines de la Reyna. In the description of the island of
+Cuba, given in the Mercurio Americano, and in the Historia Natural de
+la Isla de Cuba, published at the Havannah by Don Antonio Lopez Gomez,
+the two groups are placed on the southern coast of the island. Lopez
+says that the Jardines del Rey extend from the Laguna de Cortez to
+Bahia de Xagua; but it is historically certain that the governor Diego
+Velasquez gave his name to the western part of the chain of rocks of
+the Old Channel, between Cayo Frances and Le Monillo, on the northern
+coast of the island of Cuba. The Jardines de la Reyna, situated
+between Cabo Cruz and the port of the Trinity, are in no manner
+connected with the Jardines and Jardinillos of the Isla de Pinos.
+Between the two groups of the chain of rocks are the flats (placeres)
+of La Paz and Xagua.)
+
+A part of these so-styled gardens is indeed beautiful; the voyager
+sees the scene change every moment, and the verdure of some of the
+islands appears the more lovely from its contrast with chains of
+rocks, displaying only white and barren sands. The surface of these
+sands, heated by the rays of the sun, seems to be undulating like the
+surface of a liquid. The contact of layers of air of unequal
+temperature produces the most varied phenomena of suspension and
+mirage from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon. Even in
+those desert places the sun animates the landscape, and gives mobility
+to the sandy plain, to the trunks of trees, and to the rocks that
+project into the sea like promontories. When the sun appears these
+inert masses seem suspended in air; and on the neighbouring beach the
+sands present the appearance of a sheet of water gently agitated by
+the winds. A train of clouds suffices to seat the trunks of trees and
+the suspended rocks again on the soil; to render the undulating
+surface of the plains motionless; and to dissipate the charm which the
+Arabian, Persian, and Hindoo poets have celebrated as "the sweet
+illusions of the solitary desert."
+
+We doubled Cape Matahambre very slowly. The chronometer of Louis
+Berthoud having kept time accurately at the Havannah, I availed myself
+of this occasion to determine, on this and the following days, the
+positions of Cayo de Don Cristoval, Cayo Flamenco, Cayo de Diego Perez
+and Cayo de Piedras. I also employed myself in examining the influence
+which the changes at the bottom of the sea produce on its temperature
+at the surface. Sheltered by so many islands, the surface is calm as a
+lake of fresh water, and the layers of different depths being distinct
+and separate, the smallest change indicated by the lead acts on the
+thermometer. I was surprised to see that on the east of the little
+Cayo de Don Cristoval the high banks are only distinguished by the
+milky colour of the water, like the bank of Vibora, south of Jamaica,
+and many other banks, the existence of which I ascertained by means of
+the thermometer. The bottom of the rock of Batabano is a sand composed
+of coral detritus; it nourishes sea-weeds which scarcely ever appear
+on the surface: the water, as I have already observed, is greenish;
+and the absence of the milky tint is, no doubt, owing to the perfect
+calm which pervades those regions. Whenever the agitation is
+propagated to a certain depth, a very fine sand, or a mass of
+calcareous particles suspended in the water, renders it troubled and
+milky. There are shallows, however, which are distinguished neither by
+the colour nor by the low temperature of the waters; and I believe
+that phenomenon depends on the nature of a hard and rocky bottom,
+destitute of sand and corals; on the form and declivity of the
+shelvings; the swiftness of the currents; and the absence of the
+propagation of motion towards the lower layers of the water. The cold
+frequently indicated by the thermometer, at the surface of the high
+banks, must be traced to the molecules of water which, owing to the
+rays of heat and the nocturnal cooling, fall from the surface to the
+bottom, and are stopped in their fall by the high banks; and also to
+the mingling of the layers of very deep water that rise on the
+shelvings of the banks as on an inclined plane, to mix with the layers
+of the surface.
+
+Notwithstanding the small size of our bark and the boasted skill of
+our pilot, we often ran aground. The bottom being soft, there was no
+danger; but, nevertheless, at sunset, near the pass of Don Cristoval,
+we preferred to lie at anchor. The first part of the night was
+beautifully serene: we saw an incalculable number of falling-stars,
+all following one direction, opposite to that from whence the wind
+blew in the low regions of the atmosphere. The most absolute solitude
+prevails in this spot, which, in the time of Columbus, was inhabited
+and frequented by great numbers of fishermen. The inhabitants of Cuba
+then employed a small fish to take the great sea turtles; they
+fastened a long cord to the tail of the reves (the name given by the
+Spaniards to that species of Echeneis*). (* To the sucet or guaican of
+the natives of Cuba the Spaniards have given the characteristic name
+of reves, that is, placed on its back, or reversed. In fact, at first
+sight, the position of the back and the abdomen is confounded.
+Anghiera says: Nostrates reversum appellant, quia versus venatur. I
+examined a remora of the South Sea during the passage from Lima to
+Acapulco. As he lived a long time out of the water, I tried
+experiments on the weight he could carry before the blades of the disk
+loosened from the plank to which the animal was fixed; but I lost that
+part of my journal. It is doubtless the fear of danger that causes the
+remora not to loose his hold when he feels that he is pulled by a cord
+or by the hand of man. The sucet spoken of by Columbus and Martin
+d'Anghiera was probably the Echeneis naucrates and not the Echeneis
+remora.) The fisher-fish, formerly employed by the Cubans by means of
+the flattened disc on his head, furnished with suckers, fixed himself
+on the shell of the sea-turtle, which is so common in the narrow and
+winding channels of the Jardinillos. "The reves," says Christopher
+Columbus, "will sooner suffer himself to be cut in pieces than let go
+the body to which he adheres." The Indians drew to the shore by the
+same cord the fisher-fish and the turtle. When Gomara and the learned
+secretary of the emperor Charles V, Peter Martyr d'Anghiera,
+promulgated in Europe this fact which they had learnt from the
+companions of Columbus, it was received as a traveller's tale. There
+is indeed an air of the marvellous in the recital of d'Anghiera, which
+begins in these words: Non aliter ac nos canibus gallicis per aequora
+campi lepores insectamur, incolae [Cubae insulae] venatorio pisce
+pisces alios capiebant. (Exactly as we follow hares with greyhounds in
+the fields, so do the natives [of Cuba] take fishes with other fish
+trained for that purpose). We now know, from the united testimony of
+Rogers, Dampier and Commerson, that the artifice resorted to in the
+Jardinillos to catch turtles is employed by the inhabitants of the
+eastern coast of Africa, near Cape Natal, at Mozambique and at
+Madagascar. In Egypt, at San Domingo and in the lakes of the valley of
+Mexico, the method practised for catching ducks was as follows: men,
+whose heads were covered with great calabashes pierced with holes, hid
+themselves in the water, and seized the birds by the feet. The
+Chinese, from the remotest antiquity, have employed the cormorant, a
+bird of the pelican family, for fishing on the coast: rings are fixed
+round the bird's neck to prevent him from swallowing his prey and
+fishing for himself. In the lowest degree of civilization, the
+sagacity of man is displayed in the stratagems of hunting and fishing:
+nations who probably never had any communication with each other
+furnish the most striking analogies in the means they employ in
+exercising their empire over animals.
+
+Three days elapsed before we could emerge from the labyrinth of
+Jardines and Jardinillos. At night we lay at anchor; and in the day we
+visited those islands or chains of rocks which were most easily
+accessible. As we advanced eastward the sea became less calm and the
+position of the shoals was marked by water of a milky colour. On the
+boundary of a sort of gulf between Cayo Flamenco and Cayo de Piedras
+we found that the temperature of the sea, at its surface, augmented
+suddenly from 23.5 to 25.8 degrees centigrade. The geologic
+constitution of the rocky islets that rise around the island of Pinos
+fixed my attention the more earnestly as I had always rather doubted
+of the existence of those huge masses of coral which are said to rise
+from the abyss of the Pacific to the surface of the water. It appeared
+to me more probable that these enormous masses had some primitive or
+volcanic rock for a basis, to which they adhered at small depths. The
+formation, partly compact and lithographic, partly bulbous, of the
+limestone of Guines, had followed us as far as Batabano. It is
+somewhat analogous to Jura limestone; and, judging from their external
+aspect, the Cayman Islands are composed of the same rock. If the
+mountains of the island of Pinos, which present at the same time (as
+it is said by the first historians of the conquest) the pineta and
+palmeta, be visible at the distance of twenty sea leagues, they must
+attain a height of more than five hundred toises: I have been assured
+that they also are formed of a limestone altogether similar to that of
+Guines. From these facts I expected to find the same rock (Jura
+limestone) in the Jardinillos: but I saw, in the chain of rocks that
+rises generally five to six inches above the surface of the water,
+only a fragmentary rock, in which angular pieces of madrepores are
+cemented by quartzose sand. Sometimes the fragments form a mass of
+from one to two cubic feet and the grains of quartz so disappear that
+in several layers one might imagine that the polypi have remained on
+the spot. The total mass of this chain of rocks appears to me a
+limestone agglomerate, somewhat analogous to the earthy limestone of
+the peninsula of Araya, near Cumana, but of much more recent
+formation. The inequalities of this coral rock are covered by a
+detritus of shells and madrepores. Whatever rises above the surface of
+the water is composed of broken pieces, cemented by carbonate of lime,
+in which grains of quartzose sand are set. Whether rocks formed by
+polypi still living are found at great depth below this fragmentary
+rock of coral or whether these polypi are raised on the Jura formation
+are questions which I am unable to answer. Pilots believe that the sea
+diminishes in these latitudes, because they see the chain of rocks
+augment and rise, either by the earth which the waves heave up, or by
+successive agglutinations. It is not impossible that the enlarging of
+the channel of Bahama, by which the waters of the Gulf-stream issue,
+may cause, in the lapse of ages, a slight lowering of the waters south
+of Cuba, and especially in the gulf of Mexico, the centre of the great
+current which runs along the shores of the United States, and casts
+the fruits of tropical plants on the coast of Norway.* (* "The
+Gulf-stream, between the Bahamas and Florida, is very little wider
+than Behring's Strait; and yet the water rushing through this passage
+is of sufficient force and quantity to put the whole Northern Atlantic
+in motion, and to make its influence be felt in the distant strait of
+Gibraltar and on the more distant coast of Africa." Quarterly Review
+February 1818.) The configuration of the coast, the direction, the
+force and the duration of certain winds and currents, the changes
+which the barometric heights undergo through the variable predominance
+of those winds, are causes, the concurrence of which may alter, in a
+long space of time, and in circumscribed limits of extent and height,
+the equilibrium of the seas.* (* I do not pretend to explain, by the
+same causes, the great phenomena of the coast of Sweden, where the sea
+has, on some points, the appearance of a very unequal lowering of from
+three to five feet in one hundred years. The great geologist, Leopold
+von Buch, has imparted new interest to these observations by examining
+whether it be not rather some parts of the continent of Scandinavia
+which insensibly heaves up. An analogous supposition was entertained
+by the inhabitants of Dutch Guiana.) When the coast is so low that the
+level of the soil, at a league within the island, does not change to
+extent of a few inches, these swellings and diminution of the waters
+strike the imagination of the inhabitants.
+
+The Cayo bonito (Pretty Rock), which we first visited, fully merits
+its name from the richness of its vegetation. Everything denotes that
+it has been long above the surface of the ocean; and the central part
+of the Cayo is not more depressed than the banks. On a layer of sand
+and land shells, five to six inches thick, covered by a fragmentary
+madreporic rock, rises a forest of mangroves (Rhizophora). From their
+form and foliage they might at a distance be mistaken for laurel
+trees. The Avicennia, the Batis, some small Euphorbia and grasses, by
+the intertwining of their roots, fix the moving sands. But the
+characteristic distinction of the Flora of these coral islands is the
+magnificent Tournefortia gnaphalioides of Jacquin, with silvered
+leaves, which we found here for the first time. This is a social plant
+and is a shrub from four feet and a half to five feet high. Its
+flowers emit an agreeable perfume; and it is the ornament of Cayo
+Flamenco, Cayo Piedras and perhaps of the greater part of the low
+lands of the Jardinillos. While we were employed in herborizing,* our
+sailors were searching among the rocks for lobsters. (* We gathered
+Cenchrus myosuroides, Euphorbia buxifolia, Batis maritima, Iresine
+obtusifolia, Tournefortia gnaphalioides, Diomedea glabrata, Cakile
+cubensis, Dolichos miniatus, Parthenium hysterophorus, etc. The
+last-named plant, which we had previously found in the valley of
+Caracas and on the temperate table-lands of Mexico, between 470 and
+900 toises high, covers the fields of the island of Cuba. It is used
+by the inhabitants for aromatic baths, and to drive away the fleas
+which are so numerous in tropical climates. At Cumana the leaves of
+several species of cassia are employed, on account of their smell,
+against those annoying insects.) Disappointed at not finding them,
+they avenged themselves by climbing on the mangroves and making a
+dreadful slaughter of the young alcatras, grouped in pairs in their
+nests. This name is given, in Spanish America, to the brown
+swan-tailed pelican of Buffon. With the want of foresight peculiar to
+the great pelagic birds, the alcatra builds his nest where several
+branches of trees unite together. We counted four or five nests on the
+same trunk of a mangrove. The young birds defended themselves
+valiantly with their enormous beaks, which are six or seven inches
+long; the old ones hovered over our heads, making hoarse and plaintive
+cries. Blood streamed from the tops of the trees, for the sailors were
+armed with great sticks and cutlasses (machetes). In vain we reproved
+them for this cruelty. Condemned to long obedience in the solitude of
+the seas, this class of men feel pleasure in exercising a cruel
+tyranny over animals when occasion offers. The ground was covered with
+wounded birds struggling in death. At our arrival a profound calm
+prevailed in this secluded spot; now, everything seemed to say: Man
+has passed this way.
+
+The sky was veiled with reddish vapours, which however dispersed in
+the direction of south-west; we hoped, but in vain, to discern the
+heights of the island of Pinos. Those spots have a charm in which most
+parts of the New World are wanting. They are associated with
+recollections of the greatest names of the Spanish monarchy--those of
+Christopher Columbus and of Hernan Cortez. It was on the southern
+coast of the island of Cuba, between the bay of Xagua and the island
+of Pinos, that the great Spanish Admiral, in his second voyage, saw,
+with astonishment, "that mysterious king who spoke to his subjects
+only by signs, and that group of men who wore long white tunics, like
+the monks of La Merced, whilst the rest of the people were naked."
+"Columbus in his fourth voyage found in the Jardinillos, great boats
+filled with Mexican Indians, and laden with the rich productions and
+merchandise of Yucatan." Misled by his ardent imagination, he thought
+he had heard from those navigators, "that they came from a country
+where the men were mounted on horses,* and wore crowns of gold on
+their heads." (* Compare the Lettera rarissima di Christoforo Colombo,
+di 7 di Julio, 1503; with the letter of Herrera, dated December 1.
+Nothing can be more touching and pathetic than the expression of
+melancholy which prevails in the letter of Columbus, written at
+Jamaica, and addressed to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. I
+recommend to the notice of those who wish to understand the character
+of that extraordinary man, the recital of the nocturnal vision, in
+which he imagined that he heard a celestial voice, in the midst of a
+tempest, encouraging him by these words: Iddio maravigliosamente fece
+sonar tuo nome nella terra. Le Indie que sono pa te del mondo cosi
+ricca, te le ha date per tue; tu le hai repartite dove ti e piaciuto,
+e ti dette potenzia per farlo. Delli ligamenti del mare Oceano che
+erano serrati con catene cosi forte, ti dono le chiave, etc. [God
+marvellously makes thy name resound throughout the world. The Indies,
+which are so rich a portion of the world, he gives to thee for
+thyself; thou mayest distribute them in the way thou pleasest, and God
+gives thee power to do so. Of the shores of the Atlantic, which were
+closed by such strong chains, he gives thee the key.] This fragment
+has been handed down to us only in an ancient Italian tradition; for
+the Spanish original mentioned in the Biblioteca Nautica of Don
+Antonio Leon has not hitherto been found. I may add a few more lines,
+characterized by great simplicity, written by the discoverer of the
+New World: "Your Highness," says Columbus, "may believe me, the globe
+of the earth is far from being so great as the vulgar admit. I was
+seven years at your royal court, and during seven years was told that
+my enterprise was a folly. Now that I have opened the way, tailors and
+shoemakers ask the privilege of going to discover new lands.
+Persecuted, forgotten as I am, I never think of Hispaniola and Paria
+without my eyes being filled with tears. I was twenty years in the
+service of your Highness; I have not a hair that is not white; and my
+body is enfeebled. Heaven and earth now mourn for me; all who have
+pity, truth, and justice, mourn for me (pianga adesso il cielo e
+pianga per me la terra; pianga per me chi ha carita, verita,
+giustizia)." Lettera rarissima pages 13, 19, 34, 37.) "Catayo (China),
+the empire of the Great Khan, and the mouth of the Ganges," appeared
+to him so near, that he hoped soon to employ two Arabian interpreters,
+whom he had embarked at Cadiz, in going to America. Other remembrances
+of the island of Pinos, and the surrounding Gardens, are connected
+with the conquest of Mexico. When Hernan Cortes was preparing his
+great expedition, he was wrecked with his Nave Capitana on one of the
+flats of the Jardinillos. For the space of five days he was believed
+to be lost, and the valiant Pedro de Alvarado sent (in November 1518)
+from the port of Carenas* (the Havannah) three vessels in search of
+him. (* At that period there were two settlements, one at Puerto de
+Carenas in the ancient Indian province of the Havannah, and the
+other--the most considerable--in the Villa de San Cristoval de Cuba.
+These settlements were only united in 1519 when the Puerto de Carenas
+took the name of San Cristoval de la Habana. "Cortes," says Herrera,
+"paso a la Villa de San Cristoval que a la sazon estaba en la costa
+del sur, y despues se paso a la Habana." [Cortes proceeded to the town
+of San Cristoval, which at that time was on the sea-coast, and
+afterwards he repaired to the Havannah.]) In February, 1519, Cortes
+assembled his whole fleet near cape San Antonio, probably on the spot
+which still bears the name of Ensenada de Cortes, west of Batabano and
+opposite to the island of Pinos. From thence, believing he should
+better escape the snares laid for him by the governor, Velasquez, he
+passed almost clandestinely to the coast of Mexico. Strange
+vicissitude of events! the empire of Montezuma was shaken by a handful
+of men who, from the western extremity of the island of Cuba, landed
+on the coast of Yucatan; and in our days, three centuries later,
+Yucatan, now a part of the new confederation of the free states of
+Mexico, has nearly menaced with conquest the western coast of Cuba.
+
+On the morning of the 11th March we visited Cayo Flamenco. I found the
+latitude 21 degrees 59 minutes 39 seconds. The centre of this island
+is depressed and only fourteen inches above the surface of the sea.
+The water here is brackish while in other cayos it is quite fresh. The
+mariners of Cuba attribute this freshness of the water to the action
+of the sands in filtering sea-water, the same cause which is assigned
+for the freshness of the lagunes of Venice. But this supposition is
+not justified by any chemical analogy. The cayos are composed of
+rocks, and not of sands, and their smallness renders it extremely
+improbable that the pluvial waters should unite in a permanent lake.
+Perhaps the fresh water of this chain of rocks comes from the
+neighbouring coast, from the mountains of Cuba, by the effect of
+hydrostatic pressure. This would prove a prolongation of the strata of
+Jura limestone below the sea and a superposition of coral rock on that
+limestone.* (* Eruptions of fresh water in the sea, near Baiae,
+Syracuse and Aradus (in Phenicia) were known to the ancients. Strabo
+lib. 16 page 754. The coral islands that surround Radak, especially
+the low island of Otdia, furnish also fresh water. Chamisso in
+Kotzebue's Entdekkungs-Reise volume 3 page 108.)
+
+It is too general a prejudice to consider every source of fresh or
+salt water to be merely a local phenomenon: currents of water
+circulate in the interior of lands between strata of rocks of a
+particular density or nature, at immense distances, like the floods
+that furrow the surface of the globe. The learned engineer, Don
+Francisco Le Maur, informed me that in the bay of Xagua, half a degree
+east of the Jardinillos, there issue in the middle of the sea, springs
+of fresh water, two leagues and a half from the coast. These springs
+gush up with such force that they cause an agitation of the water
+often dangerous for small canoes. Vessels that are not going to Xagua
+sometimes take in water from these ocean springs and the water is
+fresher and colder in proportion to the depth whence it is drawn. The
+manatees, guided by instinct, have discovered this region of fresh
+waters; and the fishermen who like the flesh of these herbivorous
+animals,* find them in abundance in the open sea. (* Possibly they
+subsist upon sea-weed in the ocean, as we saw them feed, on the banks
+of the Apure and the Orinoco, on several species of Panicum and
+Oplismenus (camalote?). It appears common enough, on the coast of
+Tabasco and Honduras, at the mouths of rivers, to find the manatees
+swimming in the sea, as crocodiles do sometimes. Dampier distinguishes
+between the fresh-water and the salt-water manatee. (Voyages and
+Descr. volume 2) Among the Cayos de las doce leguas, east of Xagua,
+some islands bear the name of Meganos del Manati.)
+
+Half a mile east of Cayo Flamenco we passed close to two rocks on
+which the waves break furiously. They are the Piedras de Diego Perez
+(latitude 21 degrees 58 minutes 10 seconds.) The temperature of the
+sea at its surface lowers at this point to 22.6 degrees centigrade,
+the depth of the water being only about one fathom. In the evening we
+went on shore at Cayo de Piedras; two rocks connected together by
+breakers and lying in the direction of north-north-west to
+south-south-east. On these rocks which form the eastern extremity of
+the Jardinillos many vessels are lost, and they are almost destitute
+of shrubs because shipwrecked crews cut them to make fire-signals. The
+Cayo de Piedras is extremely precipitous on the side near the sea; and
+towards the middle there is a small basin of fresh water. We found a
+block of madrepore in the rock, measuring upwards of three cubic feet.
+Doubtless this limestone formation, which at a distance resembles Jura
+limestone, is a fragmentary rock. It would be well if this chain of
+cayos which surrounds the island of Cuba were examined by geologists
+with the view of determining what may be attributed to the animals
+which still work at the bottom of the sea, and what belongs to the
+real tertiary formations, the age of which may be traced back to the
+date of the coarse limestone abounding in remains of lithophite coral.
+In general, that which rises above the waters is only breccia, or
+aggregate of madreporic fragments cemented by carbonate of lime,
+broken shells, and sand. It is important to examine, in each of the
+cayos, on what this breccia reposes; whether it covers edifices of
+mollusca still living, or those secondary and tertiary rocks, which
+judging from the remains of coral they contain, seem to be the product
+of our days. The gypsum of the cayos opposite San Juan de los
+Remedios, on the northern coast of the island of Cuba, merits great
+attention. Its age is doubtless more remote than historic times, and
+no geologist will believe that it is the work of the mollusca of our
+seas.
+
+From the Cayo de Piedras we could faintly discern in the direction of
+east-north-east the lofty mountains that rise beyond the bay of Xagua.
+During the night we again lay at anchor; and next day (12th March),
+having passed between the northern cape of the Cayo de Piedras and the
+island of Cuba, we entered a sea free from breakers. Its blue colour
+(a dark indigo tint) and the heightening of the temperature proved how
+much the depth of the water had augmented. We tried, under favour of
+the variable winds on sea and shore, to steer eastward as far as the
+port of La Trinidad so that we might be less opposed by the north-east
+winds which then prevail in the open sea, in making the passage to
+Carthagena, of which the meridian falls between Santiago de Cuba and
+the bay of Guantanamo. Having passed the marshy coast of Camareos,* (*
+Here the celebrated philanthropist Bartolomeo de las Casas obtained in
+1514 from his friend Velasquez, the governor, a good repartimiente de
+Indios (grant of land so called). But this he renounced in the same
+year, from scruples of conscience, during a short stay at Jamaica.) we
+arrived (latitude 21 degrees 50 minutes) in the meridian of the
+entrance of the Bahia de Xagua. The longitude the chronometer gave me
+at this point was almost identical with that since published (in 1821)
+in the map of the Deposito hidrografico of Madrid.
+
+The port of Xagua is one of the finest but least frequented of the
+island. "There cannot be another such in the world," is the remark of
+the Coronista major (Antonio de Herrera). The surveys and plans of
+defence made by M. Le Maur, at the time of the commission of Count
+Jaruco, prove that the anchorage of Xagua merits the celebrity it
+acquired even in the first years of the conquest. The town consists
+merely of a small group of houses and a fort (castillito.) On the east
+of Xagua, the mountains (Cerros de San Juan) near the coast, assume an
+aspect more and more majestic; not from their height, which does not
+seem to exceed three hundred toises, but from their steepness and
+general form. The coast, I was told, is so steep that a frigate may
+approach the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo. When the temperature of the
+air diminished at night to 23 degrees and the wind blew from the land
+it brought that delicious odour of flowers and honey which
+characterizes the shores of the island of Cuba.* (* Cuban wax, which
+is a very important object of trade, is produced by the bees of Europe
+(the species Apis, Latr.). Columbus says expressly that in his time
+the inhabitants of Cuba did not collect wax. The great loaf of that
+substance which he found in the island in his first voyage, and
+presented to King Ferdinand in the celebrated audience of Barcelona,
+was afterwards ascertained to have been brought thither by Mexican
+barques from Yucatan. It is curious that the wax of melipones was the
+first production of Mexico that fell into the hands of the Spaniards,
+in the month of November, 1492.) We sailed along the coast keeping two
+or three miles distant from land. On the 13th March a little before
+sunset we were opposite the mouth of the Rio San Juan, so much dreaded
+by navigators on account of the innumerable quantity of mosquitos and
+zancudos which fill the atmosphere. It is like the opening of a
+ravine, in which vessels of heavy burden might enter, but that a shoal
+(placer) obstructs the passage. Some horary angles gave me the
+longitude 82 degrees 40 minutes 50 seconds for this port which is
+frequented by the smugglers of Jamaica and the corsairs of Providence
+Island. The mountains that command the port scarcely rise to 230
+toises. I passed a great part of the night on deck. The coast was
+dreary and desolate. Not a light announced a fisherman's hut. There is
+no village between Batabano and Trinidad, a distance of fifty leagues;
+scarcely are there more than two or three corrales or farm yards,
+containing hogs or cows. Yet, in the time of Columbus, this territory
+was inhabited along the shore. When the ground is dug to make wells,
+or when torrents furrow the surface of the earth in floods, stone
+hatchets and copper utensils* are often discovered; these are remains
+of the ancient inhabitants of America. (* Doubtless the copper of
+Cuba. The abundance of this metal in its native state would naturally
+induce the Indians of Cuba and Hayti to melt it. Columbus says that
+there were masses of native copper at Hayti, of the weight of six
+arrobas; and that the boats of Yucatan, which he met with on the
+eastern coast of Cuba, carried, among other Mexican merchandize,
+crucibles to melt copper.)
+
+At sunrise I requested the captain to heave the lead. There was no
+bottom to be found at sixty fathoms; and the ocean was warmer at its
+surface than anywhere else; it was at 26.8 degrees; the temperature
+exceeded 4.2 degrees that which we had found near the breakers of
+Diego Perez. At the distance of half a mile from the coast, the sea
+water was not more than 2.5 degrees; we had no opportunity of sounding
+but the depth of the water had no doubt diminished. On the 14th of
+March we entered the Rio Guaurabo, one of the two ports of Trinidad de
+Cuba, to put on shore the practico, or pilot of Batabano, who had
+steered us across the flats of the Jardinillos, though not without
+causing us to run aground several times. We also hoped to find a
+packet-boat (correo maritimo) in this port, which would take us to
+Carthagena. I landed towards the evening, and placed Borda's azimuth
+compass and the artificial horizon on the shore for the purpose of
+observing the passage of some stars by the meridian; but we had
+scarcely begun our preparations when a party of small traders of the
+class called pulperos, who had dined on board a foreign ship recently
+arrived, invited us to accompany them to the town. These good people
+requested us mount two by two on the same horse; and, as the heat was
+excessive, we accepted their offer. The distance from the mouth of the
+Rio Guaurabo to Trinidad is nearly four miles in a north-west
+direction. The road runs across a plain which seems as if it had been
+levelled by a long sojourn of the waters. It is covered with
+vegetation, to which the miraguama, a palm-tree with silvered leaves
+(which we saw here for the first time), gives a peculiar character.*
+(* Corypha miraguama. Probably the same species which struck Messrs.
+John and William Fraser (father and son) in the vicinity of Matanzas.
+Those two botanists, who introduced a great number of valuable plants
+to the gardens of Europe, were shipwrecked on their voyage to the
+Havannah from the United States, and saved themselves with difficulty
+on the cayos at the entrance of the Old Channel, a few weeks before my
+departure for Carthagena.) This fertile soil, although of tierra
+colorada, requires only to be tilled and it would yield fruitful
+harvests. A very picturesque view opens westward on the Lomas of San
+Juan, a chain of calcareous mountains from 1800 to 2000 toises high
+and very steep towards the south. Their bare and barren summits form
+sometimes round blocks; and here and there rise up in points like
+horns,* a little inclined. (* Wherever the rock is visible I perceived
+compact limestone, whitish-grey, partly porous and partly with a
+smooth fracture, as in the Jura formation.) Notwithstanding the great
+lowering of the temperature during the season of the Nortes or north
+winds, snow never falls; and only a hoar-frost (escarcha) is seen on
+these mountains, as on those of Santiago. This absence of snow is
+difficult to be explained. In emerging from the forest we perceived a
+curtain of hills of which the southern slope is covered with houses;
+this is the town of Trinidad, founded in 1514, by the governor Diego
+Velasquez, on account of the rich mines of gold which were said to
+have been discovered in the little valley of Rio Arimao.* (* This
+river flows towards the east into the Bahia de Xagua.) The streets of
+Trinidad have all a rapid descent: there, as in most parts of Spanish
+America, it is complained that the Couquistadores chose very
+injudiciously the sites for new towns.* (* It is questionable whether
+the town founded by Velasquez was not situated in the plain and nearer
+the ports of Casilda and Guaurabo. It has been suggested that the fear
+of the French, Portuguese and English freebooters led to the
+selection, even in inland places, of sites on the declivity of
+mountains, whence, as from a watch-tower, the approach of the enemy
+could be discerned; but it seems to me that these fears could have had
+no existence prior to the government of Hernando de Soto. The Havannah
+was sacked for the first time by French corsairs in 1539.) At the
+northern extremity is the church of Nuestra Senora de la Popa, a
+celebrated place of pilgrimage. This point I found to be 700 feet
+above the level of the sea; it commands a magnificent view of the
+ocean, the two ports (Puerto Casilda and Boca Guaurabo), a forest of
+palm-trees and the group of the lofty mountains of San Juan. We were
+received at the town of Trinidad with the kindest hospitality by Senor
+Munoz, the Superintendent of the Real Hacienda. I made observations
+during a great part of the night and found the latitude near the
+cathedral by the Spica Virginis, alpha of the Centaur, and beta of the
+Southern Cross, under circumstances not equally favourable, to be 21
+degrees 48 minutes 20 seconds. My chronometric longitude was 82
+degrees 21 minutes 7 seconds. I was informed at my second visit to the
+Havannah, in returning from Mexico, that this longitude was nearly
+identical with that obtained by the captain of a frigate, Don Jose del
+Rio, who had long resided on that spot; but that he marked the
+latitude of the town at 21 degrees 42 minutes 40 seconds.
+
+The Lieutenant-Governor (Teniente Governadore) of Trinidad, whose
+jurisdiction then extended to Villa Clara, Principe and Santo
+Espiritu, was nephew to the celebrated astronomer Don Antonio Ulloa.
+He gave us a grand entertainment, at which we met some French
+emigrants from San Domingo who had brought their talents and industry
+to Spanish America. The exportation of the sugar of Trinidad, by the
+registers of the custom-house, did not then exceed 4000 chests.
+
+The advantage of having two ports is often discussed at Trinidad. The
+distance of the town from Puerto de Casilda and Puerto Guaurabo is
+nearly equal; yet the expense of transport is greatest in the former
+port. The Boca del Rio Guaurabo, defended by a new battery, furnishes
+safe anchorage, although less sheltered than that of Puerto Casilda.
+Vessels that draw little water or are lightened to pass the bar, can
+go up the river and approach the town within a mile. The packet-boats
+(correos) that touch at Trinidad de Cuba prefer, in general, the Rio
+Guaurabo, where they find safe anchorage without needing a pilot. The
+Puerto Casilda is more inclosed and goes further back inland but
+cannot be entered without a pilot, on account of the breakers
+(arrecifes) and the Mulas and Mulattas. The great mole, constructed
+with wood, and very useful to commerce, was damaged in discharging
+pieces of artillery. It is entirely destroyed, and it was undecided
+whether it would be best to reconstruct it with masonry, according to
+the project of Don Luis de Bassecourt, or to open the bar of Guaurabo
+by dredging it. The great disadvantage of Puerto de Casilda is the
+want of fresh water, which vessels have to procure at the distance of
+a league.
+
+We passed a very agreeable evening in the house of one of the richest
+inhabitants, Don Antonio Padron, where we found assembled at a
+tertulia all the good company of Trinidad. We were again struck with
+the gaiety and vivacity that distinguish the women of Cuba. These are
+happy gifts of nature to which the refinements of European
+civilization might lend additional charms but which, nevertheless,
+please in their primitive simplicity. We quitted Trinidad on the night
+of the 15th March. The municipality caused us to be conducted to the
+mouth of the Rio Guaurabo in a fine carriage lined with old crimson
+damask; and, to add to our confusion, an ecclesiastic, the poet of the
+place, habited in a suit of velvet notwithstanding the heat of the
+climate, celebrated, in a sonnet, our voyage to the Orinoco.
+
+On the road leading to the port we were forcibly struck by a spectacle
+which our stay of two years in the hottest part of the tropics might
+have rendered familiar to us; but previously I had nowhere seen such
+an innumerable quantity of phosphorescent insects.* (* Cocuyo, Elater
+noctilucus.) The grass that overspread the ground, the branches and
+foliage of the trees, all shone with that reddish and moveable light
+which varies in its intensity at the will of the animal by which it is
+produced. It seemed as though the starry firmament reposed on the
+savannah. In the hut of the poorest inhabitants of the country,
+fifteen cocuyos, placed in a calabash pierced with holes, afford
+sufficient light to search for anything during the night. To shake the
+calabash forcibly is all that is necessary to excite the animal to
+increase the intensity of the luminous discs situated on each side of
+its body. The people of the country remark, with a simple truth of
+expression, that calabashes filled with cocuyos are lanterns always
+ready lighted. They are, in fact, only extinguished by the sickness or
+death of the insects, which are easily fed with a little sugar-cane. A
+young woman at Trinidad de Cuba told us that during a long and
+difficult passage from the main land, she always made use of the
+phosphorescence of the cocuyos, when she gave suck to her child at
+night; the captain of the ship would allow no other light on board,
+from the fear of corsairs.
+
+As the breeze freshened in the direction of north-east we sought to
+avoid the group of the Caymans but the current drove us towards those
+islands. Sailing to south 1/4 south-east, we gradually lost sight of
+the palm-covered shore, the hills rising above the town of Trinidad
+and the lofty mountains of the island of Cuba. There is something
+solemn in the aspect of land from which the voyager is departing and
+which he sees sinking by degrees below the horizon of the sea. The
+interest of this impression was heightened at the period to which I
+here advert; when Saint Domingo was the centre of great political
+agitations, and threatened to involve the other islands in one of
+those sanguinary struggles which reveal to man the ferocity of his
+nature. These threatened dangers were happily averted; the storm was
+appeased on the spot which gave it birth; and a free black population,
+far from troubling the peace of the neighbouring islands, has made
+some steps in the progress of civilization and has promoted the
+establishment of good institutions. Porto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, with
+370,000 whites and 885,000 men of colour, surround Hayti, where a
+population of 900,000 negros and mulattos have been emancipated by
+their own efforts. The negros, more inclined to cultivate alimentary
+plants than colonial productions, augment with a rapidity only
+surpassed by the increase of the population of the United States.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.30.
+
+PASSAGE FROM TRINIDAD DE CUBA TO RIO SINU.
+CARTHAGENA.
+AIR VOLCANOES OF TURBACO.
+CANAL OF MAHATES.
+
+On the morning of the 17th of March, we came within sight of the most
+eastern island of the group of the Lesser Caymans. Comparing the
+reckoning with the chronometric longitude, I ascertained that the
+currents had borne us in seventeen hours twenty miles westward. The
+island is called by the English pilots Cayman-brack, and by the
+Spanish pilots, Cayman chico oriental. It forms a rocky wall, bare and
+steep towards the south and south-east. The north and north-west part
+is low, sandy, and scantily covered with vegetation. The rock is
+broken into narrow horizontal ledges. From its whiteness and its
+proximity to the island of Cuba, I supposed it to be of Jura
+limestone. We approached the eastern extremity of Cayman-brack within
+the distance of 400 toises. The neighbouring coast is not entirely
+free from danger and breakers; yet the temperature of the sea had not
+sensibly diminished at its surface. The chronometer of Louis Berthoud
+gave me 82 degrees 7 minutes 37 seconds for the longitude of the
+eastern cape of Cayman-brack. The latitude reduced by the reckoning on
+the rhumbs of wind at the meridian observation, appeared to me to be
+19 degrees 40 minutes 50 seconds.
+
+As long as we were within sight of the rock of Cayman-brack
+sea-turtles of extraordinary dimensions swam round our vessel. The
+abundance of these animals led Columbus to give the whole group of the
+Caymans the name of Penascales de las Tortugas (rocks of the turtles.)
+Our sailors would have thrown themselves into the water to catch some
+of these animals; but the numerous sharks that accompany them rendered
+the attempt too perilous. The sharks fixed their jaws on great iron
+hooks which were flung to them; these hooks were very sharp and (for
+want of anzuelos encandenados* (* Fish-hooks with chains.)) they were
+tied to cords: the sharks were in this manner drawn up half the length
+of their bodies; and we were surprised to see that those which had
+their mouths wounded and bleeding continued to seize the bait over and
+over again during several hours.* (* Vidimus quoque squales,
+quotiescunque, hamo icti, dimidia parte corporis e fluctibus
+extrahebantur, cito alvo stercus emittere haud absimile excrementis
+caninis. Commovebat intestina (ut arbitramur) subitus pavor. Although
+the form and number of teeth change with age, and the teeth appear
+successively in the shark genus, I doubt whether Don Antonio Ulloa be
+correct in stating that the young sharks have two, and the old ones
+four rows of grinders. These, like many other sea-fish, are easily
+accustomed to live in fresh water, or in water slightly briny. It is
+observed that sharks (tiburones) abound of late in the Laguna of
+Maracaybo, whither they have been attracted by the dead bodies thrown
+into the water after the frequent battles between the Spanish
+royalists and the Columbian republicans.) At the sight of these
+voracious fish the sailors in a Spanish vessel always recollect the
+local fable of the coast of Venezuela, which describes the benediction
+of a bishop as having softened the habits of the sharks, which are
+everywhere else the dread of mariners. Do these wild sharks of the
+port of La Guayra specifically differ from those which are so
+formidable in the port of the Havannah? And do the former belong to
+the group of Emissoles with small sharp teeth, which Cuvier
+distinguishes from the Melandres, by the name of Musteli?
+
+The wind freshened more and more from the south-east, as we advanced
+in the direction of Cape Negril and the western extremity of the great
+bank of La Vibora. We were often forced to diverge from our course;
+and, on account of the extreme smallness of our vessel, we were almost
+constantly under water. On the 18th of March at noon we found
+ourselves in latitude 18 degrees 17 minutes 40 seconds, and in 81
+degrees 50 minutes longitude. The horizon, to the height of 50
+degrees, was covered with those reddish vapours so common within the
+tropics, and which never seem to affect the hygrometer at the surface
+of the globe. We passed fifty miles west of Cape Negril on the south,
+nearly at the point where several charts indicate an insulated flat of
+which the position is similar to that of Sancho Pardo, opposite to
+Cape San Antonio de Cuba. We saw no change in the bottom. It appears
+that the rocky shoal at a depth of four fathoms, near Cape Negril, has
+no more existence than the rock (cascabel) itself, long believed to
+mark the western extremity of La Vibora (Pedro Bank, Portland Rock or
+la Sola), marking the eastern extremity. On the 19th of March, at four
+in the afternoon, the muddy colour of the sea denoted that we had
+reached that part of the bank of La Vibora where we no longer find
+fifteen, and indeed scarcely nine or ten, fathoms of water. Our
+chronometric longitude was 81 degrees 3 minutes; and our latitude
+probably below 17 degrees. I was surprised that, at the noon
+observation, at 17 degrees 7 minutes of latitude, we yet perceived no
+change in the colour of the water. Spanish vessels going from Batabano
+or Trinidad de Cuba to Carthagena, usually pass over the bank of La
+Vibora, on its western side, at between fifteen and sixteen fathoms
+water. The dangers of the breakers begin only beyond the meridian 80
+degrees 45 minutes west longitude. In passing along the bank on its
+southern limit, as pilots often do in proceeding from Cumana or other
+parts of the mainland, to the Great Caymnan or Cape San Antonio, they
+need not ascend along the rocks, above 16 degrees 47 minutes latitude.
+Fortunately the currents run on the whole bank to south-west.
+
+Considering La Vibora not as a submerged land, but as a heaved-up part
+of the surface of the globe, which has not reached the level of the
+sea, we are struck at finding on this great submarine island, as on
+the neighbouring land of Jamaica and Cuba, the loftiest heights
+towards its eastern boundary. In that direction are situated Portland
+Rock, Pedro Keys and South Key, all surrounded by dangerous breakers.
+The depth is six or eight fathoms; but, in advancing to the middle of
+the bank, along the line of the summit, first towards the west and
+then towards the north-west, the depth becomes successively ten,
+twelve, sixteen and nineteen fathoms. When we survey on the map the
+proximity of the high lands of San Domingo, Cuba and Jamaica, in the
+neighbourhood of the Windward Channel, the position of the island of
+Navaza and the bank of Hormigas, between Capes Tiburon and Morant;
+when we trace that chain of successive breakers, from the Vibora, by
+Baxo Nuevo, Serranilla, and Quita Sueno, as far as the Mosquito Sound,
+we cannot but recognize in this system of islands and shoals the
+almost-continued line of a heaved-up ridge running from north-east to
+south-west. This ridge, and the old dyke, which link, by the rock of
+Sancho Pardo, Cape San Antonio to the peninsula of Yucatan, divide the
+great sea of the West Indies into three partial basins, similar to
+those observed in the Mediterranean.
+
+The colour of the troubled waters on the shoal of La Vibora has not a
+milky appearance like the waters in the Jardinillos and on the bank of
+Bahama; but it is of a dirty grey colour. The striking differences of
+tint on the bank of Newfoundland, in the archipelago of the Bahama
+Islands and on La Vibora, the variable quantities of earthy matter
+suspended in the more or less troubled waters of the soundings, may
+all be the effects of the variable absorption of the rays of light,
+contributing to modify to a certain point the temperature of the sea.
+Where the shoals are 8 to 10 degrees colder at their surface than the
+surrounding sea, it cannot be surprising that they should produce a
+local change of climate. A great mass of very cold water, as on the
+bank of Newfoundland, in the current of the Peruvian shore (between
+the port of Callao and Punta Parina* (* I found the surface of the
+Pacific ocean, in the month of October 1802 on the coast of Truxillo,
+15.8 degrees centigrade; in the port of Callao, in November, 15.5;
+between the parallel of Callao and Punta Parina, in December, 19
+degrees; and progressively, when the current advanced towards the
+equator and receded towards the west-north-west, 20.5 and 22.3
+degrees)), or in the African current near Cape Verd, have necessarily
+an influence on the atmosphere that covers the sea, and on the climate
+of the neighbouring land; but it is less easy to conceive that those
+slight changes of temperature (for instance, a centesimal degree on
+the bank of La Vibora) can impart a peculiar character to the
+atmosphere of the shoals. May not these submarine islands act upon the
+formation and accumulation of the vesicular vapours in some other way
+than by cooling the waters of the surface?
+
+Quitting the bank of La Vibora, we passed between the Baxo Nuevo and
+the light-house of Camboy; and on the 22nd March we passed more than
+thirty leagues to westward of El Roncador (The Snorer), a name which
+this shoal has received from the pilots who assert, on the authority
+of ancient traditions, that a sound like snoring is heard from afar.
+If such a sound be really heard, it arises, no doubt, from a
+periodical issuing of air compressed by the waters in a rocky cavern.
+I have observed the same phenomenon on several coasts, for instance,
+on the promontories of Teneriffe, in the limestones of the Havannah,*
+(* Called by the Spanish sailors El Cordonazo de San Francisco.) and
+in the granite of Lower Peru between Truxillo and Lima. A project was
+formed at the Canary Islands for placing a machine at the issue of the
+compressed air and allowing the sea to act as an impelling force.
+While the autumnal equinox is everywhere dreaded in the sea of the
+West Indies (except on the coast of Cumana and Caracas), the spring
+equinox produces no effect on the tranquillity of those tropical
+regions: a phenomenon almost the inverse of that observable in high
+latitudes. Since we had quitted La Vibora the weather had been
+remarkably fine; the colour of the sea was indigo-blue and sometimes
+violet, owing to the quantity of medusae and eggs of fish (purga de
+mar) which covered it. Its surface was gently agitated. The
+thermometer kept up, in the shade, from 26 to 27 degrees; not a cloud
+arose on the horizon although the wind was constantly north, or
+north-north-west. I know not whether to attribute to this wind, which
+cools the higher layers of the atmosphere, and there produces icy
+crystals, the halos which were formed round the moon two nights
+successively. The halos were of small dimensions, 45 degrees diameter.
+I never had an opportunity of seeing and measuring any* of which the
+diameter had attained 90 degrees. (* In Captain Parry's first voyage
+halos were measured round the sun and moon, of which the rays were 22
+1/2 degrees; 22 degrees 52 minutes; 38 degrees; 46 degrees. North-west
+Passage, 1821.) The disappearance of one of those lunar halos was
+followed by the formation of a great black cloud, from which fell some
+drops of rain; but the sky soon resumed its fixed serenity, and we saw
+a long series of falling-stars and bolides which moved in one
+direction and contrary to that of the wind of the lower strata.
+
+On the 23rd March, a comparison of the reckoning with the chronometric
+longitude, indicated the force of a current bearing towards
+west-south-west. Its swiftness, in the parallel of 17 degrees, was
+twenty to twenty-two miles in twenty-four hours. I found the
+temperature of the sea somewhat diminished; in latitude 12 degrees 35
+minutes it was only 25.9 degrees (air 27.0 degrees). During the whole
+day the firmament exhibited a spectacle which was thought remarkable
+even by the sailors and which I had observed on a previous occasion
+(June 13th, 1799). There was a total absence of clouds, even of those
+light vapours called dry; yet the sun coloured, with a fine rosy tint,
+the air and the horizon of the sea. Towards night the sea was covered
+with great bluish clouds; and when they disappeared we saw, at an
+immense height, fleecy clouds in regular spaces, and ranged in
+convergent bands. Their direction was from north-north-west to
+south-south-east, or more exactly, north 20 degrees west, consequently
+contrary to the direction of the magnetic meridian.
+
+On the 24th March we entered the gulf which is bounded on the east by
+the coast of Santa Marta, and on the west by Costa Rica; for the mouth
+of the Magdalena and that of the Rio San Juan de Nicaragua are on the
+same parallel, nearly 11 degrees latitude. The proximity of the
+Pacific Ocean, the configuration of the neighbouring lands, the
+smallness of the isthmus of Panama, the lowering of the soil between
+the gulf of Papagayo and the port of San Juan de Nicaragua, the
+vicinity of the snowy mountains of Santa Marta, and many other
+circumstances too numerous to mention, combine to create a peculiar
+climate in this gulf. The atmosphere is agitated by violent gales
+known in winter by the name of the brizotes de Santa Marta. When the
+wind abates, the currents bear to north-east, and the conflict between
+the slight breezes (from east and north-east) and the current renders
+the sea rough and agitated. In calm weather, the vessels going from
+Carthagena to Rio Sinu, at the mouth of the Atrato and at Portobello,
+are impeded in their course by the currents of the coast. The heavy or
+brizote winds, on the contrary, govern the movement of the waters,
+which they impel in an opposite direction, towards west-south-west. It
+is the latter movement which Major Rennell, in his great hydrographic
+work, calls drift; and he distinguishes it from real currents, which
+are not owing to the local action of the wind, but to differences of
+level in the surface of the ocean; to the rising and accumulation of
+waters in very distant latitudes. The observations which I have
+collected on the force and direction of the winds, on the temperature
+and rapidity of the currents, on the influence of the seasons, or the
+variable declination of the sun, have thrown some light on the
+complicated system of those pelagic floods that furrow the surface of
+the ocean: but it is less easy to conceive the causes of the change in
+the movement of the waters at the same season and with the same wind.
+Why is the Gulf-stream sometimes borne on the coast of Florida,
+sometimes on the border of the shoal of Bahama? Why do the waters
+flow, for the space of whole weeks, from the Havannah to Matanzas, and
+(to cite an example of the corriente por arriba, which is sometimes
+observed in the most eastern part of the main land during the
+prevalence of gentle winds) from La Guayra to Cape Codera and Cumana?
+
+As we advanced, on the 25th of March, towards the coast of Darien, the
+north-east wind increased with violence. We might have imagined
+ourselves transported to another climate. The sea became very rough
+during the night yet the temperature of the water kept up (from
+latitude 10 degrees 30 minutes, to 9 degrees 47 minutes) at 25.8
+degrees. We perceived at sunrise a part of the archipelago* of Saint
+Bernard, which closes the gulf of Morrosquillo on the north. (* It is
+composed of the islands Mucara, Ceycen, Maravilla, Tintipan, Panda,
+Palma, Mangles, and Salamanquilla, which rise little above the sea.
+Several of them have the form of a bastion. There are two passages in
+the middle of this archipelago, from seventeen to twenty fathoms.
+Large vessels can pass between the Isla Panda and Tintipan, and
+between the Isla de Mangles and Palma.) A clear spot between the
+clouds enabled me to take the horary angles. The chronometer, at the
+little island of Mucara, gave longitude 78 degrees 13 minutes 54
+seconds. We passed on the southern extremity of the Placer de San
+Bernardo. The waters were milky, although a sounding of twenty-five
+fathoms did not indicate the bottom; the cooling of the water was not
+felt, doubtless owing to the rapidity of the current. Above the
+archipelago of Saint Bernard and Cape Boqueron we saw in the distance
+the mountains of Tigua. The stormy weather and the difficulty of going
+up against the wind induced the captain of our frail vessel to seek
+shelter in the Rio Sinu, or rather, near the Punta del Zapote,
+situated on the eastern bank of the Ensenada de Cispata, into which
+flows the river Sinu or the Zenu of the early Conquistadores. It
+rained with violence, and I availed myself of that occasion to measure
+the temperature of the rain-water: it was 26.3 degrees, while the
+thermometer in the air kept up, in a place where the bulb was not wet,
+at 24.8 degrees. This result differed much from that we had obtained
+at Cumana, where the rain-water was often a degree colder than the
+air.* (* As, within the tropics, it takes but little time to collect
+some inches of water in a vase having a wide opening, and narrowing
+towards the bottom, I do not think there can be any error in the
+observation, when the heat of the rain-water differs from that of the
+air. If the heat of the rain-water be less than that of the air it may
+be presumed that only a part of the total effect is observed. I often
+found at Mexico at the end of June, the rain at 19.2 or 19.4 degrees,
+when the air was at 17.8 and 18 degrees. In general it appeared to me
+that, within the torrid zone, either at the level of the sea, or on
+table-lands from 1200 to 1500 toises high, there is no rain but that
+during storms, which falls in large drops very distant from each
+other, and is sensibly colder than the air. These drops bring with
+them, no doubt, the low temperature of the high regions. In the rain
+which I found hotter than the air, two causes may act simultaneously.
+Great clouds heat by the absorption of the rays of the sun which
+strike their surface; and the drops of water in falling cause an
+evaporation and produce cold in the air. The temperature of
+rain-water, to which I devoted much attention during my travels, has
+become a more important problem since M. Boisgiraud, Professor of
+Experimental Philosophy at Poitiers, has proved that in Europe rain is
+generally sufficiently cold, relatively to the air, to cause
+precipitation of vapour at the surface of every drop. From this fact
+he traces the cause of the unequal quantity of rain collected at
+different heights. When we recollect that one degree only of cooling
+precipitates more water in the hot climate of the tropics, than by a
+temperature of 10 to 13 degrees, we may cease to be surprised at the
+enormous size of the drops of rain that fall at Cumana, Carthagena and
+Guayaquil.)
+
+Our passage from the island of Cuba to the coast of South America
+terminated at the mouth of the Rio Sinu, and it occupied sixteen days.
+The roadstead near the Punta del Zapote afforded very bad anchorage;
+and in a rough sea, and with a violent wind, we found some difficulty
+in reaching the coast in our canoe. Everything denoted that we had
+entered a wild region rarely visited by strangers. A few scattered
+houses form the village of Zapote: we found a great number of mariners
+assembled under a sort of shed, all men of colour, who had descended
+the Rio Sinu in their barks, to carry maize, bananas, poultry and
+other provisions to the port of Carthagena. These barks, which are
+from fifty to eighty feet long, belong for the most part to the
+planters (haciendados) of Lorica. The value of their largest freight
+amounts to about 2000 piastres. These boats are flat-bottomed, and
+cannot keep at sea when it is very rough. The breezes from the
+north-east had, during ten days, blown with violence on the coast,
+while, in the open sea, as far as 10 degrees latitude, we had only had
+slight gales, and a constantly calm sea. In the aerial, as in the
+pelagic currents, some layers of fluids move with extreme swiftness,
+while others near them remain almost motionless. The zambos of the Rio
+Sinu wearied us with idle questions respecting the purpose of our
+voyage, our books, and the use of our instruments: they regarded us
+with mistrust; and to escape from their importunate curiosity we went
+to herborize in the forest, although it rained. They had endeavoured,
+as usual, to alarm us by stories of boas (traga-venado), vipers and
+the attacks of jaguars; but during a long residence among the Chayma
+Indians of the Orinoco we were habituated to these exaggerations,
+which arise less from the credulity of the natives, than from the
+pleasure they take in tormenting the whites. Quitting the coast of
+Zapote, covered with mangroves,* (* Rhizophora mangle.) we entered a
+forest remarkable for a great variety of palm-trees. We saw the trunks
+of the Corozo del Sinu* pressed against each other, which formed
+heretofore our species Alfonsia, yielding oil in abundance (* In
+Spanish America palm-trees with leaves the most different in kind and
+species are called Corozo: the Corozo del Sinu, with a short, thick,
+glossy trunk, is the Elaeis melanococca of Martius, Palm. page 64 tab.
+33, 55. I cannot believe it to be identical with the Elaeis guineensis
+(Herbal of Congo River page 37) since it vegetates spontaneously in
+the forests of the Rio Sinu. The Corozo of Caripe is slender, small
+and covered with thorns; it approaches the Cocos aculeata of Jacquin.
+The Corozo de los Marinos of the valley of Cauca, one of the tallest
+palm-trees, is the Cocus butyracea of Linnaeus.); the Cocos butyracea,
+called here palma dolce or palma real, and very different from the
+palma real of the island of Cuba; the palma amarga, with fan-leaves
+that serve to cover the roofs of houses, and the latta,* (* Perhaps of
+the species of Aiphanes.) resembling the small piritu palm-tree of the
+Orinoco. This variety of palm-trees was remarked by the first
+Conquistadores.* (* Pedro de Cieca de Leon, a native of Seville, who
+travelled in 1531, at the age of thirteen years, in the countries I
+have described, observes that Las tierras comarcanas del Rio Cenu y
+del Golfo de Uraba estan llena de unos palmares muy grandes y
+espessos, que son unos arboles gruessos, y llevan unas ramas como
+palma de datiles. [The lands adjacent to the Rio Cenu and the Gulf of
+Uraba are full of very tall, spreading palm-trees. They are of vast
+size and are branched like the date-palm.] See La Cronica del Peru
+nuevamenta escrita, Antwerp 1554 pages 21 and 204.) The Alfonsia, or
+rather the species of Elais, which we had nowhere else seen, is only
+six feet high, with a very large trunk; and the fecundity of its
+spathes is such that they contain more than 200,000 flowers. Although
+a great number of those flowers (one tree bearing 600,000 at the same
+time) never come to maturity,* the soil remains covered with a thick
+layer of fruits. (* I have carefully counted how many flowers are
+contained in a square inch on each amentum, from 100 to 120 of which
+are found united in one spathe.) We often made a similar observation
+under the shade of the mauritia palm-tree, the Cocos butyracea, the
+Seje and the Pihiguao of the Atabapo. No other family of arborescent
+plants is so prolific in the development of the organs of flowering.
+The almond of the Corozo del Sinu is peeled in the water. The thick
+layer of oil that swims in the water is purified by boiling, and
+yields the butter of Corozo (manteca de Corozo) which is thicker than
+the oil of the cocoa-tree, and serves to light churches and houses.
+The palm-trees of the section of Cocoinies of Mr. Brown are the
+olive-trees of the tropical regions. As we advanced in the forest, we
+began to find little pathways, looking as though they had been
+recently cleared out by the hatchet. Their windings displayed a great
+number of new plants: Mougeotia mollis, Nelsonia albicans, Melampodium
+paludosum, Jonidium anomalum, Teucrium palustre, Gomphia lucens, and a
+new kind of Composees, the Spiracantha cornifolia. A fine Pancratium
+embalmed the air in the humid spots, and almost made us forget that
+those gloomy and marshy forests are highly dangerous to health.
+
+After an hour's walk we found, in a cleared spot, several inhabitants
+employed in collecting palm-tree wine. The dark tint of the zambos
+formed a strong contrast with the appearance of a little man with
+light hair and a pale complexion who seemed to take no share in the
+labour. I thought at first that he was a sailor who had escaped from
+some North American vessel; but I was soon undeceived. This
+fair-complexioned man was my countryman, born on the coast of the
+Baltic; he had served in the Danish navy and had lived for several
+years in the upper part of the Rio Sinu, near Santa Cruz de Lorica. He
+had come, to use the words of the loungers of the country para ver
+tierras, y pasear, no mas (to see other lands, and to roam about,
+nothing else.) The sight of a man who could speak to him of his
+country seemed to have no attraction for him; and, as he had almost
+forgotten German without being able to express himself clearly in
+Spanish, our conversation was not very animated. During the five years
+of my travels in Spanish America I found only two opportunities of
+speaking my native language. The first Prussian I met with was a
+sailor from Memel who served on board a ship from Halifax, and who
+refused to make himself known till after he had fired some musket-shot
+at our boat. The second, the man we met at the Rio Sinu, was very
+amicably disposed. Without answering my questions he continued
+repeating, with a smile, that the country was hot and humid; that the
+houses in the town of Pomerania were finer than those of Santa Cruz de
+Lorica; and that, if we remained in the forest, we should have the
+tertian fever (calentura) from which he had long suffered. We had some
+difficulty in testifying our gratitude to this good man for his kind
+advice; for according to his somewhat aristocratic principles, a white
+man, were he bare-footed, should never accept money "in the presence
+of those vile coloured people!" (gente parda). Less disdainful than
+our European countryman, we saluted politely the group of men of
+colour who were employed in drawing off into large calabashes, or
+fruits of the Crescentia cujete, the palm-tree wine from the trunks of
+felled trees. We asked them to explain to us this operation, which we
+had already seen practised in the missions of the Cataracts. The vine
+of the country is the palma dolce, the Cocos butyracea, which, near
+Malgar, in the valley of the Magdalena, is called the wine palm-tree,
+and here, on account of its majestic height, the royal palm-tree.
+After having thrown down the trunk, which diminishes but little
+towards the top, they make just below the point whence the leaves
+(fronds) and spathes issue, an excavation in the ligneous part,
+eighteen inches long, eight broad, and six in depth. They work in the
+hollow of the tree, as though they were making a canoe; and three days
+afterwards this cavity is found filled with a yellowish-white juice,
+very limpid, with a sweet and vinous flavour. The fermentation appears
+to commence as soon as the trunk falls, but the vessels preserve their
+vitality; for we saw that the sap flowed even when the summit of the
+palm-tree (that part whence the leaves sprout out) is a foot higher
+than the lower end, near the roots. The sap continues to mount as in
+the arborescent Euphorbia recently cut. During eighteen to twenty
+days, the palm-tree wine is daily collected; the last is less sweet
+but more alcoholic and more highly esteemed. One tree yields as much
+as eighteen bottles of sap, each bottle containing forty-two cubic
+inches. The natives affirm that the flowing is more abundant when the
+petioles of the leaves, which remain fixed to the trunk, are burnt.
+
+The great humidity and thickness of the forest forced us to retrace
+our steps and to gain the shore before sunset. In several places the
+compact limestone rock, probably of tertiary formation, is visible. A
+thick layer of clay and mould rendered observation difficult; but a
+shelf of carburetted and shining slate seemed to me to indicate the
+presence of more ancient formations. It has been affirmed that coal is
+to be found on the banks of the Sinu. We met with Zambos carrying on
+their shoulders the cylinders of palmetto, improperly called the
+cabbage palm, three feet long and five to six feet thick. The stem of
+the palm-tree has been for ages an esteemed article of food in those
+countries. I believe it to be wholesome although historians relate
+that, when Alonso Lopez de Ayala was governor of Uraba, several
+Spaniards died after having eaten immoderately of the palmetto, and at
+the same time drinking a great quantity of water. In comparing the
+herbaceous and nourishing fibres of the young undeveloped leaves of
+the palm-trees with the sago of the Mauritia, of which the Indians
+make bread similar to that of the root of the Jatropha manihot, we
+involuntarily recollect the striking analogy which modern chemistry
+has proved to exist between ligneous matter and the amylaceous fecula.
+We stopped on the shore to collect lichens, opegraphas and a great
+number of mosses (Boletus, Hydnum, Helvela, Thelephora) that were
+attached to the mangroves, and there, to my great surprise,
+vegetating, although moistened by the sea-water.
+
+Before I quit this coast, so seldom visited by travellers and
+described by no modern voyager, I may here offer some information
+which I acquired during my stay at Carthagena. The Rio Sinu in its
+upper course approaches the tributary streams of the Atrato which, to
+the auriferous and platiniferous province of Choco, is of the same
+importance as the Magdalena to Cundinamarca, or the Rio Cauca to the
+provinces of Antioquia and Popayan. The three great rivers here
+mentioned have heretofore been the only commercial routes, I might
+almost add, the only channels of communication for the inhabitants.
+The Rio Atrato receives, at twelve leagues distance from its mouth,
+the Rio Sucio on the east; the Indian village of San Antonio is
+situated on its banks. Proceeding upward beyond the Rio Pabarando, you
+arrive in the valley of Sinu. After several fruitless attempts on the
+part of the Archbishop Gongora to establish colonies in Darien del
+Norte and on the eastern coast of the gulf of Uraba, the Viceroy
+Espeleta recommended the Spanish Government to fix its whole attention
+on the Rio Sinu; to destroy the colony of Cayman; to fix the planters
+in the Spanish village of San Bernardo del Viento in the jurisdiction
+of Lorica; and from that post, which is the most westerly, to push
+forward the peaceful conquests of agriculture and civilization towards
+the banks of the Pabarando, the Rio Sucio and the Atrato.* (* I will
+here state some facts which I obtained from official documents during
+my stay at Carthagena, and which have not yet been published. In the
+sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the name of Darien was given
+vaguely to the whole coast extending from the Rio Damaquiel to the
+Punta de San Blas, on 2 1/4 degrees of longitude. The cruelties
+exercised by Pedrarias Davila rendered almost inaccessible to the
+Spaniards a country which was one of the first they had colonized. The
+Indians (Dariens and Cunas-Cunas) remained masters of the coast, as
+they still are at Poyais, in the land of the Mosquitos. Some Scotchmen
+formed in 1698 the settlements of New Caledonia, New Edinburgh and
+Scotch Port, in the most eastern part of the isthmus, a little west of
+Punta Carreto. They were soon driven away by the Spaniards but, as the
+latter occupied no part of the coast, the Indians continued their
+attacks against Choco's boats, which from time to time descended the
+Rio Atrato, The sanguinary expedition of Don Manuel de Aldarete in
+1729 served only to augment the resentment of the natives. A
+settlement for the cultivation of the cocoa-tree, attempted in the
+territory of Urabia in 1740 by some French planters under the
+protection of the Spanish Government, had no durable success; and the
+court, excited by the reports of the archbishop-viceroy, Gongora,
+ordered, by the cedule of the 15th August, 1783, either the conversion
+and conquest, or the destruction (reduccion o extincion) of the
+Indians of Darien. This order, worthy of another age, was executed by
+Don Antonio de Arebalo: he experienced little resistance and formed,
+in 1785, the four settlements and forts of Cayman on the eastern coast
+of the Gulf of Urabia, Concepcion, Carolina and Mandinga. The Lele, or
+high-priest of Mandinga, took an oath of fidelity to the King of
+Spain; but in 1786 the war with the Darien Indians recommenced and was
+terminated by a treaty concluded July 27th, 1787, between the
+archbishop-viceroy and the cacique Bernardo. The forts and new
+colonies, which figured only on the maps sent to Madrid, augmented the
+debt of the treasury of Santa Fe de Bogota, in 1789, to the sum of
+1,200,000 piastres. The viceroy, Gil Lemos, wiser than his
+predecessor, obtained permission from the Court to abandon Carolina,
+Concepcion and Mandinga. The settlement of Cayman only was preserved,
+on account of the navigation of the Atrato, and it was declared free,
+under the government of the archbishop-viceroy: it was proposed to
+transfer this settlement to a more healthy spot, that of Uraba; but
+lieutenant-general Don Antonio Arebalo, having proved that the expense
+of this removal would amount to the sum of 40,000 piastres, the fort
+of Cayman was also destroyed, by order of the viceroy Espeleta in
+1791, and the planters were compelled to join those of the village of
+San Bernardo.) The number of independent Indians who inhabit the lands
+between Uraba, Rio Atrato, Rio Sucio and Rio Sinu was, according to a
+census made in 1760, at least 1800. They were distributed in three
+small villages, Suraba, Toanequi and Jaraguia. This population was
+computed, at the period when I travelled there, to be 3000. The
+natives, comprehended in the general name of Caymans, live at peace
+with the inhabitants of San Bernardo del Viento (pueblo de Espanoles),
+situated on the western bank of the Rio Sinu, lower than San Nicolas
+de Zispata, and near the mouth of the river. These people have not the
+ferocity of the Darien and Cunas Indians, on the left bank of the
+Atrato; who often attack the boats trading with the town of Quidbo in
+the Choco; they also make incursions on the territory of Uraba, in the
+months of June and November, to collect the fruit of the cacao-trees.
+The cacao of Uraba is of excellent quality; and the Darien Indians
+sometimes come to sell it, with other productions, to the inhabitants
+of Rio Sinu, entering the valley of that river by one of its tributary
+streams, the Jaraguai.
+
+It cannot be doubted that the Gulf of Darien was considered, at the
+beginning of the sixteenth century, as a nook in the country of the
+Caribs. The word Caribana is still preserved in the name of the
+eastern cape of that gulf. We know nothing of the languages of the
+Darien, Cunas and Cayman Indians: and we know not whether Carib or
+Arowak words are found in their idioms; but it is certain,
+notwithstanding the testimony of Anghiera on the identity of the race
+of the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles and the Indians of Uraba, that
+Pedro de Cieca, who lived so long among the latter, never calls them
+Caribs nor cannibals. He describes the race of that tribe as being
+naked with long hair, and going to the neighbouring countries to
+trade; and says the women are cleanly, well dressed and extremely
+engaging (amorosas y galanas). "I have not seen," adds the
+Conquistador, "any women more beautiful* in all the Indian lands I
+have visited: they have one fault, however, that of having too
+frequent intercourse with the devil." (* Cronica del Peru pages 21 and
+22. The Indians of Darien, Uraba, Zenu (Sinu), Tatabe, the valleys of
+Nore and of Guaca, the mountains of Abibe and Antioquia, are accused,
+by the same author, of the most ferocious cannibalism; and perhaps
+that circumstance alone gives rise to the idea that they were of the
+same race as the Caribs of the West Indies. In the celebrated
+Provision Real of the 30th of October, 1503, by which the Spaniards
+are permitted to make slaves of the anthropophagic Indians of the
+archipelago of San Bernardo, opposite the mouth of the Rio Sinu, the
+Isla Fuerte, Isla Bura (Baru) and Carthagena, there is more of a
+question of morals than of race, and the denomination of Caribs is
+altogether avoided. Cieca asserts that the natives of the valley of
+Nore seized the women of neighbouring tribes, in order first to devour
+the children who were born of the union with foreign wives, and then
+the women themselves. Foreseeing that this horrible depravity would
+not be believed, although it had been observed by Columbus in the West
+Indies, he cites the testimony of Juan de Vadillo, who had observed
+the same facts and who was still living in 1554 when the Cronica del
+Peru appeared in Dutch. With respect to the etymology of the word
+cannibal, it seems to me entirely cleared up by the discovery of the
+journal kept by Columbus during his first voyage of discovery, and of
+which Bartholomew de las Casas has left us an abridged copy. Dice mas
+el Almirante que en las islas passadas estaban con gran temor de
+carib: y en algunas los llamaban caniba; pero en la Espanola carib y
+son gente arriscada, pues andan por todas estas islas y comen la gente
+que pueden haber. [And the Admiral moreover says that in the islands
+they passed, great apprehension was entertained on account of the
+caribs. Some call them canibas; but in Spanish they are called caribs.
+They are a very bold people, and they travel about these islands, and
+devour all the persons whom they capture.] Navarete tome 1 page 135.
+In this primitive form of words it is easy to perceive that the
+permutation of the letters r and n, resulting from the imperfection of
+the organs in some nations, might change carib into canib, or caniba.
+Geraldini who, according to the tendency of that age, sought, like
+Cardinal Bembo, to latinize all barbarous denominations, recognizes in
+the Cannibals the manners of dogs (canes) just as St. Louis desired to
+send the Tartars ad suas tartareas sedes unde exierint.)
+
+The Rio Sinu, owing to its position and its fertility, is of the
+highest importance for provisioning Carthagena. In time of war the
+enemy usually stationed their ships between the Morro de Tigua and the
+Boca de Matunilla, to intercept barques laden with provisions. In that
+station they were, however, sometimes exposed to the attack of the
+gun-boats of Carthagena: these gun-boats can pass through the channel
+of Pasacaballos which, near Saint Anne, separates the isle of Baru
+from the continent. Lorica has, since the sixteenth century, been the
+principal town of Rio Sinu; but its population which, in 1778, under
+the government of Don Juan Diaz Pimienta, amounted to 4000 souls, has
+considerably diminished, because nothing has been done to secure the
+town from inundations and the deleterious miasmata they produce.
+
+The gold-washings of the Rio Sinu, heretofore so important above all,
+between its source and the village of San Geronimo, have almost
+entirely ceased, as well as those of Cienega de Tolu, Uraba and all
+the rivers descending from the mountains of Abibe. "The Darien and the
+Zenu," says the bachelor Enciso in his geographical work published at
+the beginning of the sixteenth century, "is a country so rich in gold
+pepites that, in the running waters, that metal can be fished with
+nets." Excited by these narratives, the governor Pedrarias sent his
+lieutenant, Francisco Becerra, in 1515, to the Rio Sinu. This
+expedition was most unfortunate for Becerra and his troop were
+massacred by the natives, of whom the Spaniards, according to the
+custom of the time, had carried away great numbers to be sold as
+slaves in the West Indies. The province of Antioquia now furnishes, in
+its auriferous veins, a vast field for mining speculations; but it
+might be well worth while to relinquish gold-washings for the
+cultivation of colonial productions in the fertile lands of Sinu, the
+Rio Damaquiel, the Uraba and the Darien del Norte; above all, that of
+cacao, which is of a superior quality. The proximity of the port of
+Carthagena would also render the neglected cultivation of cinchona an
+object of great importance to European trade. That precious tree
+vegetates at the source of the Rio Sinu, as in the mountains of Abibe
+and Maria. The real febrifuge cinchona, with a hairy corolla, is
+nowhere else found so near the coast, if we except the Sierra Nevada
+of Santa Marta.
+
+The Rio Sinu and the Gulf of Darien were not visited by Columbus. The
+most eastern point at which that great man touched land, on the 26th
+November, 1503, is the Puerto do Retreto, now called Punta de
+Escribanos, near the Punta of San Blas, in the isthmus of Panama. Two
+years previously, Rodrigo de Bastidas and Alanso do Ojeda, accompanied
+by Amerigo Vespucci, had discovered the whole coast of the main land,
+from the Gulf of Maracaybo as far as the Puerto de Retreto. Having
+often had occasion in the preceding volumes to speak of New Andalusia,
+I may here mention that I found that denomination, for the first time,
+in the convention made by Alonso de Ojeda with the Conquistador Diego
+de Sicuessa, a powerful man, say the historians of his time, because
+he was a flattering courtier and a wit. In 1508 all the country from
+the Cabo de la Vela to the Gulf of Uraba, where the Castillo del Oro
+begins, was called New Andalusia, a name since restricted to the
+province of Cumana.
+
+A fortunate chance led me to see, during the course of my travels, the
+two extremities of the main land, the mountainous and verdant coast of
+Paria, which Columbus supposes to have been the cradle of the human
+race, and the low and humid coast extending from the mouth of the Sinu
+towards the Gulf of Darien. The comparison of these scenes, which have
+again relapsed into a savage state, confirms what I have elsewhere
+advanced relative to the strange and sometimes retrograde nature of
+civilization in America. On one side, the coast of Paria, the islands
+of Cubagua and Marguerita; on the other, the Gulf of Uraba and Darien,
+received the first Spanish colonists. Gold and pearls, which were
+there found in abundance, because from time immemorial they had been
+accumulated in the hands of the natives, gave those countries a
+popular celebrity from the beginning of the sixteenth century. At
+Seville, Toledo, Pisa, Genoa and Antwerp those countries were viewed
+like the realms of Ormuz and of Ind. The pontiffs of Rome mentioned
+them in their bulls; and Bembo has celebrated them in those historical
+pages which add lustre to the glory of Venice.
+
+At the close of the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, Europe saw, in those parts of the New World discovered by
+Columbus, Ojeda, Vespucci and Rodrigo de Bastidas, only the advanced
+capes of the vast territories of India and eastern Asia. The immense
+wealth of those territories in gold, diamonds, pearls and spices had
+been vaunted in the narratives of Benjamin de Tudela, Rubruquis, Marco
+Polo and Mandeville. Columbus, whose imagination was excited by these
+narrations, caused a deposition to be made before a notary, on the
+12th of June, 1494, in which sixty of his companions, pilots, sailors
+and passengers certified upon oath that the southern coast of Cuba was
+a part of the continent of India. The description of the treasures of
+Cathay and Cipango, of the celestial town of Quinsay and the province
+of Mango, which had fired the admiral's ambition in early life,
+pursued him like phantoms in his declining days. In his fourth and
+last voyage, on approaching the coast of Cariay (Poyais or Mosquito
+Coast), Veragua and the Isthmus, he believed himself to be near the
+mouth of the Ganges.* (* Tambien dicen que la mar baxa a Ciguare, y de
+alli a diez jornadas es el Rio de Guangues: para que estas tierras
+estan con Veragua como Tortosa con Fuenterabia o Pisa con Venecia."
+[Also it is said that the sea lowers at Ciguara, and from thence it is
+a ten days' journey to the river Ganges; for these lands are, with
+reference to Veragua, like Tortosa with respect to Fuenterabia, or
+Pisa, with respect to Venice.] These words are taken from the Lettera
+Rarissima of Columbus, of which the original Spanish was lately found,
+and published by the learned M. Navarrete, in his Coleccion de Viages
+volume 1 page 299.) These geographical illusions, this mysterious
+veil, which enveloped the first discoveries, contributed to magnify
+every object, and to fix the attention of Europe on regions, the very
+names of which are, to us, scarcely known. New Cadiz, the principal
+seat of the pearl-fishery, was on an island which has again become
+uninhabited. The extremity of the rocky coast of Paria is also a
+desert. Several towns were founded at the mouth of the Rio Atrato, by
+the names of Antigua del Darien, Uraba or San Sebastian de Buenavista.
+In these spots, so celebrated at the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, the historians of the conquest tell us that the flower of the
+Castilian heroes were found assembled: thence Balboa set out to
+discover the South Sea; Pizarro marched from thence to conquer and
+ravage Peru; and Pedro de Cieca constantly followed the chain of the
+Andes, by Autioquia, Popayan and Cuzco, as far as La Plata, after
+having gone 900 leagues by land. These towns of Darien are destroyed;
+some ruins scattered on the hills of Uraba, the fruit-trees of Europe
+mixed with native trees, are all that mark to the traveller the spots
+on which those towns once stood. In almost all Spanish America the
+first lands peopled by the Conquistadores, have retrograted into
+barbarism.* (* In carefully collating the testimonies of the
+historians of the Conquest, some contradictions are observed in the
+periods assigned to the foundation of the towns of Darien. Pedro de
+Cieca, who had been on the spot, affirms that, under the government of
+Alonzo de Ojeda and Nicuessa, the town of Nuestra Senora Santa Maria
+el Antigua del Darien was founded on the western coast of the Gulf or
+Culata de Uraba, in 1509; and that later (despues desto passado) Ojeda
+passed to the eastern coast of the Culata to construct the town of San
+Sebastian de Uraba. The former, called by abbreviation Ciudad del
+Antigua, had soon a population of 2000 Spaniards; while the latter,
+the Ciudad del Uraba, remained uninhabited, because Francisco Pizarro,
+since known as the conqueror of Peru, was forced to abandon it, having
+vainly demanded succour from St. Domingo. The historian Herrera, after
+having said that the foundation of Antigua had preceded by one year
+that of Uraba or San Sebastian, affirms the contrary in the following
+chapter and in the Chronicle itself. It was, according to the
+Chronicle, in 1501 that Ojeda, accompanied by Vespucci, and
+penetrating for the first time the Gulf of Uraba or Darien, resolved
+to construct, with wood and unbaked bricks, a fort at the entrance of
+Culata. It appears, however, that this enterprise was not executed;
+for, in 1508, in the convention made by Ojeda and Nicuessa, they each
+promised to build two fortresses on the limits of New Andalusia and of
+Castillo del Oro. Herrera, in the 7th and 8th books of the first
+Decade, fixes the foundation of San Sebastian de Uraba at the
+beginning of 1510, and mentions it as the most ancient town of the
+continent of America, after that of Ceragua, founded by Columbus in
+1503, on the Rio Belen. He relates how Francisco Pizarro abandoned
+that town, and how the foundation of the Ciudad del Antigua by Entiso,
+towards the end of the year 1510, was the consequence of that event.
+Leo X made Antigua a bishopric in 1514; and this was the first
+episcopal church of the continent. In 1519 Pedrarius Davila persuaded
+the court of Madrid, by false reports, that the site of the new town
+of Panama was more healthful than that of Antigua, the inhabitants
+were compelled to abandon the latter town, and the bishopric was
+transferred to Panama. The Gulf of Uraba was deserted during thirteen
+years, till the founder of the town of Carthagena, Pedro de Heredia,
+after having dug up the graves, or huacas, of the Rio Sinu, to collect
+gold, sent his brother Alonzo, in 1532, to repeople Uraba, and
+reconstruct on that spot a town under the name of San Sebastian de
+Buenavista.) Other countries, discovered later, attract the attention
+of the colonists: such is the natural progress of things in peopling a
+vast continent. It may be hoped that on several points the people will
+return to the places that were first chosen. It is difficult to
+conceive why the mouth of a great river, descending from a country
+rich in gold and platina, should have remained uninhabited. The
+Atrato, heretofore called Rio del Darien, de San Juan or Dabayba, has
+had the same fate as the Orinoco. The Indians who wander around the
+delta of those rivers continue in a savage state.
+
+We weighed anchor in the road of Zapote, on the 27th March, at
+sunrise. The sea was less stormy, and the weather rather warmer,
+although the fury of the wind was undiminished. We saw on the north a
+succession of small cones of extraordinary form, as far as the Morro
+de Tigua; they are known by the name of the Paps (tetas) of Santero,
+Tolu, Rincon and Chichimar. The two latter are nearest the coast. The
+Tetas de Tolu rise in the middle of the savannahs. There, from the
+trunks of the Toluifera balsamum, is collected the precious balsam of
+Tolu, heretofore so celebrated in the pharmacopoeias of Europe, and in
+which is a profitable article of trade at Corozal, Caimito and the
+town of Tocasuan. In the savannahs (altas del Tolu) oxen and mules
+wander half wild. Several of those hills between Cienega de Pesquero
+and the Punta del Comissario are linked two-and-two together, like
+basaltic columns; it is, however, very probable that they are
+calcareous, like the Tetas de Managua, south of the Havannah. In the
+archipelago of San Bernardo we passed between the island of
+Salamanquilla and Cape Boqueron. We had scarcely quitted the gulf of
+Morosquillo when the sea became so rough that the waves frequently
+washed over the deck of our little vessel. It was a fine moonlight
+night. Our captain sought in vain a sheltering-place on the coast to
+the north of the village of Rincon. We cast anchor at four fathoms
+but, having discovered that we were lying over a reef of coral, we
+preferred the open sea.
+
+The coast has a singular configuration beyond the Morro de Tigua, the
+terminatory point of the group of little mountains which rise like
+islands from the plain. We found at first a marshy soil extending over
+a square of eight leagues between the Bocas de Matuna and Matunilla.
+These marshes are connected by the Cienega de la Cruz, with the Dique
+of Mahates and the Rio Magdalena. The island of Baru which, with the
+island of Tierra Bomba, forms the vast port of Carthagena, is,
+properly speaking, but a peninsula fourteen miles long, separated from
+the continent by the narrow channel of Pasacaballos. The archipelago
+of San Bernardo is situated opposite Cape Boqueron. Another
+archipelago, called Rosario, lies off the southern point of the
+peninsula of Baru. These rents in the coast are repeated at the 10 3/4
+and 11 degrees of latitude. The peninsulas near the Ensenada of Galera
+de Zamba and near the port of Savanilla have the same aspect as the
+peninsula Baru. Similar causes have produced similar effects; and the
+geologist must not neglect those analogies, in the configuration of a
+coast which, from Punta Caribana in the mouth of the Atrato, beyond
+the cape of La Vela, along an extent of 120 leagues, has a general
+direction from south-west to north-east.
+
+The wind having dropped during the night we could only advance to the
+island of Arenas where we anchored. I found it was 78 degrees 2
+minutes 10 seconds of longitude. The weather became stormy during the
+night. We again set sail on the morning of the 29th of March, hoping
+to be able to reach Boca Chica that day. The gale blew with extreme
+violence, and we were unable to proceed with our frail bark against
+the wind and the current, when, by a false manoeuvre in setting the
+sails (we had but four sailors), we were during some minutes in
+imminent danger. The captain, who was not a very bold mariner,
+declined to proceed further up the coast and we took refuge, sheltered
+from the wind, in a nook of the island of Baru south of Punta
+Gigantes. It was Palm Sunday and the Zambo, who had accompanied us to
+the Orinoco and did not leave us till we returned to France, reminded
+us that on the same Sunday in the preceding year, we had nearly been
+lost on the north of the mission of Uruana.
+
+There was to be an eclipse of the moon during the night, and the next
+day an occultation of alpha Virginis. The observation of the latter
+phenomenon might have been very important in determining the longitude
+of Carthagena. In vain I urged the captain to allow one of his sailors
+to accompany me by land to the foot of Boca Chica, a distance of five
+miles. He objected on account of the wild state of the country in
+which there is neither habitation nor path. A little incident which
+might have rendered Palm-Sunday more fatal justified the prudence of
+the captain. We went by moonlight to collect plants on the shore; as
+we approached the land, we saw a young negro issue from the thicket.
+He was quite naked, loaded with chains, and armed with a machete. He
+invited us to land on a part of the beach covered with large
+mangroves, as being a spot where the surf did not break, and offered
+to conduct us to the interior of the island of Baru if we would
+promise to give him some clothes. His cunning and wild appearance, the
+often-repeated question whether we were Spaniards, and certain
+unintelligible words which he addressed to some of his companions who
+were concealed amidst the trees, inspired us with some mistrust. These
+blacks were no doubt maroon negroes: slaves escaped from prison. This
+unfortunate class are much to be feared: they have the courage of
+despair, and a desire of vengeance excited by the severity of the
+whites. We were without arms; the negroes appeared to be more numerous
+than we were and, thinking that possibly they invited us to land with
+the desire of taking possession of our canoe, we thought it most
+prudent to return on board. The aspect of a naked man wandering on an
+uninhabited beach, unable to free himself from the chains fastened
+round his neck and the upper part of his arm, was an object calculated
+to excite the most painful impressions. Our sailors wished to return
+to the shore for the purpose of seizing the fugitives, to sell them
+secretly at Carthagena. In countries where slavery exists the mind is
+familiarized with suffering and that instinct of pity which
+characterizes and enobles our nature is blunted.
+
+Whilst we lay at anchor near the island of Baru in the meridian of
+Punta Gigantes I observed the eclipse of the moon of the 29th of
+March, 1801. The total immersion took place at 11 hours 30 minutes
+12.6 seconds mean time. Some groups of vapours, scattered over the
+azure vault of the sky, rendered the observation of the immersion
+uncertain.
+
+During the total eclipse the lunar disc displayed, as almost always
+happens, a reddish tint, without disappearing; the edges, examined
+with a sextant, were strongly undulating, notwithstanding the
+considerable altitude of the orb. It appeared to me that the moon was
+more luminous than I had ever seen it in the temperate zone. The
+vividness of the light, it may be conceived, does not depend solely on
+the state of the atmosphere, which reflects, more or less feebly, the
+solar rays, by inflecting them in the cone of the shade. The light is
+also modified by the variable transparency of that part of the
+atmosphere across which we perceived the moon eclipsed. Within the
+tropics great serenity of the sky and a perfect dissolution of the
+vapours diminish the extinction of the light sent back to us by the
+lunar disc. I was singularly struck during the eclipse by the want of
+uniformity in the distribution of the refracted light by the
+terrestrial atmosphere. In the central region of the disc there was a
+shadow like a round cloud, the movement of which was from east to
+west. The part where the immersion was to take place was consequently
+a few minutes prior to the immersion much more brightly illumined than
+the western edges. Is this phenomenon to be attributed to an
+inequality of our atmosphere; to a partial accumulation of vapour
+which, by absorbing a considerable part of the solar light, inflects
+less on one side the cone of the shadow of the earth? If a similar
+cause, in the perigee of central eclipses, sometimes renders the disc
+invisible, may it not happen also that only a small portion of the
+moon is seen; a disc, irregularly formed, and of which different parts
+were successively enlightened?
+
+On the morning of the 30th of March we doubled Punta Gigantes, and
+made for the Boca Chica, the present entrance of the port of
+Carthagena. From thence the distance is seven or eight miles to the
+anchorage near the town; and although we took a practico to pilot us,
+we repeatedly touched on the sandbanks. On landing I learned, with
+great satisfaction, that the expedition appointed to take the survey
+of the coast under the direction of M. Fidalgo, had not yet put to
+sea. This circumstance not only enabled me to ascertain the
+astronomical position of several towns on the shore which had served
+me as points of departure in fixing chronometrically the longitude of
+the Llanos and the Orinoco, but also served to guide me with respect
+to the future direction of my journey to Peru. The passage from
+Carthagena to Porto Bello and that of the isthmus by the Rio Chagres
+and Cruces, are alike short and easy; but it was to be feared that we
+might stay long at Panama before we found an opportunity of proceeding
+to Guayaquil, and in that case the voyage on the Pacific would be
+extremely lingering, as we should have to sail against contrary winds
+and currents. I relinquished with regret the hope of levelling by the
+barometer the mountains of the isthmus, though it would then have been
+difficult to foresee that at the present time (1827), while
+measurements have been effected on so many other points of Mexico and
+Columbia, we should remain in ignorance of the height of the ridge
+which divides the waters in the isthmus. The persons we consulted all
+agreed that the journey by land along the Cordilleras by Santa Fe de
+Bogota, Popayan, Quito and Caxamarca would be preferable to the
+sea-voyage, and would furnish an immense field for exploration. The
+predilection of Europeans for the tierras frias, that is to say, the
+cold and temperate climate that prevails on the back of the Andes,
+gave further weight to these counsels. The distances were known, but
+we were deceived with respect to the time it would take to traverse
+them on mules' backs. We did not imagine that it would require more
+than eighteen months to go from Carthagena to Lima. Notwithstanding
+this delay, or rather owing to the slowness with which we passed
+through Cundinamarca, the provinces of Popayan and Quito, I did not
+regret having sacrificed the passage of the isthmus to the route of
+Bogota, for every step of the journey was full of interest both
+geographically and botanically. This change of direction gave me
+occasion to trace the map of the Rio Magdalena, to determine
+astronomically the position of eighty points situated in the inland
+country between Carthagena, Popayan, and the upper course of the river
+Amazon and Lima, to discover the error in the longitude of Quito, to
+collect several thousand new plants, and to observe on a vast scale
+the relations between the rocks of syenitic porphyry and trachyte with
+the fire of volcanoes.
+
+The result of those labours of which it is not for me to appreciate
+the importance have long since been published. My map of the Rio
+Magdalena, multiplied by the copies of the year 1802 in America and
+Spain, and comprehending the country between Almaguer and Santa Marta,
+from 1 degree 54 minutes to 11 degrees 15 minutes latitude, appeared
+in 1816. Till that period no traveller had undertaken to describe New
+Grenada; and the public, except in Spain, knew the navigation of the
+Magdalena only by some lines traced by Bouguer. That learned traveller
+had descended the river from Honda; but, being in want of astronomical
+instruments, he had ascertained but four or five latitudes, by means
+of small dials hastily constructed. The narratives of travels in
+America are now singularly multiplied. Political events have led
+numbers of persons to those countries: and travellers have perhaps too
+hastily published their journals on returning to Europe. They have
+described the towns where they resided, and landscape scenery
+remarkable for beauty; they have furnished information respecting the
+inhabitants and the different modes of travelling in barks, on mules
+or on men's backs. These works, several of which are agreeable and
+instructive, have familiarized the nations of the Old World with those
+of Spanish America, from Buenos Ayres and Chili as far as Zacatecas
+and New Mexico. But unfortunately, in many instances, the want of a
+thorough knowledge of the Spanish language and the little care taken
+to acquire the names of places, rivers and tribes, have occasioned
+extraordinary mistakes.
+
+During the six days of our stay at Carthagena our most interesting
+excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter
+commands the town and a very extensive view. The port, or rather the
+bahia, is nearly nine miles and a half long, if we compute the length
+from the town (near the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega
+of Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru,
+south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach the
+opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of the small island
+of Tierra Bomba form, on the north, with a neck of land of the
+continent, and on the south, with a cape of the island of Baru, the
+only entrances to the Bay of Carthagena; the former is called Boca
+Grande, the second Boca Chica. This extraordinary conformation of the
+land has given birth, for the space of a century, to theories entirely
+contradictory respecting the defence of a place which, next to the
+Havannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important of the main land and
+the West Indies. Engineers differed respecting the choice of the
+opening which should be closed; and it was not, as some writers have
+stated, after the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, that the idea
+was first conceived* of filling up the Boca Grande. (* Don Jorge Juan
+in his Secret Notices addressed to the Marques de la Ensenada says: La
+entrada antigua era por un angosto canal que llaman Boca Chica; de
+resultas de esta invasion se acordo deja cioga y impassable la Boca
+Grande, y volver a abrir la antigua fortificandola. [The old entrance
+was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica; but after this invasion
+it was determined to close up the Boca Grande and to open the old
+passage, fortifying it.] Secr. Not. volume 1 page 4.) The English
+forced the small entrance when they made themselves masters of the
+bay; but being unable to take the town of Carthagena, which made a
+gallant resistance, they destroyed the Castillo Grande (called also
+Santa Cruz) and the two forts of San Luis and San Jose which defended
+the Boca Chica.
+
+The apprehension excited by the proximity of the Boca Grande to the
+town determined the court of Madrid, after the English expedition, to
+shut up the entrance along a distance of 2640 varas. From two and a
+half to three fathoms of water were found; and a wall, or rather a
+dyke, in stone, from fifteen to twenty feet high, was raised on piles.
+The slope on the side of the water is unequal, and seldom 45 degrees.
+This immense work was completed under the Viceroy Espeleta in 1795.
+But art could not vanquish nature; the sea is unceasingly though
+gradually silting up the Boca Chica, while it labours unceasingly to
+open and enlarge the Boca Grande. The currents which, during a great
+part of the year, especially when the bendavales blow with violence,
+ascend from south-west to north-east, throw sand into the Boca Chica,
+and even into the bay itself. The passage, which is from seventeen to
+eighteen fathoms deep, becomes more and more narrow,* and if a regular
+cleansing be not established by dredging machines, vessels will not be
+able to enter without risk. (* At the foot of the two forts San Jose
+and San Fernando, constructed for the defence of the Boca Chica, it
+may be seen how much the land has gained upon the sea. Necks of land
+are formed on both sides, and also before the Castillo del Angel
+which, northward, commands the fort of San Fernando.) It is this small
+entrance which should have been closed; its opening is only 250
+toises, and the passage or navigable channel is 110 toises. If it
+should one day be determined to abandon the Boca Chica, and
+re-establish the Boca Grande in the state which nature seems to
+prescribe, new fortifications must be constructed on the
+south-south-west of the town. This fortress has always required great
+pecuniary outlays to keep it up.
+
+The insalubrity of Carthagena varies with the state of the great
+marshes that surround the town on the east and north. The Cienega de
+Tesca is more than fifteen miles long; it communicates with the ocean
+where it approaches the village of Guayeper. When, in years of
+drought, the heaped-up earth prevents the salt water from covering the
+whole plain, the emanations that rise during the heat of the day when
+the thermometer stands between 28 and 32 degrees are very pernicious
+to the health of the inhabitants. A small portion of hilly land
+separates the town of Carthagena and the islet of Manga from the
+Cienega de Tesca. Those hills, some of which are more than 500 feet
+high, command the town. The Castillo de San Lazaro is seen from afar
+rising like a great rocky pyramid; when examined nearer its
+fortifications are not very formidable. Layers of clay and sand,
+belonging to the tertiary formation of nagelfluhe, are covered with
+bricks and furnish a kind of construction which has little stability.
+The Cerro de Santa Maria de la Popa, crowned by a convent and some
+batteries, rises above the fort of San Lazaro and is worthy of more
+solid and extensive works. The image of the Virgin, preserved in the
+church of the convent, has been long revered by mariners. The hill
+itself forms a prolonged ridge from west to east. The calcareous rock,
+with cardites, meandrites and petrified corals, somewhat resembles the
+tertiary limestone of the peninsula of Araya near Cumana. It is split
+and decomposed in the steep parts of the rock, and the preservation of
+the convent on so unsolid a foundation is considered by the people as
+one of the miracles of the patron of the place. Near the Cerro de la
+Popa there appears, on several points, breccia with a limestone cement
+containing angular fragments of Lydian stone. Whether this formation
+of nagelfluhe is superposed on tertiary limestone of coral, and
+whether the fragments of the Lydian stone come from secondary
+limestone analogous to that of Zacatecas and the Moro de Nueva
+Barcelona, are questions which I have not had leisure to investigate.
+The view from the Popa is extensive and varied, and the windings and
+rents of the coast give it a peculiar character. I was assured that
+sometimes from the windows of the convent and even in the open sea,
+before the fort of Boca Chica, the snowy tops of the Sierra Nevada de
+Santa Marta are discernible. The distance of the Horqueta to the Popa
+is seventy-eight nautical miles. This group of colossal mountains is
+most frequently wrapped in thick clouds: and it is most veiled at the
+season when the gales blow with violence. Although only forty-five
+miles distant from the coast, it is of little service as a signal to
+mariners who seek the port of Saint Marta. Hidalgo during the whole
+time of his operations near the shore could take only one observation
+of the Nevados.
+
+A gloomy vegetation of cactus, Jatropha gossypifolia, croton and
+mimosa covers the barren declivity of Cerro de la Popa. In herbalizing
+in those wild spots, our guides showed us a thick bush of Acacia
+cornigera, which had become celebrated by a deplorable event. Of all
+the species of mimosa the acacia is that which is armed with the
+sharpest thorns; they are sometimes two inches long; and being hollow,
+serve for the habitation of ants of an extraordinary size. A woman,
+annoyed by the jealousy and well founded reproaches of her husband,
+conceived a project of the most barbarous vengeance. With the
+assistance of her lover she bound her husband with cords, and threw
+him, at night, into a bush of Mimosa cornigera. The more violently he
+struggled, the more the sharp woody thorns of the tree tore his skin.
+His cries were heard by persons who were passing, and he was found
+after several hours of suffering, covered with blood, and dreadfully
+stung by the ants. This crime is perhaps without example in the
+history of human turpitude: it indicates a violence of passion less
+assignable to the climate than to the barbarism of manners prevailing
+among the lower class of the people.
+
+My most important occupation at Carthagena was the comparison of my
+observations with the astronomical positions fixed by the officers of
+the expedition of Fidalgo. In the year 1783 (under the ministry of M.
+Valdes) Don Josef Espinosa, Don Dionisio Galiano and Don Josef de Lanz
+proposed to the Spanish government a plan for taking a survey of the
+coast of America, in order to extend the atlas of Tofino to the
+western colonies. The plan was approved; but it was not till 1792 that
+an expedition was fitted out at Cadiz, and they were enabled to
+commence their scientific operations at the island of Trinidad.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.31. CUBA AND THE SLAVE TRADE.
+
+I might enumerate among the causes of the lowering of the temperature
+at Cuba during the winter months, the great number of shoals with
+which the island is surrounded, and on which the heat is diminished
+several degrees of centesimal temperature. This diminished heat may be
+assigned to the molecules of water locally cooled, which go to the
+bottom; to the polar currents, which are borne toward the abyss of the
+tropical ocean, or to the mixture of the deep waters with those of the
+surface at the declivities of the banks. But the lowering of the
+temperature is partly compensated by the flood of hot water, the Gulf
+Stream, which runs along the north-west coast, and the swiftness of
+which is often diminished by the north and north-east winds. The chain
+of shoals which encircles the island and which appears on our maps
+like a penumbra, is fortunately broken on several points, and those
+interruptions afford free access to the shore. In the south-east part
+the proximity of the lofty primitive mountains renders the coast more
+precipitous. In that direction are situated the ports of Santiago de
+Cuba, Guantanamo, Baitiqueri and (in turning the Punta Maysi) Baracoa.
+The latter is the place most early peopled by Europeans. The entrance
+to the Old Channel, from Punta de Mulas, west-north-west of Baracoa,
+as far as the new settlement which has taken the name of Puerto de las
+Nuevitas del Principe, is alike free from shoals and breakers.
+Navigators find excellent anchorage a little to the east of Punta de
+Mulas, in the three rocks of Tanamo, Cabonico, and Nipe; and on the
+west of Punta de Mulas in the ports of Sama, Naranjo, del Padre and
+Nuevas Grandes. It is remarkable that near the latter port, almost in
+the same meridian where, on the southern side of the island, are
+situated the shoals of Buena Esperanza and of Las doce Leguas,
+stretching as far as the island of Pinos, we find the commencement of
+the uninterrupted series of the cayos of the Old Channel, extending to
+the length of ninety-four leagues, from Nuevitas to Punta Icacos. The
+Old Channel is narrowest opposite to Cayo Cruz and Cayo Romano; its
+breadth is scarcely more than five or six leagues. On this point, too,
+the Great Bank of Bahama takes its greatest development. The Cayos
+nearest the island of Cuba and those parts of the bank not covered
+with water (Long Island, Eleuthera) are, like Cuba, of a long and
+narrow shape. Were they only twenty or thirty feet higher, an island
+much larger than St. Domingo would appear at the surface of the ocean.
+The chain of breakers and cayos that bound the navigable part of the
+Old Channel towards the south leave between the channel and the coast
+of Cuba small basins without breakers, which communicate with several
+ports having good anchorage, such as Guanaja, Moron and Remedios.
+
+Having passed through the Old Channel, or rather the Channel of San
+Nicolas, between Cruz del Padre and the bank of the Cayos de Sel, the
+lowest of which furnish springs of fresh water, we again find the
+coast, from Punta de Icacos to Cabanas, free from danger. It affords,
+in the interval, the anchorage of Matanzas, Puerto Escondido, the
+Havannah and Mariel. Further on, westward of Bahia Honda, the
+possession of which might well tempt a maritime enemy of Spain, the
+chain of shoals recommences* (* They are here called Bajos de Santa
+Isabel y de los Colorados.) and extends without interruption as far as
+Cape San Antonio. From that cape to Punta de Piedras and Bahia de
+Cortez, the coast is almost precipitous, and does not afford soundings
+at any distance; but between Punta de Piedras and Cabo Cruz almost the
+whole southern part of Cuba is surrounded with shoals of which the
+isle of Pinos is but a portion not covered with water. These shoals
+are distinguished on the west by the name of Gardens (Jardines y
+Jardinillos); and on the east, by the names Cayo Breton, Cayos de las
+doce Leguas, and Bancos de Buena Esperanza. On all this southern line
+the coast is exempt from danger with the exception of that part which
+lies between the strait of Cochinos and the mouth of the Rio Guaurabo.
+These seas are very difficult to navigate. I had the opportunity of
+determining the position of several points in latitude and longitude
+during the passage from Batabano to Trinidad of Cuba and to
+Carthagena. It would seem that the resistance of the currents of the
+highlands of the island of Pines, and the remarkable out-stretching of
+Cabo Cruz, have at once favoured the accumulation of sand, and the
+labours of the coralline polypes which inhabit calm and shallow water.
+Along this extent of the southern coast a length of 145 leagues, only
+one-seventh affords entirely free access; namely that part between
+Cayo de Piedras and Cayo Blanco, a little to the east of Puerto
+Casilda. There are found anchorages often frequented by small barks;
+for example, the Surgidero del Batabano, Bahia de Xagua, and Puerto
+Casilda, or Trinidad de Cuba. Beyond this latter port, towards the
+mouth of the Rio Cauto and Cabo Cruz (behind the Cayos de doce
+Leguas), the coast, covered with lagoons, is not very accessible, and
+is almost entirely desert.
+
+At the island of Cuba, as heretofore in all the Spanish possessions in
+America, we must distinguish between the ecclesiastic,
+politico-military, and financial divisions. We will not add those of
+the judicial hierarchy which have created so much confusion amongst
+modern geographers, the island having but one Audiencia, residing
+since the year 1797 at Puerto Principe, whose jurisdiction extends
+from Baracoa to Cape San Antonio. The division into two bishoprics
+dates from 1788 when Pope Pius VI nominated the first bishop of the
+Havannah. The island of Cuba was formerly, with Louisiana and Florida,
+under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of San Domingo, and from the
+period of its discovery it had only one bishopric, founded in 1518, in
+the most western part at Baracoa by Pope Leo X. The translation of
+this bishopric to Santiago de Cuba, took place four years later; but
+the first bishop, Fray Juan de Ubite, arrived only in 1528. In the
+beginning of the nineteenth century (1804), Santiago de Cuba was made
+an archbishopric. The ecclesiastical limit between the diocese of the
+Havannah and Cuba passes in the meridian of Cayo Romano, nearly in the
+80 3/4 degree of longitude west of Paris, between the Villa de Santo
+Espiritu and the city of Puerto Principe. The island, with relation to
+its political and military government, is divided into two goviernos,
+depending on the same capitan-general. The govierno of the Havannah
+comprehends, besides the capital, the district of the Quatro Villas
+(Trinidad, Santo Espiritu, Villa Clara and San Juan de los Remedios)
+and the district of Puerto Principe. The Capitan-general y Gobernador
+of the Havannah has the privilege of appointing a lieutenant in Puerto
+Principe (Teniente Gobernador), as also at Trinidad and Nueva
+Filipina. The territorial jurisdiction of the capitan-general extends,
+as the jurisdiction of a corregidor, to eight pueblos de Ayuntamiento
+(the ciudades of Matanzas, Jaruco, San Felipe y Santiago, Santa Maria
+del Rosario; the villas of Guanabacoa, Santiago de las Vegas, Guines,
+and San Antonio de los Banos). The govierno of Cuba comprehends
+Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa, Holguin and Bayamo. The present limits of
+the goviernos are not the same as those of the bishoprics. The
+district of Puerto Principe, with its seven parishes, for instance,
+belonged till 1814 to the govierno of the Havannah and the
+archbishopric of Cuba. In the enumerations of 1817 and 1820 we find
+Puerto Principe joined with Baracoa and Bayamo, in the jurisdiction of
+Cuba. It remains for me to speak of a third division altogether
+financial. By the cedula of the 23rd March, 1812, the island was
+divided into three Intendencias or Provincias; those of the Havannah,
+Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba, of which the respective length
+from east to west is about ninety, seventy and sixty-five sea-leagues.
+The intendant of the Havannah retains the prerogatives of
+Superintendente general subdelegado de Real Hacienda de la Isla de
+Cuba. According to this division, the Provincia de Cuba comprehends
+Santiago de Cuba, Baracoa, Holguin, Bayamo, Gibara, Manzanillo,
+Jiguani, Cobre, and Tiguaros; the Provincia de Puerto Principe, the
+town of that name, Nuevitas, Jagua, Santo Espiritu, San Juan de los
+Remedios, Villa de Santa Clara and Trinidad. The most westerly
+intendencia, or Provincia de la Havannah, occupies all that part
+situated west of the Quatro Villas, of which the intendant of the
+capital has lost the financial administration. When the cultivation of
+the land shall be more uniformly advanced, the division of the island
+into five departments, namely: the vuelta de abaxo (from Cape San
+Antonio to the fine village of Guanajay and Mariel), the Havannah
+(from Mariel to Alvarez), the Quintas Villas (from Alvarez to Moron),
+Puerto Principe (from Moron to Rio Cauto), and Cuba (from Rio Cauto to
+Punta Maysi), will perhaps appear the most fit, and most consistent
+with the historical remembrances of the early times of the Conquest.
+
+My map of the island of Cuba, however imperfect it may be for the
+interior, is yet the only one on which are marked the thirteen
+ciudades; and also seven villas, which are included in the divisions I
+have just enumerated. The boundary between the two bishoprics (linea
+divisoria de los dos obispados de la Havana y de Santiago de Cuba)
+extends from the mouth of the small river of Santa Maria (longitude 80
+degrees 49 minutes), on the southern coast, by the parish of San
+Eugenio de la Palma, and by the haciendas of Santa Anna, Dos Hermanos,
+Copey, and Cienega, to La Punta de Judas (longitude 80 degrees 46
+minutes) on the northern coast opposite Cayo Romano. During the regime
+of the Spanish Cortes it was agreed that this ecclesiastical limit
+should be also that of the two Deputaciones provinciales of the
+Havannah and of Santiago. (Guia Constitucional de la isla de Cuba,
+1822 page 79). The diocese of the Havannah comprehends forty, and that
+of Cuba twenty-two, parishes. Having been established at a time when
+the greater part of the island was occupied by farms of cattle
+(haciendas de ganado), these parishes are of too great extent, and
+little adapted to the requirements of present civilization. The
+bishopric of Santiago de Cuba contains the five cities of Baracoa,
+Cuba, Holguin, Guiza, Puerto Principe and the Villa of Bayamo. In the
+bishopric of San Cristoval de la Havannah are included the eight
+cities of the Havannah, namely: Santa Maria del Rosario, San Antonio
+Abad or de los Banos, San Felipe y Santiago del Bejucal, Matanzas,
+Jaruco, La Paz and Trinidad, and the six villas of Guanabacoa, namely:
+Santiago de las Vegas or Compostela, Santa Clara, San Juan de los
+Remedios, Santo Espiritu and S. Julian de los Guines. The territorial
+division most in favour among the inhabitants of the Havannah, is that
+of vuelta de arriba and de abaxo, east and west of the meridian of the
+Havannah. The first governor of the island who took the title of
+Captain-general (1601) was Don Pedro Valdes. Before him there were
+sixteen other governors, of whom the series begins with the famous
+Poblador and Conquistador, Diego Velasquez, native of Cuellar, who was
+appointed by Columbus in 1511.
+
+In the island of Cuba free men compose 0.64 of the whole population;
+and in the English islands, scarcely 0.19. In the whole archipelago of
+the West Indies the copper-coloured men (blacks and mulattos, free and
+slaves) form a mass of 2,360,000, or 0.83 of the total population. If
+the legislation of the West Indies and the state of the men of colour
+do not shortly undergo a salutary change; if the legislation continue
+to employ itself in discussion instead of action, the political
+preponderance will pass into the hands of those who have strength to
+labour, will to be free, and courage to endure long privations. This
+catastrophe will ensue as a necessary consequence of circumstances,
+without the intervention of the free blacks of Hayti, and without
+their abandoning the system of insulation which they have hitherto
+followed. Who can venture to predict the influence which may be
+exercised on the politics of the New World by an African Confederation
+of the free states of the West Indies, situated between Columbia,
+North America, and Guatimala? The fear of this event may act more
+powerfully on the minds of many, than the principles of humanity and
+justice; but in every island the whites believe that their power is
+not to be shaken. All simultaneous action on the part of the blacks
+appears to them impossible; and every change, every concession granted
+to the slave population, is regarded as a sign of weakness. The
+horrible catastrophe of San Domingo is declared to have been only the
+effect of the incapacity of its government. Such are the illusions
+which prevail amidst the great mass of the planters of the West
+Indies, and which are alike opposed to an amelioration of the
+condition of the blacks in Georgia and in the Carolinas. The island of
+Cuba, more than any other of the West India Islands, might escape the
+common wreck. That island contains 455,000 free men and 160,000
+slaves: and there, by prudent and humane measures, the gradual
+abolition of slavery might be brought about. Let us not forget that
+since San Domingo has become free there are in the whole archipelago
+of the West Indies more free negroes and mulattos than slaves. The
+whites, and above all, the free men, whose cause it would be easy to
+link with that of the whites, take a very rapid numerical increase at
+Cuba. The slaves would have diminished, since 1820, with great
+rapidity, but for the fraudulent continuation of the slave-trade. If,
+by the progress of human civilization, and the firm resolution of the
+new states of free America, this infamous traffic should cease
+altogether, the diminution of the slave population would become more
+considerable for some time, on account of the disproportion existing
+between the two sexes, and the continuance of emancipation. It would
+cease only when the relation between the deaths and births of slaves
+should be such that even the effects of enfranchisement would be
+counterbalanced. The whites and free men now form two-thirds of the
+whole population of the island, and this increase marks in some degree
+the diminution of the slaves. Among the latter, the women are to the
+men (exclusive of the mulatto slaves), scarcely in the proportion of
+1 : 4, in the sugar-cane plantations; in the whole island, as 1 : 1.7;
+and in the towns and farina where the negro slaves serve as domestics,
+or work by the day on their own account as well as that of their
+masters, the proportion is as 1 : 1.4; even (for instance at the
+Havannah),* as 1 : 1.2. (* It appears probable that at the end of
+1825, of the total population of men of colour (mulattos and negroes,
+free and slaves), there were nearly 160,000 in the towns, and 230,000
+in the fields. In 1811 the Consulado, in a statement presented to the
+Cortes of Spain, computed at 141,000, the number of men of colour in
+the towns, and 185,000 in the fields. Documentes sobre los Negros page
+121.) This great accumulation of mulattos, free negros and slaves in
+the towns is a characteristic feature in the island of Cuba.) The
+developments that follow will show that these proportions are founded
+on numerical statements which may be regarded as the limit-numbers of
+the maximum.
+
+The prognostics which are hazarded respecting the diminution of the
+total population of the island, at the period when the slave-trade
+shall be really abolished, and not merely according to the laws, as
+since 1820, respecting the impossibility of continuing the cultivation
+of sugar on a large scale, and respecting the approaching time when
+the agricultural industry of Cuba shall be restrained to plantations
+of coffee and tobacco, and the breeding of cattle, are founded on
+arguments which do not appear to me to be perfectly just. Instead of
+indulging in gloomy presages the planters would do well to wait till
+the government shall have procured positive statistical statements.
+The spirit in which even very old enumerations were made, for instance
+that of 1775, by the distinction of age, sex, race, and state of civil
+liberty, deserves high commendation. Nothing but the means of
+execution were wanting. It was felt that the inhabitants were
+powerfully interested in knowing partially the occupations of the
+blacks, and their numerical distribution in the sugar-settlements,
+farms and towns. To remedy evil, to avoid public danger, to console
+the misfortunes of a suffering race, who are feared more than is
+acknowledged, the wound must be probed; for in the social body, when
+governed by intelligence, there is found, as in organic bodies, a
+repairing force, which may be opposed to the most inveterate evils.
+
+In the year 1811 the municipality and the Tribunal of Commerce of the
+Havannah computed the total population of the island of Cuba to be
+600,000, including 326,000 people of colour, free or slaves, mulattos
+or blacks. At that time, nearly three-fifths of the people of colour
+resided in the jurisdiction of the Havannah, from Cape Saint Antonio
+to Alvarez. In this part it appears that the towns contained as many
+mulattos and free negroes as slaves, but that the coloured population
+of the towns was to that of the fields as two to three. In the eastern
+part of the island, on the contrary, from Alvarez to Santiago de Cuba
+and Cape Maysi, the men of colour inhabiting the towns nearly equalled
+in number those scattered in the farms. From 1811 till the end of
+1825, the island of Cuba has received along the whole extent of its
+coast, by lawful and unlawful means, 185,000 African blacks, of whom
+the custom-house of the Havannah, only, registered from 1811 to 1820,
+about 116,000. This newly introduced mass has no doubt been spread
+more in the country than in the towns; it must have changed the
+relations which persons well informed of the localities had
+established in 1811, between the eastern and western parts of the
+island, between the towns and the fields. The negro slaves have much
+augmented in the eastern plantations; but the fact that,
+notwithstanding the importation of 185,000 bozal negroes, the mass of
+men of colour, free and slaves, has not augmented, from 1811 to 1825,
+more than 64,000, or one-fifth, shows that the changes in the relation
+of partial distribution are restrained within narrower limits than one
+would at first be inclined to admit.
+
+The proportions of the castes with respect to each other will remain a
+political problem of high importance till such time as a wise
+legislation shall have succeeded in calming inveterate animosities and
+in granting equality of rights to the oppressed classes. In 1811, the
+number of whites in the island of Cuba exceeded that of the slaves by
+62,000, whilst it nearly equalled the number of the people of colour,
+both free and slaves. The whites, who in the French and English
+islands formed at the same period nine-hundredths of the total
+population, amounted in the island of Cuba to forty-five hundredths.
+The free men of colour amounted to nineteen hundredths, that is,
+double the number of those in Jamaica and Martinique. The numbers
+given in the enumeration of 1817, modified by the Deputacion
+Provincial, being only 115,700 freedmen and 225,300 slaves, the
+comparison proves, first, that the freedmen have been estimated with
+little precision either in 1811 or in 1817; and, secondly, that the
+mortality of the negroes is so great, that notwithstanding the
+introduction of more than 67,700 African negroes registered at the
+custom-house, there were only 13,300 more slaves in 1817 than in 1811.
+
+In 1817 a new enumeration was substituted for the approximative
+estimates attempted in 1811. From the census of 1817 it appears that
+the total population of the island of Cuba amounted to 572,363. The
+number of whites was 257,380; of free men of colour, 115,691, and of
+slaves 199,292.
+
+In no part of the world where slavery prevails is emancipation so
+frequent as in the island of Cuba. The Spanish legislature favours
+liberty, instead of opposing it, like the English and French
+legislatures. The right of every slave to choose his own master, or
+set himself free, if he can pay the purchase-money, the religious
+feeling which disposes many masters in easy circumstances to liberate
+some of their slaves, the habit of keeping a multitude of blacks for
+domestic service, the attachments which arise from this intercourse
+with the whites, the facility with which slaves who are mechanics
+accumulate money, and pay their masters a certain sum daily, in order
+to work on their own account--such are the principal causes which in
+the towns convert so many slaves into free men of colour. I might add
+the chances of the lottery, and games of hazard, but that too much
+confidence in those means often produces the most fatal effects.
+
+The primitive population of the West India Islands having entirely
+disappeared (the Zambo Caribs, a mixture of natives and negroes,
+having been transported in 1796, from St. Vincent to the island of
+Ratan), the present population of the islands (2,850,000) must be
+considered as composed of European and African blood. The negroes of
+pure race form nearly two-thirds; the whites one-fifth; and the mixed
+race one-seventh. In the Spanish colonies of the continent, we find
+the descendants of the Indians who disappear among the mestizos and
+zambos, a mixture of Indians with whites and negroes. The archipelago
+of the West Indies suggests no such consolatory idea. The state of
+society was there such, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
+that, with some rare exceptions, the new planters paid as little
+attention to the natives as the English now do in Canada. The Indians
+of Cuba have disappeared like the Guanches of the Canaries, although
+at Guanabacoa and Teneriffe false pretensions were renewed forty years
+ago, by several families, who obtained small pensions from the
+government on pretext of having in their veins some drops of Indian or
+Guanche blood. It is impossible now to form an accurate judgment of
+the population of Cuba or Hayti in the time of Columbus. How can we
+admit, with some, that the island of Cuba, at its conquest in 1511,
+had a million of inhabitants, and that there remained of that million,
+in 1517, only 14,000! The statistic statements in the writings of the
+bishop of Chiapa are full of contradictions. It is related that the
+Dominican monk, Fray Luys Bertram, who was persecuted* by the
+encomenderos, as the Methodists now are by some English planters,
+predicted that the 200,000 Indians which Cuba contained, would perish
+the victims of the cruelty of Europeans. (* See the curious
+revelations in Juan de Marieta, Hist. de todos los Santos de Espana
+libro 7 page 174.) If this be true, we may at least conclude that the
+native race was far from being extinct between the years 1555 and
+1569; but according to Gomara (such is the confusion among the
+historians of those times) there were no longer any Indians on the
+island of Cuba in 1553. To form an idea of the vagueness of the
+estimates made by the first Spanish travellers, at a period when the
+population of no province of the peninsula was ascertained, we have
+but to recollect that the number of inhabitants which Captain Cook and
+other navigators assigned to Otaheite and the Sandwich Islands, at a
+time when statistics furnished the most exact comparisons, varied from
+one to five. We may conceive that the island of Cuba, surrounded with
+coasts adapted for fishing, might, from the great fertility of its
+soil, afford sustenance for several millions of those Indians who have
+no desire for animal food, and who cultivate maize, manioc, and other
+nourishing roots; but had there been that amount of population, would
+it not have been manifest by a more advanced degree of civilization
+than the narrative of Columbus describes? Would the people of Cuba
+have remained more backward in civilization than the inhabitants of
+the Lucayes Islands? Whatever activity may be attributed to causes of
+destruction, such as the tyranny of the conquistadores, the faults of
+governors, the too severe labours of the gold-washings, the small-pox
+and the frequency of suicides,* it would be difficult to conceive how
+in thirty or forty years three or four hundred thousand Indians could
+entirely disappear. (* The rage of hanging themselves by whole
+families, in huts and caverns, as related by Garcilasso, was no doubt
+the effect of despair; yet instead of lamenting the barbarism of the
+sixteenth century, it was attempted to exculpate the conquistadores,
+by attributing the disappearance of the natives to their taste for
+suicide. See Patriota tome 2 page 50. Numerous sophisms of this kind
+are found in a work published by M. Nuix on the humanity of the
+Spaniards in the conquest of America. This work is entitled
+Reflexiones imparciales sobre la humanidad de los Epanoles contra los
+pretendidos filosofos y politicos, para illustrar las historias de
+Raynal y Robertson; escrito en Italiano por el Abate Don Juan Nuix, y
+traducido al castellano par Don Pedro Varela y Ulloa, del Consejo de
+S.M. 1752. [Impartial reflections on the humanity of the Spaniards,
+intended to controvert pretended philosophers and politicians, and to
+illustrate the histories of Raynal and Robertson; written in Italian
+by the Abate Don Juan Nuix and translated into Castilian by Don Pedro
+Varela y Ulloa, member of His Majesty's Council.] The author, who
+calls the expulsion of the Moors under Philip III a meritorious and
+religious act, terminates his work by congratulating the Indians of
+America "on having fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, whose
+conduct has been at all times the most humane, and their government
+the wisest." Several pages of this book recall the salutary rigour of
+the Dragonades; and that odious passage, in which a man distinguished
+for his talents and his private virtues, the Count de Maistre (Soirees
+de St. Petersbourg tome 2 page 121) justifies the Inquisition of
+Portugal "which he observes has only caused some drops of guilty blood
+to flow." To what sophisms must they have recourse, who would defend
+religion, national honour or the stability of governments, by
+exculpating all that is offensive to humanity in the actions of the
+clergy, the people, or kings! It is vain to seek to destroy the power
+most firmly established on earth, namely, the testimony of history.)
+The war with the Cacique Hatuey was short and was confined to the most
+eastern part of the island. Few complaints arose against the
+administration of the two first Spanish governors, Diego Velasquez and
+Pedro de Barba. The oppression of the natives dates from the arrival
+of the cruel Hernando de Soto about the year 1539. Supposing, with
+Gomara, that fifteen years later, under the government of Diego de
+Majariegos (1554 to 1564), there were no longer any Indians in Cuba,
+we must necessarily admit that considerable remains of that people
+saved themselves by means of canoes in Florida, believing, according
+to ancient traditions, that they were returning to the country of
+their ancestors. The mortality of the negro slaves, observed in our
+days in the West Indies, can alone throw some light on these numerous
+contradictions. To Columbus and Velasquez the island of Cuba must have
+appeared well peopled,* if, for instance, it contained as many
+inhabitants as were found there by the English in 1762. (* Columbus
+relates that the island of Hayti was sometimes attacked by a race of
+black men (gente negra), who lived more to the south or south-west. He
+hoped to visit them in his third voyage because those black men
+possessed a metal of which the admiral had procured some pieces in his
+second voyage. These pieces were sent to Spain and found to be
+composed of 0.63 of gold, 0.14 of silver and 0.19 of copper. In fact,
+Balboa discovered this black tribe in the Isthmus of Darien. "That
+conquistador," says Gomara, "entered the province of Quareca: he found
+no gold, but some blacks, who were slaves of the lord of the place. He
+asked this lord whence he had received them; who replied, that men of
+that colour lived near the place, with whom they were constantly at
+war...These negroes," adds Gomara, "exactly resemble those of Guinea;
+and no others have since been seen in America (en las Indios yo pienso
+que no se han visto negros despues.") The passage is very remarkable.
+Hypotheses were formed in the sixteenth century, as now; and Petrus
+Martyr imagined that these men seen by Balboa (the Quarecas), were
+Ethiopian blacks who, as pirates, infested the seas, and had been
+shipwrecked on the coast of America. But the negroes of Soudan are not
+pirates; and it is easier to conceive that Esquimaux, in their boats
+of skins, may have gone to Europe, than the Africans to Darien. Those
+learned speculators who believe in a mixture of the Polynesians with
+the Americans rather consider the Quarecas as of the race of Papuans,
+similar to the negritos of the Philippines. Tropical migrations from
+west to east, from the most western part of Polynesia to the Isthmus
+of Darien, present great difficulties, although the winds blow during
+whole weeks from the west. Above all, it is essential to know whether
+the Quarecas were really like the negroes of Soudan, as Gomara
+asserts, or whether they were only a race of very dark Indians (with
+smooth and glossy hair), who from time to time, before 1492, infested
+the coasts of the island of Hayti which has become in our days the
+domain of Ethiopians.) The first travellers were easily deceived by
+the crowds which the appearance of European vessels brought together
+on some points of the coast. Now, the island of Cuba, with the same
+ciudades and villas which it possesses at present, had not in 1762
+more than 200,000 inhabitants; and yet, among a people treated like
+slaves, exposed to the violence and brutality of their masters, to
+excess of labour, want of nourishment, and the ravages of the
+small-pox--forty-two years would not suffice to obliterate all but the
+remembrance of their misfortunes on the earth. In several of the
+Lesser Antilles the population diminishes under English domination
+five and six per cent annually; at Cuba, more than eight per cent; but
+the annihilation of 200,000 in forty-two years supposes an annual loss
+of twenty-six per cent, a loss scarcely credible, although we may
+suppose that the mortality of the natives of Cuba was much greater
+than that of negroes bought at a very high price.
+
+In studying the history of the island we observe that the movement of
+colonization has been from east to west; and that here, as everywhere
+in the Spanish colonies, the places first peopled are now the most
+desert. The first establishment of the whites was in 1511 when,
+according to the orders of Don Diego Columbus, together with the
+conquistador and poblador Velasquez, he landed at Puerto de Palmas,
+near Cape Maysi, then called Alfa y Omega, and subdued the cacique
+Hatuey who, an emigrant and fugitive from Hayti, had withdrawn to the
+eastern part of the island of Cuba, and had become the chief of a
+confederation of petty native princes. The building of the town of
+Baracoa was begun in 1512; and later, Puerto Principe, Trinidad, the
+Villa de Santo Espiritu, Santiago de Cuba (1514), San Salvador de
+Bayamo, and San Cristoval de la Havana. This last town was originally
+founded in 1515 on the southern coast of the island, in the Partido of
+Guines, and transferred, four years later, to Puerto de Carenas, the
+position of which at the entrance of the two channels of Bahama (el
+Viejo y de Nuevo) appears to be much more favourable to commerce than
+the coast on the south-west of Batabano.* (* A tree is still shown at
+the Havannah (at Puerto de Carenas) under the shade of which the
+Spaniards celebrated their first mass. The island, now called
+officially The ever-faithful island of Cuba, was after its discovery
+named successively Juana Fernandina, Isla de Santiago, and Isla del
+Ave Maria. Its arms date from the year 1516.) The progress of
+civilization since the sixteenth century has had a powerful influence
+on the relations of the castes with each other; these relations vary
+in the districts which contain only farms for cattle, and in those
+where the soil has been long cleared; in the sea-ports and inland
+towns, in the spots where colonial produce is cultivated, and in such
+as produce maize, vegetables and forage.
+
+Until the latter part of the eighteenth century the number of female
+slaves in the sugar plantations of Cuba was extremely limited; and
+what may appear surprising is that a prejudice, founded on religious
+scruples, opposed the introduction of women, whose price at the
+Havannah was generally one-third less than that of men. The slaves
+were forced to celibacy on the pretext of avoiding moral disorder. The
+Jesuits and the Bethlemite monks alone renounced that fatal prejudice,
+and encouraged negresses in their plantations. If the census, no doubt
+imperfect, of 1775, yielded 15,562 female, and 29,366 male slaves, we
+must not forget that that enumeration comprehended the totality of the
+island, and that the sugar plantations occupy even now but a quarter
+of the slave population. After the year 1795, the Consulado of the
+Havannah began to be seriously occupied with the project of rendering
+the increase of the slave population more independent of the
+variations of the slave-trade. Don Francisco Arango, whose views were
+ever characterized by wisdom, proposed a tax on the plantations in
+which the number of slaves was not comprised of one-third females. He
+also proposed a tax of six piastres on every negro brought into the
+island, and from which the women (negras bozales) should be exempt.
+These measures were not adopted because the colonial assembly refused
+to employ coercive means; but a desire to promote marriages and to
+improve the condition of the children of slaves has existed since that
+period, when a cedula real (of the 22nd April, 1804) recommended those
+objects "to the conscience and humanity of the planters."
+
+The first introduction of negroes into the eastern part of the island
+of Cuba took place in 1521 and their number did not exceed 300. The
+Spaniards were then much less eager for slaves than the Portuguese;
+for, in 1539, there was a sale of 12,000 negroes at Lisbon, as in our
+days (to the eternal shame of Christian Europe) the trade in Greek
+slaves is carried on at Constantinople and Smyrna. In the sixteenth
+century the slave-trade was not free in Spain; the privilege of
+trading, which was granted by the Court, was purchased in 1586, for
+all Spanish America, by Gaspar de Peralta; in 1595, by Gomez Reynel;
+and in 1615, by Antonio Rodriguez de Elvas. The total importation then
+amounted to only 3500 negroes annually; and the inhabitants of Cuba,
+who were wholly engaged in rearing cattle, scarcely received any.
+During the war of succession, French ships were accustomed to stop at
+the Havannah and to exchange slaves for tobacco. The Asiento treaty
+with the English in some degree augmented the introduction of negroes;
+yet in 1763, although the taking of the Havannah and the sojourn of
+strangers gave rise to new wants, the number of slaves in the
+jurisdiction of the Havannah did not amount to 25,000; and in the
+whole island, not to 32,000. The total number of African negroes
+imported from 1521 to 1763 was probably 60,000; their descendants
+survive among the free mulattos, who inhabit for the most part the
+eastern side of the island. From the year 1763 to 1790, when the
+negro-trade was declared free, the Havannah received 24,875 (by the
+Compania de Tobacos 4957, from 1763 to 1766; by the contract of the
+Marquess de Casa Enrile, 14,132, from 1773 to 1779; by the contract of
+Baker and Dawson, 5786, from 1786 to 1789). If we estimate the
+introduction of slaves in the eastern part of the island during those
+twenty-seven years (1763 to 1790) at 6000, we find from the discovery
+of the island of Cuba, or rather from 1521 to 1790, a total of 90,875.
+We shall soon see that by the ever-increasing activity of the
+slave-trade the fifteen years that followed 1790 furnished more slaves
+than the two centuries and a half which preceded the period of the
+free trade. That activity was redoubled when it was stipulated between
+England and Spain that the slave-trade should be prohibited north of
+the equator, from November 22nd, 1817, and entirely abolished on the
+30th May, 1820. The King of Spain accepted from England (which
+posterity will one day scarcely believe) a sum of 400,000 pounds
+sterling, as a compensation for the loss which might result from the
+cessation of that barbarous commerce.
+
+Jamaica received from Africa in the space of three hundred years
+850,000 blacks; or, to fix on a more certain estimate, in one hundred
+and eight years (from 1700 to 1808) nearly 677,000; and yet that
+island does not now possess 380,000 blacks, free mulattos and slaves.
+The island of Cuba furnishes a more consoling result; it has 130,000
+free men of colour, whilst Jamaica, on a total population half as
+great, contains only 35,000.
+
+On comparing the island of Cuba with Jamaica, the result of the
+comparison seems to be in favour of the Spanish legislation, and the
+morals of the inhabitants of Cuba. These comparisons demonstrate a
+state of things in the latter island more favorable to the physical
+preservation, and to the liberation of the blacks; but what a
+melancholy spectacle is that of Christian and civilized nations,
+discussing which of them has caused the fewest Africans to perish
+during the interval of three centuries, by reducing them to slavery!
+Much cannot be said in commendation of the treatment of the blacks in
+the southern parts of the United States; but there are degrees in the
+sufferings of the human species. The slave who has a hut and a family
+is less miserable than he who is purchased as if he formed part of a
+flock. The greater the number of slaves established with their
+families in dwellings which they believe to be their own property, the
+more rapidly will their numbers increase.
+
+The annual increase of the last ten years in the United States
+(without counting the manumission of 100,000), was twenty-six on a
+thousand, which produces a doubling in twenty-seven years. Now, if the
+slaves at Jamaica and Cuba had multiplied in the same proportion,
+those two islands (the former since 1795, and the latter since 1800)
+would possess almost their present population, without 400,000 blacks
+having been dragged from the coast of Africa, to Port-Royal and the
+Havannah.
+
+The mortality of the negroes is very different in the island of Cuba,
+as in all the West Indies, according to the nature of their treatment,
+the humanity of masters and overseers, and the number of negresses who
+can attend to the sick. There are plantations in which fifteen to
+eighteen per cent perish annually. I have heard it coolly discussed
+whether it were better for the proprietor not to subject the slaves to
+excessive labour and consequently to replace them less frequently, or
+to draw all the advantage possible from them in a few years, and
+replace them oftener by the acquisition of bozal negroes. Such are the
+reasonings of cupidity when man employs man as a beast of burden! It
+would be unjust to entertain a doubt that within fifteen years negro
+mortality has greatly diminished in the island of Cuba. Several
+proprietors have made laudable efforts to improve the plantation
+system.
+
+It has been remarked how much the population of the island of Cuba is
+susceptible of being augmented in the lapse of ages. As the native of
+a northern country, little favoured by nature, I may observe that the
+Mark of Brandebourg, for the most part sandy, contains, under an
+administration favourable to the progress of agricultural industry, on
+a surface only one-third of that of Cuba, a population nearly double.
+The extreme inequality in the distribution of the population, the want
+of inhabitants on a great part of the coast, and its immense
+development, render the military defence of the whole island
+impossible: neither the landing of an enemy nor illicit trade can be
+prevented. The Havannah is well defended, and its works rival those of
+the most important fortified towns of Europe; the Torreones, and the
+fortifications of Cogimar, Jaruco, Matanzas, Mariel, Bahia Honda,
+Batabano, Xagua and Trinidad might resist for a considerable time the
+assaults of an enemy; but on the other hand two-thirds of the island
+are almost without defence, and could scarcely be protected by the
+best gun-boats.
+
+Intellectual cultivation is almost entirely limited to the whites, and
+is as unequally distributed as the population. The best society of the
+Havannah may be compared for easy and polished manners with the
+society of Cadiz and with that of the richest commercial towns of
+Europe; but on quitting the capital, or the neighbouring plantations,
+which are inhabited by rich proprietors, a striking contrast to this
+state of partial and local civilization is manifest, in the simplicity
+of manners prevailing in the insulated farms and small towns. The
+Havaneros or natives of the Havannah were the first among the rich
+inhabitants of the Spanish colonies who visited Spain, France and
+Italy; and at the Havannah the people were always well informed of the
+politics of Europe. This knowledge of events, this prescience of
+future chances, have powerfully aided the inhabitants of Cuba to free
+themselves from some of the burthens which check the development of
+colonial prosperity. In the interval between the peace of Versailles
+and the beginning of the revolution of San Domingo, the Havannah
+appeared to be ten times nearer to Spain than to Mexico, Caracas and
+New Grenada. Fifteen years later, at the period of my visit to the
+colonies, this apparent inequality of distance had considerably
+diminished; now, when the independence of the continental colonies,
+the importation of foreign manufactures and the financial wants of the
+new states have multiplied the intercourse between Europe and America;
+when the passage is shortened by improvements in navigation; when the
+Columbians, the Mexicans and the inhabitants of Guatimala rival each
+other in visiting Europe; the ancient Spanish colonies--those at least
+that are bathed by the Atlantic--seem alike to have drawn nearer to
+the continent. Such are the changes which a few years have produced,
+and which are proceeding with increasing rapidity. They are the
+effects of knowledge and of long-restrained activity; and they render
+less striking the contrast in manners and civilization which I
+observed at the beginning of the century, at Caracas, Bogota, Quito,
+Lima, Mexico and the Havannah. The influences of the Basque,
+Catalanian, Galician and Andalusian origin become every day more
+imperceptible.
+
+The island of Cuba does not possess those great and magnificent
+establishments the foundation of which is of very remote date in
+Mexico; but the Havannah can boast of institutions which the
+patriotism of the inhabitants, animated by a happy rivalry between the
+different centres of American civilization, will know how to extend
+and improve whenever political circumstances and confidence in the
+preservation of internal tranquillity may permit. The Patriotic
+Society of the Havannah (established in 1793); those of Santo
+Espiritu, Puerto Principe, and Trinidad, which depend on it; the
+university, with its chairs of theology, jurisprudence, medicine and
+mathematics, established since 1728, in the convent of the Padres
+Predicedores;* (* The clergy of the island of Cuba is neither numerous
+nor rich, if we except the Bishop of the Havannah and the Archbishop
+of Cuba, the former of whom has 110,000 piastres, and the latter
+40,000 piastres per annum. The canons have 3000 piastres. The number
+of ecclesiastics does not exceed 1100, according to the official
+enumeration in my possession.) the chair of political economy, founded
+in 1818; that of agricultural botany; the museum and the school of
+descriptive anatomy, due to the enlightened zeal of Don Alexander
+Ramirez; the public library, the free school of drawing and painting;
+the national school; the Lancastrian schools, and the botanic garden,
+are institutions partly new, and partly old. Some stand in need of
+progressive amelioration, others require a total reform to place them
+in harmony with the spirit of the age and the wants of society.
+
+AGRICULTURE.
+
+When the Spaniards began their settlements in the islands and on the
+continent of America those productions of the soil chiefly cultivated
+were, as in Europe, the plants that serve to nourish man. This
+primitive stage of the agricultural life of nations has been preserved
+till the present time in Mexico, in Peru, in the cold and temperate
+regions of Cundinamarca, in short, wherever the domination of the
+whites comprehends a vast extent of territory. The alimentary plants,
+bananas, manioc, maize, the cereals of Europe, potatoes and quinoa,
+have continued to be, at different heights above the level of the sea,
+the basis of continental agriculture within the tropics. Indigo,
+cotton, coffee and sugar-cane appear in those regions only in
+intercalated groups. Cuba and the other islands of the archipelago of
+the Antilles presented during the space of two centuries and a half a
+uniform aspect: the same plants were cultivated which had nourished
+the half-wild natives and the vast savannahs of the great islands were
+peopled with numerous herds of cattle. Piedro de Atienza planted the
+first sugar-canes in Saint Domingo about the year 1520; and
+cylindrical presses, moved by water-wheels, were constructed.* (* On
+the trapiches or molinos de agua of the sixteenth century see Oviedo,
+Hist. nat. des Ind. lib. 4 cap. 8.) But the island of Cuba
+participated little in these efforts of rising industry; and what is
+very remarkable, in 1553, the historians of the Conquest* mention no
+exportation of sugar except that of Mexican sugar for Spain and Peru.
+(* Lopez de Gomara, Conquista de Mexico (Medina del Campo 1353) fol.
+129.) Far from throwing into commerce what we now call colonial
+produce, the Havannah, till the eighteenth century, exported only
+skins and leather. The rearing of cattle was succeeded by the
+cultivation of tobacco and the rearing of bees, of which the first
+hives (colmenares) were brought from the Floridas. Wax and tobacco
+soon became more important objects of commerce than leather, but were
+shortly superseded in their turn by the sugar-cane and coffee. The
+cultivation of these productions did not exclude more ancient
+cultivation; and, in the different phases of agricultural industry,
+notwithstanding the general tendency to make the coffee plantations
+predominate, the sugar-houses furnish the greatest amount in the
+annual profits. The exportation of tobacco, coffee, sugar and wax, by
+lawful and illicit means, amounts to fourteen millions of piastres,
+according to the actual price of those articles.
+
+Three qualities of sugar are distinguished in the island of Cuba,
+according to the degree of purity attained by refining (grados de
+purga). In every loaf or reversed cone the upper part yields the white
+sugar; the middle part the yellow sugar, or quebrado; and the lower
+part, or point of the cone, the cucurucho. All the sugar of Cuba is
+consequently refined; a very small quantity is introduced of coarse or
+muscovado sugar (by corruption, azucar mascabado). The forms being of
+a different size, the loaves (panes) differ also in weight. They
+generally weigh an arroba after refining. The refiners (maestros de
+azucar) endeavour to make every loaf of sugar yield five-ninths of
+white, three-ninths of quebrado, and one-ninth of cucurucho. The price
+of white sugar is higher when sold alone than in the sale called
+surtido, in which three-fifths of white sugar and two-fifths of
+quebrado are combined in the same lot. In the latter case the
+difference of the price is generally four reals (reales de plata); in
+the former, it rises to six or seven reals. The revolution of Saint
+Domingo, the prohibitions dictated by the Continental System of
+Napoleon, the enormous consumption of sugar in England and the United
+States, the progress of cultivation in Cuba, Brazil, Demerara, the
+Mauritius and Java, have occasioned great fluctuations of price. In an
+interval of twelve years it was from three to seven reals in 1807, and
+from twenty-four to twenty-eight reals in 1818, which proves
+fluctuations in the relation of one to five.
+
+During my stay in the plains of Guines, in 1804, I endeavoured to
+obtain some accurate information respecting the statistics of the
+making of cane-sugar. A great yngenio producing from 32,000 to 40,000
+arrobas of sugar is generally fifty caballerias,* or 650 hectares in
+extent, of which the half (less than one-tenth of a square sea league)
+is allotted to sugar-making properly so called (canaveral) and the
+other half for alimentary plants and pasturage (potrero). (* The
+agrarian measure, called caballeria, is eighteen cordels, (each cordel
+includes twenty-four varas) or 432 square varas; consequently, as 1
+vara = 0.835m., according to Rodriguez, a caballeria is 186,624 square
+varas, or 130,118 square metres, or thirty-two and two-tenths English
+acres.) The price of land varies, naturally, according to the quality
+of the soil and the proximity of the ports of the Havannah, Matanzas
+and Mariel. In a circuit of twenty-five leagues round the Havannah the
+caballeria may be estimated at two or three thousand piastres. For a
+produce* of 32,000 arrobas (or 2000 cases of sugar) the yngenio must
+have at least three hundred negroes. (* There are very few plantations
+in the whole island of Cuba capable of furnishing 40,000 arrobas;
+among these few are the yngenio of Rio Blanco, or of the Marquess del
+Arca, and those belonging to Don Rafael Ofarrel and Dona Felicia
+Jaurregui. Sugar-houses are thought to be very considerable that yield
+2000 cases annually, or 32,000 arrobas (nearly 368,000 kilogrammes.)
+In the French colonies it is generally computed that the third or
+fourth part only of the land is allotted for the plantation of food
+(bananas, ignames and batates); in the Spanish colonies a greater
+surface is lost in pasturage; this is the natural consequence of the
+old habits of the haciendas de ganado.) An adult and acclimated slave
+is worth from four hundred and fifty to five hundred piastres; a bozal
+negro, adult, not acclimated, three hundred and seventy to four
+hundred piastres. It is probable that a negro costs annually, in
+nourishment, clothing and medicine, forty-five to fifty piastres;
+consequently, with the interest of the capital, and deducting the
+holidays, more than twenty-two sous per day. The slaves are fed with
+tasajo (meat dried in the sun) of Buenos Ayres and Caracas; salt-fish
+(bacalao) when the tasajo is too dear; and vegetables (viandas) such
+as pumpkins, munatos, batatas, and maize. An arroba of tasajo was
+worth ten to twelve reals at Guines in 1804; and from fourteen to
+sixteen in 1825. An yngenio, such as we here suppose (with a produce
+of 32,000 to 40,000 arrobas), requires, first, three machines with
+cylinders put in motion by oxen (trapiches) or two water-wheels;
+second, according to the old Spanish method, which, by a slow fire
+causes a great consumption of wood, eighteen cauldrons (piezas);
+according to the first method of reverberation (introduced since the
+year 1801 by Mr. Bailli of Saint Domingo under the auspices of Don
+Nicolas Calvo) three clarificadoras, three peilas and two traines de
+tachos (each train has three piezas), in all twelve fondos. It is
+commonly asserted that three arrobas of refined sugar yield one barrel
+of miel, and that the molasses are sufficient for the expenses of the
+plantation: this is especially the case where they produce brandy in
+abundance. Thirty-two thousand arrobas of sugar yield 15,000 bariles
+de miel (at two arrobas) of which five hundred pipas de aguardiente de
+cana are made, at twenty-five piastres.
+
+In establishing an yngenio capable of furnishing two thousand caxas
+yearly, a capitalist would draw, according to the old Spanish method,
+and at the present price of sugar, an interest of six and one-sixth
+per cent; an interest no way considerable for an establishment not
+merely agricultural, and of which the expense remains the same,
+although the produce sometimes diminishes more than a third. It is
+very rarely that one of those great yngenios can make 32,000 cases of
+sugar during several successive years. It cannot therefore be matter
+of surprise that when the price of sugar in the island of Cuba has
+been very low (four or five piastres the quintal), the cultivation of
+rice has been preferred to that of the sugar-cane. The profit of the
+old landowners (haciendados) consists, first, in the circumstance that
+the expenses of the settlement were much less twenty or thirty years
+ago, when a caballeria of good land cost only 1200 or 1600 piastres,
+instead of 2500 to 3000; and the adult negro 300 piastres, instead of
+450 to 500; second, in the balance of the very low and the very high
+prices of sugar. These prices are so different in a period of ten
+years that the interest of the capital varies from five to fifteen per
+cent. In the year 1804, for instance, if the capital employed had been
+only 100,000 piastres, the raw produce, according to the value of
+sugar and rum, would have amounted to 94,000 piastres. Now, from 1797
+to 1800, the price of a case of sugar was sometimes, mean value, forty
+piastres instead of twenty-four, which I was obliged to suppose in the
+calculation for the year 1825. When a sugar-house, a great manufacture
+or a mine is found in the hands of the person who first formed the
+establishment, the estimate of the rate of interest which the capital
+employed yields to the proprietor, can be no guide to those who,
+purchasing afterwards, balance the advantages of different kinds of
+industry.
+
+In soils that can be watered, or where plants with tuberose roots have
+preceded the cultivation of the sugar-cane, a caballeria of fertile
+land yields, instead of 1500 arrobas, 3000 or 4000, making 2660 or
+3340 kilogrammes of sugar (blanco and quebrado) per hectare. In fixing
+on 1500 arrobas and estimating the case of sugar at 24 piastres,
+according to the price of the Havannah, we find that the hectare
+produces the value of 870 francs in sugar; and that of 288 francs in
+wheat, in the supposition of an octuple harvest, and the price of 100
+kilogrammes of wheat being 18 francs. I have observed elsewhere that
+in this comparison of the two branches of cultivation it must not be
+forgotten that the cultivation of sugar requires great capital; for
+instance, at present 400,000 piastres for an annual production of
+32,000 arrobas, or 368,000 kilogrammes, if this quantity be made in
+one single settlement. At Bengal, in watered lands, an acre (4044
+square metres) renders 2300 kilogrammes of coarse sugar, making 5700
+kilogrammes per hectare. If this fertility is common in lands of great
+extent we must not be surprised at the low price of sugar in the East
+Indies. The produce of a hectare is double that of the best soil in
+the West Indies and the price of a free Indian day-labourer is not
+one-third the price of the day-labour of a negro slave in the island
+of Cuba.
+
+In Jamaica in 1825 a plantation of five hundred acres (or fifteen and
+a half caballerias), of which two hundred acres are cultivated in
+sugar-cane, yields, by the labour of two hundred slaves, one hundred
+oxen and fifty mules 2800 hundredweight, or 142,200 kilogrammes of
+sugar, and is computed to be worth, with its slaves, 43,000 pounds
+sterling. According to this estimate of Mr. Stewart, one hectare would
+yield 1760 kilogrammes of coarse sugar; for such is the quality of the
+sugar furnished for commerce at Jamaica. Reckoning in a great
+sugar-fabric of the Havannah 25 caballerias or 325 hectares for a
+produce of from 32,000 to 40,000 cases, we find 1130 or 1420
+kilogrammes of refined sugar (blanco and quebrado) per hectare. This
+result agrees sufficiently with that of Jamaica, if we consider the
+loss sustained in the weight of sugar by refining, in converting the
+coarse sugar into azucar blanco y quebrado) or refined sugar. At San
+Domingo a square (3403 square toises = 1.29 hectare) is estimated at
+forty, and sometimes at sixty quintals: if we fix on 5000 pounds, we
+still find 1900 kilogrammes of coarse sugar per hectare. Supposing, as
+we ought to do when speaking of the produce of the whole island of
+Cuba, that, in soils of average fertility, the caballeria (at 13
+hectares) yields 1500 arrobas of refined sugar (mixed with blanco and
+quebrado), or 1330 kilogrammes per hectare, it follows that 60,872
+hectares, or nineteen five-fourths square sea leagues, (nearly a ninth
+of the extent of a department of France of middling size), suffice to
+produce the 440,000 cases of refined sugar furnished by the island of
+Cuba for its own consumption and for lawful and illicit exportation.
+It seems surprising that less than twenty square sea leagues should
+yield an annual produce of more than the value of fifty-two millions
+of francs (counting one case, at the Havannah, at the rate of
+twenty-four piastres). To furnish coarse sugar for the consumption of
+thirty millions of French (which is actually from fifty-six to sixty
+millions of kilogrammes) it requires within the tropics but nine and
+five-sixths square sea leagues cultivated with sugar-cane; and in
+temperate climates but thirty-seven and a half square sea leagues
+cultivated with beet-root. A hectare of good soil, sown or planted
+with beet-root, produces in France from ten to thirty thousand
+kilogrammes of beet-root. The mean fertility is 20,000 kilogrammes,
+which furnish 2 1/2 per cent, or five hundred kilogrammes of coarse
+sugar. Now, one hundred kilogrammes of that sugar yield fifty
+kilogrammes of refined sugar, thirty of sugar vergeoise, and twenty of
+muscovade; consequently, a hectare of beet-root produces 250
+kilogrammes of refined sugar.
+
+A short time before my arrival at the Havannah there had been sent
+from Germany some specimens of beet-root sugar which were said to
+menace the existence of the Sugar Islands in America. The planters had
+learned with alarm that it was a substance entirely similar to
+sugar-cane, but they flattered themselves that the high price of
+labour in Europe and the difficulty of separating the sugar fit for
+crystallization from so great a mass of vegetable pulp would render
+the operation on a grand scale little profitable. Chemistry has, since
+that period, succeeded in overcoming those difficulties; and, in the
+year 1812, France alone had more than two hundred beet-root sugar
+factories working with very unequal success and producing a million of
+kilogrammes of coarse sugar, that is, a fifty-eighth part of the
+actual consumption of sugar in France. Those two hundred factories are
+now reduced to fifteen or twenty, which yield a produce of 300,000
+kilogrammes.* (* Although the actual price of cane-sugar not refined
+is 1 franc 50 cents the kilogramme, in the ports, the production of
+beetroot-sugar offers a still greater advantage in certain localities,
+for instance, in the vicinity of Arras. These establishments would be
+introduced in many other parts of France if the price of the sugar of
+the West Indies rose to 2 francs, or 2 francs 25 cents the kilogramme,
+and if the government laid no tax on the beetroot-sugar, to compensate
+the loss on the consumption of colonial sugar. The making of
+beetroot-sugar is especially profitable when combined with a general
+system of rural economy, with the improvement of the soil and the
+nourishment of cattle: it is not a cultivation independent of local
+circumstances, like that of the sugar-cane in the tropics.) The
+inhabitants of the West Indies, well informed of the affairs of
+Europe, no longer fear beet-root, grapes, chesnuts, and mushrooms, the
+coffee of Naples nor the indigo of the south of France. Fortunately
+the improvement of the condition of the West India slaves does not
+depend on the success of these branches of European cultivation.
+
+Previously to the year 1762 the island of Cuba did not furnish more
+commercial produce than the three least industrious and most neglected
+provinces with respect to cultivation, Veragua, the isthmus of Panama
+and Darien, do at present. A political event which appeared extremely
+unfortunate, the taking of the Havannah by the English, roused the
+public mind. The town was evacuated in 1784 and its subsequent efforts
+of industry date from that memorable period. The construction of new
+fortifications on a gigantic plan* threw a great deal of money
+suddenly into circulation (* It is affirmed that the construction of
+the fort of Cabana alone cost fourteen millions of piastres.); later
+the slave-trade became free and furnished hands for the sugar
+factories. Free trade with all the ports of Spain and occasionally
+with neutral states, the able administration of Don Luis de Las Casas,
+the establishment of the Consulado and the Patriotic Society, the
+destruction of the French colony of Saint Domingo,* (* In three
+successive attempts, in August 1791, June 1793, and October 1803.
+Above all the unfortunate and sanguinary expedition of Generals
+Leclerc and Rochambeau completed the destruction of the sugar
+factories of Saint Domingo.) and the rise in the price of sugar which
+was the natural consequence, the improvement in machines and ovens,
+due in great part to the refugees of Cape Francois, the more intimate
+connection formed between the proprietors of the sugar factories and
+the merchants of the Havannah, the great capital employed by the
+latter in agricultural establishments (sugar and coffee plantations),
+such have been successively the causes of the increasing prosperity of
+the island of Cuba, notwithstanding the conflict of the authorities,
+which serves to embarrass the progress of affairs.
+
+The greatest changes in the plantations of sugar-cane and in the sugar
+factories, took place from 1796 to 1800. First, mules were substituted
+(trapiches de mulas) for oxen (trapiches de bueyes); and afterwards
+hydraulic wheels were introduced (trapiches de agua), which the first
+conquistadores had employed at Saint Domingo; finally the action of
+steam-engines was tried at Ceibabo, at the expense of Count Jaruco y
+Mopex. There are now twenty-five of those machines in the different
+sugar mills of the island of Cuba. The culture of the sugar-cane of
+Otaheite in the meantime increased. Boilers of preparation
+(clarificadoras) were introduced and the reverberating furnaces better
+arranged. It must be said, to the honour of wealthy proprietors, that
+in a great number of plantations, a kind solicitude is manifested for
+sick slaves, for the introduction of negresses, and for the education
+of children.
+
+The number of sugar factories (yngenios) in 1775 was 473 in the whole
+island; and in 1817 more than 780. Among the former, none produced the
+fourth part of the sugar now made in the yngenios of second rank; it
+is consequently not the number of factories that can afford an
+accurate idea of the progress of that branch of agricultural industry.
+
+The first sugar-canes carefully planted on virgin soil yield a harvest
+during twenty to twenty-five years, after which they must be replanted
+every three years. There existed in 1804, at the Hacienda de
+Matamoros, a square (canaveral) worked during forty-five years. The
+most fertile soil for the production of sugar is now in the vicinity
+of Mariel and Guanajay. That variety of sugar-cane known by the name
+of Cana de Otahiti, recognised at a distance by a fresher green, has
+the advantage of furnishing, on the same extent of soil, one-fourth
+more juice, and a stem more woody, thicker, and consequently richer in
+combustible matter. The refiners (maestros de azucar), pretend that
+the vezou (guarapo) of the Cana de Otahiti is more easily worked, and
+yields more crystallized sugar by adding less lime or potass to the
+vezou. The South Sea sugar-cane furnishes, no doubt, after five or six
+years' cultivation, the thinnest stubble, but the knots remain more
+distant from each other than in the Cana creolia or de la tierra. The
+apprehension at first entertained of the former degenerating by
+degrees into ordinary sugar-cane is happily not realized. The
+sugar-cane is planted in the island of Cuba in the rainy season, from
+July to October; and the harvest is gathered from February to May.
+
+In proportion as by too rapid clearing the island has become unwooded,
+the sugar-houses have begun to want fuel. A little stalk (sugar-cane
+destitute of its juice) used to be employed to quicken the fire
+beneath the old cauldrons (tachos); but it is only since the
+introduction of reverberating furnaces by the emigrants of Saint
+Domingo that the attempt has been made to dispense altogether with
+wood and burn only refuse sugar-cane. In the old construction of
+furnaces and cauldrons, a tarea of wood, of one hundred and sixty
+cubic feet, is burnt to produce five arrobas of sugar, or, for a
+hundred kilogrammes of raw sugar, 278 cubic feet of the wood of the
+lemon and orange trees are required. In the reverberating furnaces of
+Saint Domingo a cart of refuse-cane of 495 cubic feet produced 640
+pounds of coarse sugar, which make 158 cubic feet of refuse-cane for
+100 kilogrammes of sugar. I attempted, during my stay at Guines, and
+especially at Rio Blanco, with the Count de Mopex, several new
+constructions, with the view of diminishing the expense of fuel,
+surrounding the focus with substances which do not powerfully conduct
+the heat, and thus diminish the sufferings of the slaves who keep up
+the fire. A long residence in the salt-producing districts of Europe,
+and the labours of practical halurgy, to which I have been devoted
+since my early youth, suggested to me the idea of those constructions,
+which have been imitated with some success. Cuvercles of wood, placed
+on clarificadoras, accelerated the evaporation, and led me to believe
+that a system of cuvercles and moveable frames, furnished with
+counter-weights, might extend to other cauldrons. This object merits
+further examination; but the quantity of vezou (guarapo) of the
+crystallized sugar extracted, and that which is destroyed, the fuel,
+the time and the pecuniary expense, must be carefully estimated.
+
+An error, very general through Europe and one which influences opinion
+respecting the effects of the abolition of the slave-trade, is that in
+those West India islands called sugar colonies, the majority of the
+slaves are supposed to be employed in the production of sugar. The
+cultivation of the sugar-cane is no doubt a powerful incentive to the
+activity of the slave trade; but a very simple calculation suffices to
+prove that the total mass of slaves contained in the West Indies is
+nearly three times greater than the number employed in the production
+of sugar. I showed seven years ago that, if the 200,000 cases of sugar
+exported from the island of Cuba in 1812 were produced in the great
+establishments, less than 30,000 slaves would have sufficed for that
+kind of labour. It ought to be borne in mind for the interests of
+humanity that the evils of slavery weigh on a much greater number of
+individuals than agricultural labours require, even admitting, which I
+am very far from doing, that sugar, coffee, indigo and cotton can be
+cultivated only by slaves. At the island of Cuba it is generally
+supposed that one hundred and fifty negroes are required to produce
+1000 cases (184,000 kilogrammes) of refined sugar; or, in round
+numbers, a little more than 1200 kilogrammes, by the labour of each
+adult slave. The production of 440,000 cases would consequently
+require only 66,000 slaves. If we add 36,000 to that number for the
+cultivation of coffee and tobacco in the island of Cuba, we find that
+about 100,000 of the 260,000 slaves now there would suffice for the
+three great branches of colonial industry on which the activity of
+commerce depends.
+
+COFFEE.
+
+The cultivation of coffee takes its date, like the improved
+construction of cauldrons in the sugar houses, from the arrival of the
+emigrants of San Domingo, especially after the years 1796 and 1798. A
+hectare yields 860 kilogrammes, the produce of 3500 plants. The
+province of the Havannah reckoned:
+
+    In 1800 60 cafetales.
+    In 1817 779 cafetales.
+
+The coffee tree being a shrub that yields a good harvest only in the
+fourth year, the exportation of coffee from the port of the Havannah
+was, in 1804, only 50,000 arrobas. It rose:
+
+    In 1809 to 320,000 arrobas.
+    In 1815 to 918,263 arrobas.
+
+In 1815, when the price of coffee was fifteen piastres the quintal,
+the value of the exportation from the Havannah exceeded the sum of
+3,443,000 piastres. In 1823, the exportation from the port of Matanzas
+was 84,440 arrobas; so that it seems not doubtful that, in years of
+medium fertility, the total exportation of the island, lawful and
+contraband, is more than fourteen millions of kilogrammes.
+
+From this calculation it results that the exportation of coffee from
+the island of Cuba is greater than that from Java, estimated by Mr.
+Crawfurd, in 1820, at 190,000 piculs, 11 4/5 millions of kilogrammes.
+It likewise exceeds the exportation from Jamaica, which amounted, in
+1823, according to the registers of the custom-house, only to 169,734
+hundredweight, or 8,622,478 kilogrammes. In the same year Great
+Britain received, from all the English islands, 194,820 hundredweight;
+or 9,896,856 kilogrammes; which proves that Jamaica only produced
+six-sevenths. Guadaloupe sent, in 1810, to the mother country,
+1,017,190 kilogrammes; Martinico, 671,336 kilogrammes. At Hayti, where
+the production of coffee before the French revolution was 37,240,000
+kilogrammes, Port-au-Prince exported, in 1824, only 91,544,000
+kilogrammes. It appears that the total exportation of coffee from the
+archipelago of the West Indies, by lawful means only, now amounts to
+more than thirty-eight millions of kilogrammes; nearly five times the
+consumption of France, which, from 1820 to 1823, was, on the yearly
+average, 8,198,000 kilogrammes. The consumption of Great Britain is
+yet* only 3 1/2 millions of kilogrammes. (* Before the year 1807, when
+the tax on coffee was reduced, the consumption of Great Britain was
+not 8000 hundredweight (less than 1/2 million of kilogrammes); in
+1809, it rose to 45,071 hundredweight; in 1810, to 49,147
+hundredweight; in 1823, to 71,000 hundredweight, in 1824, to 66,000
+hundredweight (or 3,552,800 kilogrammes.)
+
+The exportation of 1814 was 60 1/2 millions of kilogrammes, which we
+may suppose was at that period nearly the consumption of the whole of
+Europe. Great Britain (taking that denomination in its true sense, as
+denoting only England and Scotland) now consumes nearly two-thirds
+less coffee and three times more sugar than France.
+
+The price of sugar at the Havannah is always by the arroba of 25
+Spanish pounds (or 11.49 kilogrammes), and the price of coffee by the
+quintal (or 45.97 kilogrammes). The latter has been known to vary from
+4 to 30 piastres; it even fell, in 1808, below 24 reals. The price of
+1815 and 1819 was between 13 and 17 piastres the quintal; coffee is
+now at 12 piastres. It is probable that the cultivation of coffee
+scarcely employs in the whole island of Cuba 28,000 slaves, who
+produce, on the yearly average, 305,000 Spanish quintals (14 millions
+of kilogrammes), or, according to the present value, 3,660,000
+piastres; while 66,000 negroes produce 440,000 cases (81 millions of
+kilogrammes) of sugar, which, at the price of 24 piastres, is worth
+10,560,000 piastres. It results from this calculation that a slave now
+produces the value of 130 piastres of coffee, and 160 piastres of
+sugar. It is almost useless to observe that these relations vary with
+the price of the two articles, of which the variations are often
+opposite and that, in calculations which may throw some light on
+agriculture in the tropical region, I comprehend in the same point of
+view interior consumption, exportation lawful and contraband.
+
+TOBACCO.
+
+The tobacco of the island of Cuba is celebrated throughout Europe. The
+custom of smoking, borrowed from the natives of Hayti, was introduced
+into Europe about the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the
+seventeenth century. It was generally hoped that the cultivation of
+tobacco, freed from an oppressive monopoly, would be to the Havannah a
+very profitable object of commerce. The good intentions displayed by
+the government in abolishing, within six years, the Factoria de
+tabacos, have not been attended by the improvement which was expected
+in that branch of industry. The cultivators want capital, the farms
+have become extremely dear, and the predilection for the cultivation
+of coffee is prejudicial to that of tobacco.
+
+The oldest information we possess respecting the quantity of tobacco
+which the island of Cuba has thrown into the magazines of the mother
+country go back to 1748. According to the Abbe Raynal, a much more
+exact writer than is generally believed, that quantity, from 1748 to
+1753 (average year) was 75,000 arrobas. From 1789 to 1794 the produce
+of the island amounted annually to 250,000 arrobas; but from that
+period to 1803 the increased price of land, the attention given
+exclusively to the coffee plantations and the sugar factories, little
+vexations in the exercise of the royal monopoly (estanco), and
+impediments in the way of export trade, have progressively diminished
+the produce by more than one-half. The total produce of tobacco in the
+island is, however, believed to have been, from 1822 to 1825, again
+from 300,000 to 400,000 arrobas.
+
+In good years, when the harvest rose to 350,000 arrobas of leaves,
+128,000 arrobas were prepared for the Peninsula, 80,000 for the
+Havannah, 9200 for Peru, 6000 for Panama, 3000 for Buenos Ayres, 2240
+for Mexico, and 1000 for Caracas and Campeachy. To complete the sum of
+315,000,000 (for the harvest loses 10 per cent of its weight in merma
+y aberias, during the preparation and the transport) we must suppose
+that 80,000 arrobas were consumed in the interior of the island (en
+los campos), whither the monopoly and the taxes did not extend. The
+maintenance of 120 slaves and the expense of the manufacture amounted
+only to 12,000 piastres annually; the persons employed in the factoria
+cost 54,100 piastres. The value of 128,000 arrobas, which in good
+years was sent to Spain, either in cigars or in snuff (rama y polvos),
+often exceeded 5,000,000 piastres, according to the common price of
+Spain. It seems surprising to see that the statements of exportation
+from the Havannah (documents published by the Consulado) mark the
+exportations for 1816, at only 3400 arrobas; for 1823, only 13,900
+arrobas of tabaco en rama, and 71,000 pounds of tabaco torcida,
+estimated together, at the custom-house, at 281,000 piastres; for
+1825, only 70,302 pounds of cigars, and 167,100 pounds of tobacco in
+leaves; but it must be remembered that no branch of contraband is more
+active than that of cigars. Although the tobacco of the Vuelta de
+abaxo is the most famous, a considerable exportation takes place in
+the eastern part of the island. I rather doubt the total exportation
+of 200,000 boxes of cigars (value 2,000,000 piastres) as stated by
+several travellers during latter years. If the harvests were thus
+abundant, why should the island of Cuba receive tobacco from the
+United States for the consumption of the lower class of people?
+
+I shall say nothing of the cotton, the indigo, or the wheat of the
+island of Cuba. These branches of colonial industry are of
+comparatively little importance; and the proximity of the United
+States and Guatimala renders competition almost impossible. The state
+of Salvador, belonging to the Confederation of Central America, now
+throws 12,000 tercios annually, or 1,800,000 pounds of indigo into
+trade; an exportation which amounts to more than 2,000,000 piastres.
+The cultivation of wheat succeeds (to the great astonishment of
+travellers who have passed through Mexico), near the Quatro Villas, at
+small heights above the level of the ocean, though in general it is
+very limited. The flour is fine; but colonial productions are more
+tempting, and the plains of the United States--that Crimea of the New
+World--yield harvests too abundant for the commerce of native cereals
+to be efficaciously protected by the prohibitive system of the
+custom-house, in an island near the mouth of the Mississippi and the
+Delaware. Analogous difficulties oppose the cultivation of flax, hemp,
+and the vine. Possibly the inhabitants of Cuba are themselves ignorant
+of the fact that, in the first years of the conquest by the Spaniards,
+wine was made in their island of wild grapes.* (* De muchas parras
+monteses con ubas se ha cogido vino, aunque algo agrio. [From several
+grape-bearing vines which grow in the mountains, they extract a kind
+of wine; but it is very acid.] Herera Dec. 1 page 233. Gabriel de
+Cabrera found a tradition at Cuba similar to that which the people of
+Semitic race have of Noah experiencing for the first time the effect
+of a fermented liquor. He adds that the idea of two races of men, one
+naked, another clothed, is linked to the American tradition. Has
+Cabrera, preoccupied by the rites of the Hebrews, imperfectly
+interpreted the words of the natives, or, as seems more probable, has
+he added something to the analogies of the woman-serpent, the conflict
+of two brothers, the cataclysm of water, the raft of Coxcox, the
+exploring bird, and many other things that teach us incontestably that
+there existed a community of antique traditions between the nations of
+the two worlds? Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of America.)
+This kind of vine, peculiar to America, has given rise to the general
+error that the true Vitis vinifera is common to the two continents.
+The Parras monteses which yields the somewhat sour wine of the island
+of Cuba, was probably gathered on the Vitis tiliaefolia which Mr.
+Willdenouw has described from our herbals. In no part of the northern
+hemisphere has the vine hitherto been cultivated with the view of
+producing wine south of the 27 degrees 48 minutes, or the latitude of
+the island of Ferro, one of the Canaries, and of 29 degrees 2 minutes,
+or the latitude of Bushire in Persia.
+
+WAX.
+
+This is not the produce of native bees (the Melipones of Latreille),
+but of bees brought from Europe by way of Florida. The trade in wax
+has only become important since 1772. The exportation of the whole
+island, which from 1774 to 1779 was only 2700 arrobas (average year),
+was estimated in 1803, including contraband, at 42,700 arrobas, of
+which 25,000 were destined for Vera Cruz. In the churches of Mexico
+there is a great consumption of Cuban wax. The price varies from
+sixteen to twenty piastres the arroba.
+
+Trinidad and the small port of Baracoa also carry on a considerable
+trade in wax, furnished by the almost uncultivated regions on the east
+of the island. In the proximity of the sugar-factories many bees
+perish of inebriety from the molasses, of which they are extremely
+fond. In general the production of wax diminishes in proportion as the
+cultivation of the land augments. The exportation of wax, according to
+the present price, amounts to about 500,000 of piastres.
+
+COMMERCE.
+
+It has already been observed that the importance of the commerce of
+the island of Cuba depends not solely on the riches of its
+productions, the wants of the population in the articles and
+merchandize of Europe, but also in great part on the favourable
+position of the port of the Havannah. This port is situated at the
+entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, where the high roads of the commercial
+nations of the old and the new worlds cross each other. It was
+remarked by the Abbe Raynal, at a period when agriculture and industry
+were in their infancy, and scarcely threw into commerce the value of
+2,000,000 piastres in sugar and tobacco, that the island of Cuba alone
+might be worth a kingdom to Spain. There seems to have been something
+prophetic in those memorable words; and since the parent state has
+lost Mexico, Peru and so many other colonies declared independent,
+they demand the serious consideration of statesmen who are called upon
+to discuss the political interests of the Peninsula.
+
+The island of Cuba, to which for a long time the court of Madrid
+wisely granted great freedom of trade, exports, lawfully and by
+contraband, of its own native productions, in sugar, coffee, tobacco,
+wax and skins, to the value of more than 14,000,000 piastres; which is
+about one-third less than the value of the precious metals furnished
+by Mexico at the period of the greatest prosperity of its mines.* (*
+In 1805 gold and silver specie was struck at Mexico to the value of
+27,165,888 piastres; but, taking an average of ten years of political
+tranquillity, we find from 1800 to 1810 scarcely 24 1/2 million of
+piastres.) It may be said that the Havannah and Vera Cruz are to the
+rest of America what New York is to the United States. The tonnage of
+1000 to 1200 merchant ships which annually enter the port of the
+Havannah, amounts (excluding the small coasting-vessels), to 150,000
+or 170,000 tons.* (* In 1816 the tonnage of the commerce of New York
+was 299,617 tons; that of Boston, 143,420 tons. The amount of tonnage
+is not always an exact measure of the wealth of commerce. The
+countries which export rice, flour, hewn wood and cotton require more
+capaciousness than the tropical regions of which the productions
+(cochineal, indigo, sugar and coffee) are of little bulk, although of
+considerable value.) In time of peace from 120 to 150 ships of war are
+frequently seen at anchor at the Havannah. From 1815 to 1819 the
+productions registered at the custom-house of that port only (sugar,
+rum, molasses, coffee, wax and butter) amounted, on the average, to
+the value of 11,245,000 piastres per annum. In 1823 the exportation
+registered two-thirds less than their actual price, amounted
+(deducting 1,179,000 piastres in specie) to more than 12,500,000
+piastres. It is probable that the importations of the whole island
+(lawful and contraband), estimated at the real price of the articles,
+the merchandize and the slaves, amount at present to 15,000,000 or
+16,000,000 piastres, of which scarcely 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 are
+re-exported. The Havannah purchases from abroad far beyond its own
+wants, and exchanges its colonial articles for the productions of the
+manufactures of Europe, to sell a part of them at Vera Cruz, Truxillo,
+Guayra, and Carthagena.
+
+On comparing, in the commercial tables of the Havannah, the great
+value of merchandise imported, with the little value of merchandise
+re-exported, one is surprised at the vast internal consumption of a
+country containing only 325,000 whites and 130,000 free men of colour.
+We find, in estimating the different articles, according to the real
+current prices: in cotton and linen (bretanas, platillas, lienzos y
+hilo), two and a half to three millions of piastres; in tissues of
+cotton (zarazas musulinas), one million of piastres; in silk (rasos y
+generos de seda), 400,000 piastres; and in linen and woollen tissues,
+220,000 piastres. The wants of the island, in European tissues,
+registered as exported to the port of the Havannah only, consequently
+exceeded, in these latter years, from four millions to four and a half
+millions of piastres. To these importations of the Havannah we must
+add: hardware and furniture, more than half a million of piastres;
+iron and steel, 380,000 piastres; planks and great timber, 400,000
+piastres; Castile soap, 300,000 piastres. With respect to the
+importation of provisions and drinks to the Havannah, it appears to me
+to be well worthy the attention of those who would know the real state
+of those societies which are called sugar or slave colonies. Such is
+the composition of those societies established on the most fruitful
+soil which nature can furnish for the nourishment of man, such the
+direction of agricultural labours and industry in the West Indies,
+that, in the best climate of the equinoctial region, the population
+would want subsistence but for the freedom and activity of external
+commerce. I do not speak of the introduction of wines at the port of
+the Havannah, which amounted (according to the registers of the
+custom-house), in 1803, to 40,000 barrels; in 1823, to 15,000 pipas
+and 17,000 barrels, to the value of 1,200,000 piastres; nor of the
+introduction of 6000 barrels of brandy from Spain and Holland, and
+113,000 barrels (1,864,000 piastres) of flour. These wines, liquors
+and flour are consumed by the opulent part of the nation. The cereals
+of the United States have become articles of absolute necessity in a
+zone where maize, manioc and bananas were long preferred to every
+other amylaceous food. The development of a luxury altogether
+European, cannot be complained of amidst the prosperity and increasing
+civilization of the Havannah; but, along with the introduction of the
+flour, wine, and spirituous liquors of Europe, we find, in the year
+1816, 1 1/2millions of piastres; and, in the year 1823, 3 1/2 millions
+for salt meat, rice and dried vegetables. In the last mentioned year,
+the importation of rice was 323,000 arrobas; and the importation of
+dried and salt meat (tasajo), for the slaves, 465,000 arrobas.
+
+The scarcity of necessary articles of subsistence characterizes a part
+of the tropical climates where the imprudent activity of Europeans has
+inverted the order of nature: it will diminish in proportion as the
+inhabitants, more enlightened respecting their true interests, and
+discouraged by the low price of colonial produce, will vary the
+cultivation, and give free scope to all the branches of rural economy.
+The principles of that narrow policy which guides the government of
+very small islands, inhabited by men who desert the soil whenever they
+are sufficiently enriched, cannot be applicable to a country of an
+extent nearly equal to that of England, covered with populous cities,
+and where the inhabitants, established from father to son during ages,
+far from regarding themselves as strangers to the American soil,
+cherish it as their own country. The population of the island of Cuba,
+which in fifty years will perhaps exceed a million, may open by its
+own consumption an immense field to native industry. If the
+slave-trade should cease altogether, the slaves will pass by degrees
+into the class of free men; and society, being reconstructed, without
+suffering any of the violent convulsions of civil dissension, will
+follow the path which nature has traced for all societies that become
+numerous and enlightened. The cultivation of the sugar-cane and of
+coffee will not be abandoned; but it will no longer remain the
+principal basis of national existence than the cultivation of
+cochineal in Mexico, of indigo in Guatimala, and of cacao in
+Venezuela. A free, intelligent and agricultural population will
+progressively succeed a slave population, destitute of foresight and
+industry. Already the capital which the commerce of the Havannah has
+placed within the last twenty-five years in the hands of cultivators,
+has begun to change the face of the country; and to that power, of
+which the action is constantly increasing, another will be necessarily
+joined, inseparable from the progress of industry and national
+wealth--the development of human intelligence. On these united powers
+depend the future destinies of the metropolis of the West Indies.
+
+In reference to what has been said respecting external commerce, I may
+quote the author of a memoir which I have often mentioned, and who
+describes the real situation of the island. "At the Havannah, the
+effects of accumulated wealth begin to be felt; the price of
+provisions has been doubled in a small number of years. Labour is so
+dear that a bozal negro, recently brought from the coast of Africa,
+gains by the labour of his hands (without having learned any trade)
+from four to five reals (two francs thirteen sous to three francs five
+sous) a day. The negroes who follow mechanical trades, however common,
+gain from five to six francs. The patrician families remain fixed to
+the soil: a man who has enriched himself does not return to Europe
+taking with him his capital. Some families are so opulent that Don
+Matheo de Pedroso, who died lately, left in landed property above two
+millions of piastres. Several commercial houses of the Havannah
+purchase, annually, from ten to twelve thousand cases of sugar, for
+which they pay at the rate of from 350,000 to 420,000 piastres." (De
+la situacion presente de Cuba in manuscript.) Such was the state of
+public wealth at the end of 1800. Twenty-five years of increasing
+prosperity have elapsed since that period, and the population of the
+island is nearly doubled. The exportation of registered sugar had not,
+in any year before 1800, attained the extent of 170,000 cases
+(31,280,000 kilogrammes); in these latter times it has constantly
+surpassed 200,000 cases, and even attained 250,000 and 300,000 cases
+(forty-six to fifty-five millions of kilogrammes). A new branch of
+industry has sprung up (that of plantations of the coffee tree) which
+furnishes an exportation of the value of three millions and a half of
+piastres. Industry, guided by a greater mass of knowledge, has been
+better directed. The system of taxation that weighed on national
+industry and exterior commerce has been made lighter since 1791, and
+been improved by successive changes. Whenever the mother-country,
+mistaking her own interests, has attempted to make a retrograde step,
+courageous voices have arisen not only among the Havaneros, but often
+among the Spanish rulers, in defence of the freedom of American
+commerce. A new channel has recently been opened for capital by the
+enlightened zeal and patriotic views of the intendant Don Claudio
+Martinez de Pinillos, and the commerce of entrepot has been granted to
+the Havannah on the most advantageous conditions.
+
+The difficult and expensive interior communications of the island
+render its own productions dearer at the ports, notwithstanding the
+short distance between the northern and southern coasts. A project of
+canalization which unites the double advantage of connecting the
+Havannah and Batabano by a navigable line, and diminishing the high
+price of the transport of native produce, merits here a special
+mention. The idea of the Canal of Guines had been conceived for more
+than half a century with the view of furnishing timber at a more
+moderate price for ship-building in the arsenal of the Havannah. In
+1796 the Count de Jaruco y Mopox, an enterprising man, who had
+acquired great influence by his connection with the Prince of the
+Peace, undertook to revive this project. The survey was made in 1798
+by two very able engineers, Don Francisco and Don Felix Lemaur. These
+officers ascertained that the canal in its whole development would be
+nineteen leagues long (5000 varas or 4150 metres), that the point of
+partition would be at the Taverna del Rey, and that it would require
+nineteen locks on the north, and twenty-one on the south. The distance
+from the Havannah to Batabano is only eight and a half sea-leagues.
+The canal of Guines would be very useful for the transport of
+agricultural productions by steam-boats,* because its course would be
+in proximity with the best cultivated lands. (* Steam-boats are
+established from the Havannah to Matanzas, and from the Havannah to
+Mariel. The government granted to Don Juan O'Farrill (March 24th,
+1819) a privilege on the barcos de vapor.) The roads are nowhere worse
+in the rainy season than in this part of the island, where the soil is
+of friable limestone, little fitted for the construction of solid
+roads. The transport of sugar from Guines to the Havannah, a distance
+of twelve leagues, now costs one piastre per quintal. Besides the
+advantage of facilitating internal communications, the canal would
+also give great importance to the surgidero of Batabano, into which
+small vessels laden with salt provisions (tasajo) from Venezuela,
+would enter without being obliged to double Cape Saint Antonio. In the
+bad season and in time of war, when corsairs are cruising between Cape
+Catoche, Tortugas and Mariel, the passage from the Spanish main to the
+island of Cuba would be shortened by entering, not at the Havannah,
+but at some port of the southern coast. The cost of constructing the
+canal de Guines was estimated in 1796 at one million, or 1,200,000
+piastres: it is now thought that the expense would amount to more than
+one million and a half. The productions which might annually pass the
+canal have been estimated at 75,000 cases of sugar, 25,000 arrobas of
+coffee, and 8000 bocoyes of molasses and rum. According to the first
+project, that of 1796, it was intended to link the canal with the
+small river of Guines, to be brought from the Ingenio de la Holanda to
+Quibican, three leagues south of Bejucal and Santa Rosa. This idea is
+now relinquished, the Rio de los Guines losing its waters towards the
+east in the irrigation of the savannahs of Hato de Guanamon. Instead
+of carrying the canal east of the Barrio del Cerro and south of the
+fort of Atares, in the bay of the Havannah, it was proposed at first
+to make use of the bed of the Chorrera or Rio Armendaris, from
+Calabazal to the Husillo, and then of the Zanja Real, not only for
+conveying the boats to the centre of the arrabales and of the city of
+the Havannah, but also for furnishing water to the fountains which
+require to be supplied during three months of the year. I visited
+several times, with MM. Lemaur, the plains through which this line of
+navigation is intended to pass. The utility of the project is
+incontestable if in times of great drought a sufficient quantity of
+water can be brought to the point of partition.
+
+At the Havannah, as in every place where commerce and the wealth it
+produces increase rapidly, complaints are heard of the prejudicial
+influence exercised by them on ancient manners. We cannot here stop to
+compare the first state of the island of Cuba, when covered with
+pasturage, before the taking of the capital by the English, and its
+present condition, since it has become the metropolis of the West
+Indies; nor to throw into the balance the candour and simplicity of
+manners of an infant society, against the manners that belong to the
+development of an advanced civilization. The spirit of commerce,
+leading to the love of wealth, no doubt brings nations to depreciate
+what money cannot obtain. But the state of human things is happily
+such that what is most desirable, most noble, most free in man, is
+owing only to the inspirations of the soul, to the extent and
+amelioration of its intellectual faculties. Were the thirst of riches
+to take absolute possession of every class of society, it would
+infallibly produce the evil complained of by those who see with regret
+what they call the preponderance of the industrious system; but the
+increase of commerce, by multiplying the connections between nations,
+by opening an immense sphere to the activity of the mind, by pouring
+capital into agriculture, and creating new wants by the refinement of
+luxury, furnishes a remedy against the supposed dangers.
+
+FINANCE.
+
+The increase of the agricultural prosperity of the island of Cuba and
+the influence of the accumulation of wealth on the value of
+importations, have raised the public revenue in these latter years to
+four millions and a half, perhaps five millions of piastres. The
+custom-house of the Havannah, which before 1794 yielded less than
+600,000 piastres, and from 1797 to 1800, 1,900,000 piastres, pours
+into the treasury, since the declaration of free trade, a revenue
+(importe liquido) of more than 3,100,000 piastres.* (* The
+custom-house of Port-au-Prince, at Hayti, produced in 1825, the sum of
+1,655,764 piastres; that of Buenos Ayres, from 1819 to 1821, average
+year, 1,655,000 piastres. See Centinela de La Plata, September 1822
+Number 8; Argos de Buenos Ayres Number 85.)
+
+The island of Cuba as yet contains only one forty-second part of the
+population of France; and one half of its inhabitants, being in the
+most abject indigence, consume but little. Its revenue is nearly equal
+to that of the Republic of Columbia, and it exceeds the revenue of all
+the custom-houses of the United States* before the year 1795, when
+that confederation had 4,500,000 inhabitants, while the island of Cuba
+contained only 715,000. (* The custom-houses of the United States,
+which yielded in 1801 to 1808 sixteen millions of dollars, produced in
+1815 but 7,282,000.) The principal source of the public revenue of
+this fine colony is the custom-house, which alone produces above
+three-fifths, and amply suffices for all the wants of the internal
+administration and military defence. If in these latter years, the
+expense of the general treasury of the Havannah amounted to more than
+four millions of piastres, this increase of expense is solely owing to
+the obstinate struggle maintained between the mother country and her
+freed colonies. Two millions of piastres were employed to pay the land
+and sea forces which poured back from the American continent, by the
+Havannah, on their way to the Peninsula. As long as Spain, unmindful
+of her real interests, refuses to recognize the independence of the
+New Republics, the island of Cuba, menaced by Columbia and the Mexican
+Confederation, must support a military force for its external defence,
+which ruins the colonial finances. The Spanish naval force stationed
+in the port of the Havannah generally costs above 650,000 piastres.
+The land forces require nearly one million and a half of piastres.
+Such a state of things cannot last indefinitely if the Peninsula do
+not relieve the burden that presses upon the colony.
+
+From 1789 to 1797 the produce of the custom-house at the Havannah
+never rose to more than 700,000 piastres. In 1814 it was 1,855,117.
+From 1815 to 1819 the royal taxes in the port of the Havannah amounted
+to 11,575,460 piastres; total 18,284,807 piastres; or, average year,
+3,657,000 piastres, of which the municipal taxes formed 0.36.
+
+The public revenue of the Administracion general de Rentas of the
+jurisdiction of Havannah amounted:
+
+    in 1820 to 3,631,273 piastres.
+    in 1821 to 3,277,639 piastres.
+    in 1822 to 3,378,228 piastres.
+
+The royal and municipal taxes of importation at the custom-house of
+the Havannah in 1823 were 2,734,563 piastres.
+
+The total amount of the revenue of the Havannah in 1824 was 3,025,300
+piastres.
+
+In 1825 the revenue of the town and jurisdiction of the Havannah was
+3,350,300 piastres.
+
+These partial statements show that from 1789 to 1824 the public
+revenue of Cuba has been increased sevenfold.
+
+According to the estimates of the Cajas matrices, the public revenue
+in 1822 was, in the province of the Havannah alone, 4,311,862
+piastres; which arose from the custom-house (3,127,918 piastres), from
+the ramos de directa entrada, as lottery, tithes, etc. (601,808
+piastres), and anticipations on the charges of the Consulado and the
+Deposito (581,978 piastres). The expenditure in the same year, for the
+island of Cuba, was 2,732,738 piastres, and for the succour destined
+to maintain the struggle with the continental colonies declared
+independent, 1,362,029 piastres. In the first class of expenditure we
+find 1,355,798 piastres for the subsistence of the military forces
+kept up for the defence of the Havannah and the neighbouring places;
+and 648,908 piastres for the royal navy stationed in the port of the
+Havannah. In the second class of expense foreign to the local
+administration we find 1,115,672 piastres for the pay of 4234 soldiers
+who, after having evacuated Mexico, Columbia and other parts of the
+Continent formerly Spanish possessions, passed by the Havannah to
+return to Spain; 164,000 piastres is the cost of the defence of the
+castle of San Juan de Ulloa.
+
+I here terminate the Political Essay on the island of Cuba, in which I
+have traced the state of that important Spanish possession as it now
+is. My object has been to throw light on facts and give precision to
+ideas by the aid of comparisons and statistical tables. That minute
+investigation of facts is desirable at a moment when, on the one hand
+enthusiasm exciting to benevolent credulity, and on the other
+animosities menacing the security of the new republics, have given
+rise to the most vague and erroneous statements. I have as far as
+possible abstained from all reasoning on future chances, and on the
+probability of the changes which external politics may produce in the
+situation of the West Indies. I have merely examined what regards the
+organization of human society; the unequal partition of rights and of
+the enjoyments of life; the threatening dangers which the wisdom of
+the legislator and the moderation of free men may ward off, whatever
+be the form of the government. It is for the traveller who has been an
+eyewitness of the suffering and the degradation of human nature to
+make the complaints of the unfortunate reach the ear of those by whom
+they can be relieved. I observed the condition of the blacks in
+countries where the laws, the religion and the national habits tend to
+mitigate their fate; yet I retained, on quitting America, the same
+horror of slavery which I had felt in Europe. In vain have writers of
+ability, seeking to veil barbarous institutions by ingenious turns of
+language, invented the expressions negro peasants of the West Indies,
+black vassalage, and patriarchal protection: that is profaning the
+noble qualities of the mind and the imagination, for the purpose of
+exculpating by illusory comparisons or captious sophisms excesses
+which afflict humanity, and which prepare the way for violent
+convulsions. Do they think that they have acquired the right of
+putting down commiseration, by comparing* the condition of the negroes
+with that of the serfs of the middle ages, and with the state of
+oppression to which some classes are still subjected in the north and
+east of Europe? (* Such comparisons do not satisfy those secret
+partisans of the slave trade who try to make light of the miseries of
+the black race, and to resist every emotion those miseries awaken. The
+permanent condition of a caste founded on barbarous laws and
+institutions is often confounded with the excesses of a power
+temporarily exercised on individuals. Thus Mr. Bolingbroke, who lived
+seven years at Demerara and who visited the West India Islands,
+observes that "on board an English ship of war, flogging is more
+frequent than in the plantations of the English colonies." He adds
+"that in general the negroes are but little flogged, but that very
+reasonable means of correction have been imagined, such as making them
+take boiling soup strongly peppered, or obliging them to drink, with a
+very small spoon, a solution of Glauber-salts." Mr. Bolingbroke
+regards the slave-trade as a universal benefit; and he is persuaded
+that if negroes who have enjoyed, during twenty years, all the
+comforts of slave life at Demerara, were permitted to return to the
+coast of Africa, they would effect recruiting on a large scale, and
+bring whole nations to the English possessions. Voyage to Demerara,
+1807. Such is the firm and frank profession of faith of a planter; yet
+Mr. Bolingbroke, as several passages of his book prove, is a moderate
+man, full of benevolent intentions towards the slaves.) These
+comparisons, these artifices of language, this disdainful impatience
+with which even a hope of the gradual abolition of slavery is repulsed
+as chimerical, are useless arms in the times in which we live. The
+great revolutions which the continent of America and the Archipelago
+of the West Indies have undergone since the commencement of the
+nineteenth century, have had their influence on public feeling and
+public reason, even in countries where slavery exists and is beginning
+to be modified. Many sensible men, deeply interested in the
+tranquillity of the sugar and slave islands, feel that by a liberal
+understanding among the proprietors, and by judicious measures adopted
+by those who know the localities, they might emerge from a state of
+danger and uneasiness which indolence and obstinacy serve only to
+increase.
+
+Slavery is no doubt the greatest evil that afflicts human nature,
+whether we consider the slave torn from his family in his native
+country and thrown into the hold of a slave ship,* or as making part
+of a flock of black men, parked on the soil of the West Indies; but
+for individuals there are degrees of suffering and privation. (* "If
+the slaves are whipped," said one of the witnesses before the
+Parliamentary Committee of 1789, "to make them dance on the deck of a
+slave ship--if they are forced to sing in chorus; 'Messe, messe,
+mackerida,' [how gaily we live among the whites], this only proves the
+care we take of the health of those men." This delicate attention
+reminds me of the description of an auto-da-fe in my possession. In
+that curious document a boast is made of the prodigality with which
+refreshments are distributed to the condemned, and of the staircase
+which the inquisitors have had erected in the interior of the pile for
+the accommodation of the relazados (the relapsed culprits.)) How great
+is the difference in the condition of the slave who serves in the
+house of a rich family at the Havannah or at Kingston, or one who
+works for himself, giving his master but a daily retribution, and that
+of the slave attached to a sugar estate! The threats employed to
+correct an obstinate negro mark this scale of human privations. The
+coachman is menaced with the coffee plantation; and the slave working
+on the latter is menaced with the sugar house. The negro, who with his
+wife inhabits a separate hut, whose heart is warmed by those feelings
+of affection which for the most part characterize the African race,
+finds that after his labour some care is taken of him amidst his
+indigent family, is in a position not to be compared with that of the
+insulated slave lost in the mass. This diversity of condition escapes
+the notice of those who have not had the spectacle of the West Indies
+before their eyes. Owing to the progressive amelioration of the state
+even of the captive caste in the island of Cuba, the luxury of the
+masters and the possibility of gain by their work, have drawn more
+than eighty thousand slaves to the towns; and the manumission of them,
+favoured by the wisdom of the laws, is become so active as to have
+produced, at the present period, more than 130,000 free men of colour.
+By considering the individual position of each class, by recompensing,
+by the decreasing scale of privations, intelligence, love of labour
+and the domestic virtues, the colonial administration will find the
+best means of improving the condition of the blacks. Philanthropy does
+not consist in giving a little more salt-fish, and some fewer lashes:
+the real amelioration of the captive caste ought to extend over the
+whole moral and physical position of man.
+
+The impulse may be given by those European governments which have a
+right comprehension of human dignity, and who know that whatever is
+unjust bears with it a germ of destruction; but this impulse, it is
+melancholy to add, will be powerless if the union of the planters, if
+the colonial assemblies or legislatures, fail to adopt the same views
+and to act by a well-concerted plan, having for its ultimate aim the
+cessation of slavery in the West Indies. Till then it will be in vain
+to register the strokes of the whip, to diminish the number that may
+be given at one time, to require the presence of witnesses and to
+appoint protectors of slaves; all these regulations, dictated by the
+most benevolent intentions, are easily eluded: the isolated position
+of the plantations renders their execution impossible. They
+pre-suppose a system of domestic inquisition incompatible with what is
+understood in the colonies by the phrase established rights. The state
+of slavery cannot be altogether peaceably ameliorated except by the
+simultaneous action of the free men (white men and coloured) residing
+in the West Indies; by colonial assemblies and legislatures; by the
+influence of those who, enjoying great moral consideration among their
+countrymen and acquainted with the localities, know how to vary the
+means of improvement conformably with the manners, habits, and the
+position of every island. In preparing the way for the accomplishment
+of this task, which ought to embrace a great part of the archipelago
+of the West Indies, it may be useful to cast a retrospective glance on
+the events by which the freedom of a considerable part of the human
+race was obtained in Europe in the middle ages. In order to ameliorate
+without commotion new institutions must be made, as it were, to rise
+out of those which the barbarism of centuries has consecrated. It will
+one day seem incredible that until the year 1826 there existed no law
+in the Great Antilles to prevent the sale of young infants and their
+separation from their parents, or to prohibit the degrading custom of
+marking the negroes with a hot iron, merely to enable these human
+cattle to be more easily recognized. Enact laws to obviate the
+possibility of a barbarous outrage; fix, in every sugar estate, the
+proportion between the least number of negresses and that of the
+labouring negroes; grant liberty to every slave who has served fifteen
+years, to every negress who has reared four or five children; set them
+free on the condition of working a certain number of days for the
+profit of the plantation; give the slaves a part of the net produce,
+to interest them in the increase of agricultural riches;* fix a sum on
+the budget of the public funds, destined for the ransom of slaves, and
+the amelioration of their condition--such are the most urgent objects
+for colonial legislation. (* General Lafayette, whose name is linked
+with all that promises to contribute to the liberty of man and the
+happiness of mankind, conceived, in the year 1785, the project of
+purchasing a settlement at Cayenne, and to divide it among the blacks
+by whom it was cultivated and in whose favour the proprietor renounced
+for himself and his descendants all benefit whatever. He had
+interested in this noble enterprise the priests of the Mission of the
+Holy Ghost, who themselves possessed lands in French Guiana. A letter
+from Marshal de Castries, dated 6th June, 1785, proves that the
+unfortunate Louis XVI, extending his beneficent intentions to the
+blacks and free men of colour, had ordered similar experiments to be
+made at the expense of Government. M. de Richeprey, who was appointed
+by M. de Lafayette to superintend the partition of the lands among the
+blacks, died from the effects of the climate at Cayenne.)
+
+The Conquest on the continent of Spanish America and the slave-trade
+in the West Indies, in Brazil, and in the southern parts of the United
+States, have brought together the most heterogeneous elements of
+population. This strange mixture of Indians, whites, negroes,
+mestizos, mulattoes and zambos is accompanied by all the perils which
+violent and disorderly passion can engender, at those critical periods
+when society, shaken to its very foundations, begins a new era. At
+those junctures, the odious principle of the Colonial System, that of
+security, founded on the hostility of castes, and prepared during
+ages, has burst forth with violence. Fortunately the number of blacks
+has been so inconsiderable in the new states of the Spanish continent
+that, with the exception of the cruelties exercised in Venezuela,
+where the royalist party armed their slaves, the struggle between the
+independents and the soldiers of the mother country was not stained by
+the vengeance of the captive population. The free men of colour
+(blacks, mulattoes and mestizoes) have warmly espoused the national
+cause; and the copper-coloured race, in its timid distrust and
+passiveness, has taken no part in movements from which it must profit
+in spite of itself. The Indians, long before the revolution, were poor
+and free agriculturists; isolated by their language and manners they
+lived apart from the whites. If, in contempt of Spanish laws, the
+cupidity of the corregidores and the tormenting system of the
+missionaries often restricted their liberty, that state of vexatious
+oppression was far different from personal slavery like that of the
+slavery of the blacks, or of the vassalage of the peasantry in the
+Sclavonian part of Europe. It is the small number of blacks, it is the
+liberty of the aboriginal race, of which America has preserved more
+than eight millions and a half without mixture of foreign blood, that
+characterizes the ancient continental possessions of Spain, and
+renders their moral and political situation entirely different from
+that of the West Indies, where, by the disproportion between the free
+men and the slaves, the principles of the Colonial System have been
+developed with more energy. In the West Indian archipelago as in
+Brazil (two portions of America which contain near 3,200,000 slaves)
+the fear of [?] among the blacks, and the perils that surround the
+whites, have been hitherto the most powerful causes of the security of
+the mother countries and of the maintenance of the Portuguese dynasty.
+Can this security, from its nature, be of long duration? Does it
+justify the inertness of governments who neglect to remedy the evil
+while it is yet time? I doubt this. When, under the influence of
+extraordinary circumstances, alarm is mitigated, when countries in
+which the accumulation of slaves has produced in society the fatal
+mixture of heterogeneous elements may be led, perhaps unwillingly,
+into an exterior struggle, civil dissensions will break forth in all
+their violence and European families, innocent of an order of things
+which they have had no share in creating, will be exposed to the most
+imminent dangers.
+
+We can never sufficiently praise the legislative wisdom of the new
+republics of Spanish America which, since their birth, have been
+seriously intent on the total extinction of slavery. That vast portion
+of the earth has, in this respect, an immense advantage over the
+southern part of the United States, where the whites, during the
+struggle with England, established liberty for their own profit, and
+where the slave population, to the number of 1,600,000, augments still
+more rapidly than the whites.* (* In 1769, forty-six years before the
+declaration of the Congress at Vienna, and thirty-eight years before
+the abolition of the slave-trade, decreed in London and at Washington,
+the Chamber of Representatives of Massachusetts had declared itself
+against "the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind."
+See Walsh's Appeal to the United States, 1819 page 312. The Spanish
+writer, Avendano, was perhaps the first who declaimed forcibly not
+only against the slave-trade, abhorred even by the Afghans
+(Elphinstone's Journey to Cabul page 245), but against slavery in
+general, and "all the iniquitous sources of colonial wealth."
+Thesaurus Ind. tom. 1 tit. 9 cap. 2.) If civilization, instead of
+extending, were to change its place; if, after great and deplorable
+convulsions in Europe, America, between Cape Hatteras and the
+Missouri, were to become the principal seat of the light of
+Christianity, what a spectacle would be presented by that centre of
+civilization, where, in the sanctuary of liberty, we could attend a
+sale of negroes after the death of a master, and hear the sobbings of
+parents who are separated from their children! Let us hope that the
+generous principles which have so long animated the legislatures of
+the northern parts of the United States will extend by degrees
+southward and towards those western regions where, by the effect of an
+imprudent and fatal law, slavery and its iniquities have passed the
+chain of the Alleghenies and the banks of the Mississippi: let us hope
+that the force of public opinion, the progress of knowledge, the
+softening of manners, the legislation of the new continental republics
+and the great and happy event of the recognition of Hayti by the
+French government, will, either from motives of prudence and fear, or
+from more noble and disinterested sentiments, exercise a happy
+influence on the amelioration of the state of the blacks in the rest
+of the West Indies, in the Carolinas, Guiana, and Brazil.
+
+In order to slacken gradually the bonds of slavery the laws against
+the slave-trade must be most strictly enforced, and punishments
+inflicted for their infringement; mixed tribunals must be formed, and
+the right of search exercised with equitable reciprocity. It is
+melancholy to learn that, owing to the culpable indifference of some
+of the governments of Europe, the slave-trade (more cruel from having
+become more secret) has dragged from Africa, within ten years, almost
+the same number of negroes as before 1807; but we must not from this
+fact infer the inutility, or, as the secret partisans of slavery
+assert, the practical impossibility of the beneficent measures adopted
+first by Denmark, the United States and Great Britain, and
+successively by all the rest of Europe. What passed from 1807 till the
+time when France recovered possession of her ancient colonies, and
+what passes in our days in nations whose governments sincerely desire
+the abolition of the slave-trade and its abominable practices, proves
+the fallacy of this conclusion. Besides, is it reasonable to compare
+numerically the importation of slaves in 1825 and in 1806? With the
+activity prevailing in every enterprise of industry, what an increase
+would the importation of negroes have taken in the English West Indies
+and the southern provinces of the United States if the slave-trade,
+entirely free, had continued to supply new slaves, and had rendered
+the care of their preservation and the increase of the old population,
+superfluous? Can we believe that the English trade would have been
+limited, as in 1806, to the sale of 53,000 slaves; and that of the
+United States, to the sale of 15,000? It is pretty well ascertained
+that the English islands received in the 106 years preceding 1786 more
+than 2,130,000 negroes, forcibly carried from the coast of Africa. At
+the period of the French revolution, the slave-trade furnished
+(according to Mr. Norris) 74,000 slaves annually, of which the English
+colonies absorbed 38,000, and the French 20,000. It would be easy to
+prove that the whole of the West Indian archipelago, which now
+comprises scarcely 2,400,000 negroes and mulattoes (free and slaves),
+received, from 1670 to 1825, nearly 5,000,000 of Africans. These
+revolting calculations respecting the consumption of the human species
+do not include the number of unfortunate slaves who have perished in
+the passage or have been thrown into the sea as damaged merchandize.*
+(* Volume 7 page 151. See also the eloquent speech of the Duke de
+Broglie, March 28th, 1822 pages 40, 43 and 96.) By how many thousands
+must we have augmented the loss, if the two nations most distinguished
+for ardour and intelligence in the development of commerce and
+industry, the English and the inhabitants of the United States, had
+continued, from 1807, to carry on the trade as freely as some other
+nations of Europe? Sad experience has proved how much the treaties of
+the 15th July, 1814, and of the 22nd January, 1815, by which Spain and
+Portugal reserved to themselves the trade in blacks during a certain
+number of years, have been fatal to humanity.
+
+The local authorities, or rather the rich proprietors, forming the
+Ayuntamiento of the Havannah, the Consulado and the Patriotic Society,
+have on several occasions shown a disposition favourable to the
+amelioration of the condition of the slaves.* (* Dicen nuestros Indios
+del Rio Caura cuando se confiesan que ya entienden que es pecado
+corner carne humana; pero piden qua se les permita desacostumbrarse
+poco a poco; quieren comer la carne humana una vez al mes, despues
+cada tres meses, hasta qua sin sentirlo pierdan la costumbre. Cartas
+de los Rev Padres Observantes Number 7 manuscript. [Our negroes of the
+River Caura say, when they confess, that they know it is sinful to eat
+human flesh; they beg to be permitted to break themselves of the
+custom, little by little: they wish to eat human flesh once a month,
+and afterwards once every three months, until they feel they have
+cured themselves of the practice.]) If the government of the
+mother-country, instead of dreading the least appearance of
+innovation, had taken advantage of those propitious circumstances, and
+of the ascendancy of some men of abilities over their countrymen, the
+state of society would have undergone progressive changes; and in our
+days, the inhabitants of the island of Cuba would have enjoyed some of
+the improvements which have been under discussion for the space of
+thirty years. The movement at Saint Domingo in 1790 and those which
+took place in Jamaica in 1794 caused so great an alarm among the
+haciendados of the island of Cuba that in a Junta economica it was
+warmly debated what measure could be adopted to secure the
+tranquillity of the country. Regulations were made respecting the
+pursuit of fugitive slaves,* which, till then, had given rise to the
+most revolting excesses (* Reglamento sobre los Negros Cimmarrones de
+26 de Dec. de 1796. Before the year 1788 there were great numbers of
+fugitive negroes (cimmarones) in the mountains of Jaruco, where they
+were sometimes apalancados, that is, where several of those
+unfortunate creatures formed small intrenchments for their common
+defence by heaping up trunks of trees. The maroon negroes, born in
+Africa (bozales), are easily taken; for the greater number, in the
+vain hope of finding their native land, march day and night in the
+direction of the east. When taken they are so exhausted by fatigue and
+hunger that they are only saved by giving them, during several days,
+very small quantities of soup. The creole maroon negroes conceal
+themselves by day in the woods and steal provisions during the night.
+Till 1790, the right of taking the fugitive negroes belonged only to
+the Alcalde mayor provincial, an hereditary office in the family of
+the Count de Bareto. At present any of the inhabitants can seize the
+maroons and the proprietor of the slave pays four piastres per head,
+besides the food. If the name of the master is not known, the
+Consulado employs the maroon negro in the public works. This
+man-hunting, which, at Hayti and Jamaica, has given so much fatal
+celebrity to the dogs of Cuba, was carried on in the most cruel manner
+before the regulation which I have mentioned above.); it was proposed
+to augment the number of negresses on the sugar estates, to direct
+more attention to the education of children, to diminish the
+introduction of African negroes, to bring white planters from the
+Canaries, and Indian planters from Mexico, to establish country
+schools with the view of improving the manners of the lower class, and
+to mitigate slavery in an indirect way. These propositions had not the
+desired effect. The junta opposed every system of immigration, and the
+majority of the proprietors, indulging their old illusions of
+security, would not restrain the slave-trade when the high price of
+the produce gave a hope of extraordinary profit. It would, however, be
+unjust not to acknowledge in this struggle between private interests
+and the views of wise policy, the desires and the principles
+manifested by some inhabitants of the island of Cuba, either in their
+own name or in the name of some rich and powerful corporations. "The
+humanity of our legislation," says M. d'Arango nobly,* in a memoir
+written in 1796 (* Informe sobre negros fugitives (de 9 de Junio de
+1769), par Don Francisco de Arango y Pareno, Oidor honorario y syndico
+del Consulado.), "grants the slave four rights (quatro consuelos)
+which somewhat assuage his sufferings and which have always been
+refused him by a foreign policy. These rights are, the choice of a
+master less severe* (* The right of buscar amo. When a slave has found
+a new master who will purchase him, he may quit the master of whom he
+has to complain; such is the sense and spirit of a law, beneficent,
+though often eluded, as are all the laws that protect the slaves. In
+the hope of enjoying the privilege of buscar amo, the blacks often
+address to the travellers they meet, a question, which in civilized
+Europe, where a vote or an opinion is sometimes sold, is more
+equivocally expressed; Quiere Vm comprarme? [Will you buy me, Sir?]);
+the privilege of marrying according to his own inclination; the
+possibility of purchasing his liberty* by his labour (* A slave in the
+Spanish colonies ought, according to law, to be estimated at the
+lowest price; this estimate, at the time of my journey, was, according
+to the locality, from 200 to 380 piastres. In 1825 the price of an
+adult negro at the island of Cuba, was 450 piastres. In 1788 the
+French trade furnished a negro for 280 to 300 piastres. A slave among
+the Greeks cost 300 to 600 drachmes (54 to 108 piastres), when the
+day-labourer was paid one-tenth of a piastre. While the Spanish laws
+and institutions favour manumission in every way, the master, in the
+other islands, pays the fiscal, for every freed slave, five to seven
+hundred piastres!), and of paying, with an acquired property, for the
+liberty of his wife and children.* (* What a contrast is observable
+between the humanity of the most ancient Spanish laws concerning
+slavery, and the traces of barbarism found in every page of the Black
+Code and in some of the provincial laws of the English islands! The
+laws of Barbadoes, made in 1686, and those of Bermuda, in 1730,
+decreed that the master who killed his negro in chastising him, could
+not even be sued, while the master who killed his slave wilfully
+should pay ten pounds sterling to the royal treasury. A law of saint
+Christopher's, of March 11th, 1784, begins with these words: "Whereas
+some persons have of late been guilty of cutting off and depriving
+slaves of their ears, we order that whoever shall extirpate an eye,
+tear out the tongue, or cut off the nose of a slave, shall pay five
+hundred pounds sterling, and be condemned to six months imprisonment."
+It is unnecessary to add that these English laws, which were in force
+thirty or forty years ago, are abolished and superseded by laws more
+humane. Why can I not say as much of the legislation of the French
+islands, where six young slaves, suspected of an intention to escape,
+were condemned, by a sentence pronounced in 1815, to have their
+hamstrings cut!) Notwithstanding the wisdom and mildness of Spanish
+legislation, to how many excesses the slave is exposed in the solitude
+of a plantation or a farm, where a rude capatez, armed with a cutlass
+(machete) and a whip, exercises absolute authority with impunity! The
+law neither limits the punishment of the slave, nor the duration of
+labour; nor does it prescribe the quality and quantity of his food.*
+(* A royal cedula of May 31st, 1789 had attempted to regulate the food
+and clothing; but that cedula was never executed.) It permits the
+slave, it is true, to have recourse to a magistrate, in order that he
+may enjoin the master to be more equitable; but this recourse is
+nearly illusory; for there exists another law according to which every
+slave may be arrested and sent back to his master who is found without
+permission at the distance of a league and a half from the plantation
+to which he belongs. How can a slave, whipped, exhausted by hunger,
+and excess of labour, find means to appear before the magistrate? and
+if he did reach him, how would he be defended against a powerful
+master who calls the hired accomplices of his cruelties as witnesses."
+
+In conclusion I may quote a very remarkable extract from the
+Representacion del Ayuntamiento, Consulado, y Sociedad patriotica,
+dated July 20th, 1811. "In all that relates to the changes to be
+introduced in the captive class, there is much less question of our
+fears on the diminution of agricultural wealth, than of the security
+of the whites, so easy to be compromised by imprudent measures.
+Besides, those who accuse the consulate and the municipality of the
+Havannah of obstinate resistance forget that, in the year 1799, the
+same authorities proposed fruitlessly that the government would divert
+attention to the state of the blacks in the island of Cuba (del
+arreglo de este delicado asunto.) Further, we are far from adopting
+the maxims which the nations of Europe, who boast of their
+civilization, have regarded as incontrovertible; that, for instance,
+without slaves there could be no colonies. We declare, on the
+contrary, that without slaves, and even without blacks, colonies might
+have existed, and that the whole difference would have been comprised
+in more or less profit, by the more or less rapid increase of the
+products. But such being our firm persuasion, we ought also to remind
+your Majesty that a social organization into which slavery has been
+introduced as an element cannot be changed with inconsiderate
+precipitation. We are far from denying that it was an evil contrary to
+all moral principles to drag slaves from one continent to another;
+that it was a political error not to have listened to the
+remonstrances of Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola, who complained of
+the introduction and accumulation of so many slaves in proximity with
+a small number of free men; but, these evils being now inveterate, we
+ought to avoid rendering our position and that of our slaves worse, by
+the employment of violent means. What we ask of your Majesty is
+conformable to the wish proclaimed by one of the most ardent
+protectors of the rights of humanity, by the most determined enemy of
+slavery; we desire, like him, that the civil laws should deliver us at
+the same time from abuses and dangers."
+
+On the solution of this problem depends, in the West India Islands
+only, and exclusive of the republic of Hayti, the security of 875,000
+free men (whites and men of colour* (* Namely: 452,000 whites, of
+which 342,000 are in the two Spanish Islands (Cuba and Porto Rico),
+and 423,000 free men of colour, mulattoes, and blacks.)) and the
+mitigation of the sufferings of 1,150,000 slaves. It is evident that
+these objects can never be attained by peaceful means, without the
+concurrence of the local authorities, either colonial assemblies, or
+meetings of proprietors designated by less dreaded names, by the old
+parent state. The direct influence of the authorities is
+indispensable; and it is a fatal error to believe that we may leave it
+to time to act. Time will act simultaneously on the slaves, on the
+relations between the islands and the inhabitants of the continent,
+and on events which cannot be controlled, when they have been waited
+for with the inaction of apathy. Wherever slavery is long established,
+the increase of civilization solely has less influence on the
+treatment of slaves than many are disposed to admit. The civilization
+of a nation seldom extends to a great number of individuals; and does
+not reach those who in the plantations are in immediate contact with
+the blacks. I have known very humane proprietors shrink from the
+difficulties that arise in the great plantations; they hesitate to
+disturb established order, to make innovations, which, if not
+simultaneous, not supported by the legislation, or (which would be
+more powerful) by public feeling, would fail in their end, and perhaps
+aggravate the wretchedness of those whose sufferings they were meant
+to alleviate. These considerations retard the good that might be
+effected by men animated by the most benevolent intentions, and who
+deplore the barbarous institutions which have devolved to them by
+inheritance. They well know that to produce an essential change in the
+state of the slaves, to lead them progressively to the enjoyment of
+liberty, requires a firm will on the part of the local authorities,
+the concurrence of wealthy and enlightened citizens, and a general
+plan in which all chances of disorder and means of repression are
+wisely calculated. Without this community of action and effort
+slavery, with its miseries and excesses, will survive as it did in
+ancient Rome,* along with elegance of manners, progressive
+intelligence, and all the charms of the civilization which its
+presence accuses, and which it threatens to destroy, whenever the hour
+of vengeance shall arrive. (* The argument deduced from the
+civilization of Rome and Greece in favour of slavery is much in vogue
+in the West Indies, where sometimes we find it adorned with all the
+graces of erudition. Thus, in speeches delivered in 1795, in the
+Legislative Assembly of Jamaica, it was alleged that from the example
+of elephants having been employed in the wars of Pyrrhus and Hannibal,
+it could not be blamable to have brought a hundred dogs and forty
+hunters from the island of Cuba to hunt the maroon negroes. Bryan
+Edwards volume 1 page 570.) Civilization, or slow national
+demoralization, merely prepare the way for future events; but to
+produce great changes in the social state there must be a coincidence
+of certain events, the period of the occurrence of which cannot be
+calculated. Such is the complication of human destiny, that the same
+cruelties which tarnished the conquest of America have been re-enacted
+before our own eyes in times which we suppose to be characterized by
+vast progress, information and general refinement of manners. Within
+the interval embraced by the span of one life we have seen the reign
+of terror in France, the expedition to St. Domingo,* (* The North
+American Review for 1821 Number 30 contains the following passage:
+Conflicts with slaves fighting for their freedom are not only dreadful
+on account of the atrocities to which they give rise on both sides;
+but even after freedom has been gained they help to confound every
+sentiment of justice and injustice. Some planters are condemning to
+death all the male negro population above six years of age. They
+affirm that those who have not borne arms will be contaminated by the
+example of those who have been fighting. This merciless act is the
+consequence of the result of the continued misfortunes of the
+colonies. Charault, Reflexions sur Saint Domingue.), the political
+re-action in Naples and Spain, I may also add, the massacres of Chio,
+Ipsara and Missolonghi, the work of the barbarians of Eastern Europe,
+which the civilized nations of the north and west did not deem it
+their duty to prevent. In slave countries, where the effect of long
+habit tends to legitimize institutions the most adverse to justice, it
+is vain to count on the influence of information, of intellectual
+culture, or refinement of manners, except in as much as all those
+benefits accelerate the impulse given by governments and facilitate
+the execution of measures once adopted. Without the directive action
+of governments and legislatures a peaceful revolution is a thing not
+to be hoped for. The danger becomes the more imminent when a general
+inquietude pervades the public mind; when amidst the political
+dissensions of neighbouring countries the faults and the duties of
+governments have been revealed: in such cases tranquillity can be
+restored only by a ruling authority which, in the noble consciousness
+of its power and right, sways events by entering itself on the career
+of improvement.
+
+
+CHAPTER 3.32.
+
+GEOGNOSTIC DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH AMERICA, NORTH OF THE RIVER AMAZON,
+AND EAST OF THE MERIDIAN OF THE SIERRA NEVADA DE MERIDA.
+
+The object of this memoir is to concentrate the geological
+observations which I collected during my journeys among the mountains
+of New Andalusia and Venezuela, on the banks of the Orinoco and in the
+Llanos of Barcelona, Calabozo and the Apure; consequently, from the
+coast of the Caribbean Sea to the valley of the Amazon, between 2 and
+10 1/2 degrees north latitude.
+
+The extent of country which I traversed in different directions was
+more than 15,400 square leagues. It has already formed the subject of
+a geological sketch, traced hastily on the spot, after my return from
+the Orinoco, and published in 1801. At that period the direction of
+the Cordillera on the coast of Venezuela and the existence of the
+Cordillera of Parime were unknown in Europe. No measure of altitude
+had been attempted beyond the province of Quito; no rock of South
+America had been named; there existed no description of the
+superposition of rocks in any region of the tropics. Under these
+circumstances an essay tending to prove the identity of the formations
+of the two hemispheres could not fail to excite interest. The study of
+the collections which I brought back with me, and four years of
+journeying in the Andes, have enabled me to rectify my first views,
+and to extend an investigation which, by reason of its novelty, had
+been favourably received. That the most remarkable geological
+relations may be the more easily seized, I shall treat aphoristically,
+in different sections, the configuration of the soil, the general
+division of the land, the direction and inclination of the beds and
+the nature of the primitive, intermediary, secondary and tertiary
+rocks.
+
+SECTION 1.
+
+ Configuration of the Country.
+ Inequalities of the Soil.
+ Chains and Groups of Mountains.
+ Divisionary Ridges.
+ Plains or Llanos.
+
+South America is one of those great triangular masses which form the
+three continental parts of the southern hemisphere of the globe. In
+its exterior configuration it resembles Africa more than Australia.
+The southern extremities of the three continents are so placed that,
+in sailing from the Cape of Good Hope (latitude 33 degrees 55 minutes)
+to Cape Horn (latitude 55 degrees 58 minutes), and doubling the
+southern point of Van Diemen's Land (latitude 43 degrees 38 minutes),
+we see those lands stretching out towards the south pole in proportion
+as we advance eastward. A fourth part of the 571,000 square sea
+leagues* (* Almost double the extent of Europe.) which South America
+comprises is covered with mountains distributed in chains or gathered
+together in groups. The other parts are plains forming long
+uninterrupted bands covered with forests or gramina, flatter than in
+Europe, and rising progressively, at the distance of 300 leagues from
+the coast, between 30 and 170 toises above the level of the sea. The
+most considerable mountainous chain in South America extends from
+south to north according to the greatest dimension of the continent;
+it is not central like the European chains, nor far removed from the
+sea-shore, like the Himalaya and the Hindoo-Koosh; but it is thrown
+towards the western extremity of the continent, almost on the coast of
+the Pacific Ocean. Referring to the profile which I have given* of the
+configuration of South America (* Map of Columbia according to the
+astronomical observations of Humboldt by A.H. Brue 1823.), in the
+latitude of Chimborazo and Grand Para, across the plains of the
+Amazon, we find the land low towards the east, in an inclined plane,
+at an angle of less than 25 seconds on a length of 600 leagues; and
+if, in the ancient state of our planet, the Atlantic Ocean, by some
+extraordinary cause, ever rose to 1100 feet above its present level (a
+height one-third less than the table-lands of Spain and Bavaria), the
+waves must, in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, have broken upon
+the rocks that bound the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras of the
+Andes. The rising of this ridge is so inconsiderable compared to the
+whole continent that its breadth in the parallel of Cape Saint Roche
+is 1400 times greater than the average height of the Andes.
+
+We distinguish in the mountainous part of South America a chain and
+three groups of mountains, namely, the Cordillera of the Andes, which
+the geologist may trace without interruption from Cape Pilares, in the
+western part of the Straits of Magellan, to the promontory of Paria
+opposite the island of Trinidad; the insulated group of the Sierra
+Nevada de Santa Marta; the group of the mountains of the Orinoco, or
+of La Parime; and that of the mountains of Brazil. The Sierra de Santa
+Marta being nearly in the meridian of the Cordilleras of Peru and New
+Grenada, the snowy summits descried by navigators in passing the mouth
+of the Rio Magdalena are commonly mistaken for the northern extremity
+of the Andes. I shall soon prove that the colossal group of the Sierra
+de Santa Marta is almost entirely separate from the mountains of Ocana
+and Pamplona which belong to the eastern Cordillera of New Grenada.
+The hot plains through which runs the Rio Cesar, and which extend
+towards the valley of Upar, separate the Sierra Nevada from the Paramo
+de Cacota, south of Pamplona. The ridge which divides the waters
+between the gulf of Maracaibo and the Rio Magdalena is in the plain on
+the east of the Laguna Zapatoza. If, on the one hand, the Sierra de
+Santa Marta has been erroneously considered (on account of its eternal
+snow, and its longitude) to be a continuation of the Cordillera of the
+Andes, on the other hand, the connexion of that same Cordillera with
+the coast mountains of the provinces of Cumana and Caracas has not
+been recognized. The littoral chain of Venezuela, of which the
+different ranges form the Montana de Paria, the isthmus of Araya, the
+Silla of Caracas and the gneiss-granite mountains north and south of
+the lake of Valencia, is joined between Porto Cabello, San Felipe and
+Tocuyo to the Paramos de las Rosas and Niquitao, which form the
+north-east extremity of the Sierra de Merida, and the eastern
+Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada. It is sufficient here to
+mention this connexion, so important in a geological point of view;
+for the denominations of Andes and Cordilleras being altogether in
+disuse as applied to the chains of mountains extending from the
+eastern gulf of Maracaibo to the promontory of Paria, we shall
+continue to designate those chains (stretching from west to east) by
+the names of littoral chain, or coast-chain of Venezuela.
+
+Of the three insulated groups of mountains, that is to say, those
+which are not branches of the Cordillera of the Andes and its
+continuation towards the shore of Venezuela, one is on the north, and
+the other two on the west of the Andes: that on the north is the
+Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; the two others are the Sierra de la
+Parime, between 4 and 8 degrees of north latitude, and the mountains
+of Brazil, between 15 and 28 degrees south latitude. This singular
+distribution of great inequalities of soil produces three plains or
+basins, comprising a surface of 420,600 square leagues, or four-fifths
+of all South America, east of the Andes. Between the coast-chain of
+Venezuela and the group of the Parime, the plains of the Apure and the
+Lower Orinoco extend; between the group of Parime and the Brazil
+mountains are the plains of the Amazon, of the Rio Negro and the
+Madeira, and between the groups of Brazil and the southern extremity
+of the continent are the plains of Rio de la Plata and of Patagonia.
+As the group of the Parime in Spanish Guiana, and of the Brazil
+mountains (or of Minas Geraes and Goyaz), do not join the Cordillera
+of the Andes of New Grenada and Upper Peru towards the west, the three
+plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata, are
+connected by land-straits of considerable breadth. These straits are
+also plains stretching from north to south, and traversed by ridges
+imperceptible to the eye but forming divortia aquarum. These ridges
+(and this remarkable phenomenon has hitherto escaped the attention of
+geologists) are situated between 2 and 3 degrees north latitude, and
+16 and 18 degrees south latitude. The first ridge forms the partition
+of the waters which fall into the Lower Orinoco on the north-east, and
+into the Rio Negro and the Amazon on the south and south-east; the
+second ridge divides the tributary streams of the right bank of the
+Amazon and the Rio de la Plata. These ridges, of which the existence
+is only manifested, as in Volhynia, by the course of the waters, are
+parallel with the coast-chain of Venezuela; they present, as it were,
+two systems of counter-slopes partially developed, in the direction
+from west to east, between the Guaviare and the Caqueta, and between
+the Mamori and the Pilcomayo. It is also worthy of remark that in the
+southern hemisphere the Cordillera of the Andes sends an immense
+counterpoise eastward in the promontory of the Sierra Nevada de
+Cochabamba, whence begins the ridge stretching between the tributary
+streams of the Madeira and the Paraguay to the lofty group of the
+mountains of Brazil or Minas Geraes. Three transversal chains (the
+coast-mountains of Venezuela, of the Orinoco or Parime, and the Brazil
+mountains) tend to join the longitudinal chain (the Andes) either by
+an intermediary group (between the lake of Valencia and Tocuyo), or by
+ridges formed by the intersection of counter-slopes in the plains. The
+two extremities of the three Llanos which communicate by land-straits,
+the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata
+or of Buenos Ayres, are steppes covered with gramina, while the
+intermediary Llano (that of the Amazon) is a thick forest. With
+respect to the two land-straits forming bands directed from north to
+south (from the Apure to Caqueta across the Provincia de los Llanos,
+and the sources of the Mamori to Rio Pilcomayo, across the province of
+Mocos and Chiquitos) they are bare and grassy steppes like the plains
+of Caracas and Buenos Ayres.
+
+In the immense extent of land east of the Andes, comprehending more
+than 480,000 square sea leagues, of which 92,000 are a mountainous
+tract of country, no group rises to the region of perpetual snow; none
+even attains the height of 1400 toises. This lowering of the mountains
+in the eastern region of the New Continent extends as far as 60
+degrees north latitude; while in the western part, on the prolongation
+of the Cordillera of the Andes, the highest Summits rise in Mexico
+(latitude 18 degrees 59 minutes) to 2770 toises, and in the Rocky
+Mountains (latitude 37 to 40 degrees) to 1900 toises. The insulated
+group of the Alleghenies, corresponding in its eastern position and
+direction with the Brazil group, does not exceed 1040 toises.* (* The
+culminant point of the Alleghenies is Mount Washington in New
+Hampshire, latitude 44 1/4 degrees. According to Captain Partridge its
+height is 6634 English feet.) The lofty summits, therefore, thrice
+exceeding the height of Mont Blanc, belong only to the longitudinal
+chain which bounds the basin of the Pacific Ocean, from 55 degrees
+south to 68 degrees north latitude, that is to say, the Cordillera of
+the Andes. The only insulated group that can be compared with the
+snowy summits of the equinoctial Andes, and which attains the height
+of nearly 3000 toises, is the Sierra de Santa Marta; it is not
+situated on the east of the Cordilleras, but between the prolongation
+of two of their branches, those of Merida and Veragua. The
+Cordilleras, where they bound the Caribbean Sea, in that part which we
+designate by the name of Coast Chain of Venezuela, do not attain the
+extraordinary height (2500 toises) which they reach in their
+prolongation towards Chita and Merida. Considering separately the
+groups of the east, those of the shore of Venezuela, of the Parime,
+and Brazil, we see their height diminish from north to south. The
+highest summits of each group are the Silla de Caracas (1350 toises),
+the peak of Duida (1300 toises), the Itacolumi and the Itambe* (900
+toises). (* According to the measure of MM. Spix and Martius the
+Itambe de Villa de Principe is 5590 feet high.) But, as I have
+elsewhere observed, it would be erroneous to judge the height of a
+chain of mountains solely from that of the most lofty summits. The
+peak of the Himalayas, accurately measured, is 676 toises higher than
+Chimborazo (* The Peak Iewahir, latitude 30 degrees 22 minutes 19
+seconds; longitude 77 degrees 35 minutes 7 seconds east of Paris,
+height 4026 toises, according to MM. Hodgson and Herbert.); Chimborazo
+is 900 toises higher than Mont Blanc; and Mont Blanc 653 toises higher
+than the peak of Nethou.* (* This peak, called also peak of Anethou or
+Malahita, or eastern peak of Maladetta, is the highest summit of the
+Pyrenees. It rises 1787 toises and consequently exceeds Mont Perdu by
+40 toises.) These differences do not furnish the relative average
+heights of the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps and the Pyrenees, that
+is, the height of the back of the mountains, on which arise the peaks,
+needles, pyramids, or rounded domes. It is that part of the back where
+passes are made, which furnishes a precise measure of the minimum of
+the height of the great chains. In comparing the whole of my measures
+with those of Moorcroft, Webb, Hodgson, Saussure and Ramond, I
+estimate the average height of the top of the Himalayas, between the
+meridians of 75 and 77 degrees, at 2450 toises; the Andes* (at Peru,
+Quito and New Grenada), at 1850 toises (* In the passage of Quindiu,
+between the valley of the Magdalena and that of the Rio Cauca, I found
+the culminant point (la Garita del Parama) to be 1798 toises; it is
+however, regarded as one of the least elevated. The passages of the
+Andes of Guanacas, Guamani and Micuipampa, are respectively 2300,
+1713, and 1817 toises above sea-level. Even in 33 degrees south
+latitude the road across the Andes between Mendoza and Valparaiso is
+1987 toises high. I do not mention the Col de l'Assuay, where I
+passed, near la Ladera de Cadlud, on a ridge 2428 toises high, because
+it is a passage on a transverse ridge joining two parallel chains.);
+the summit of the Alps and Pyrenees at 1150 toises. The difference of
+the mean height of the Cordilleras (between 5 degrees north and 2
+degrees south latitude) and the Swiss Alps, is consequently 200 toises
+less than the difference of their loftiest summits; and in comparing
+the passes of the Alps, we see that their average height is nearly the
+same, although peak Nethou is 600 toises lower than Mont Blanc and
+Mont Rosa. Between the Himalaya* (* The passes of the Himalaya that
+lead from Chinese Tartary into Hindostan (Nitee-Ghaut, Bamsaru, etc.)
+are from 2400 to 2700 toises high.) and the Andes, on the contrary,
+(considering those chains in the limits which I have just indicated),
+the difference between the mean height of the ridges and that of the
+loftiest summits presents nearly the same proportions.
+
+Taking an analogous view of the groups of mountains at the east of the
+Andes, we find the average height of the coast-chain of Venezuela to
+be 750 toises; of the Sierra Parime, 500 toises; of the Brazilian
+group, 400 toises; whence it follows that the mountains of the eastern
+region of South America between the tropics are, when compared to the
+medium elevation of the Andes, in the relation of one to three.
+
+The following is the result of some numerical statements, the
+comparison of which affords more precise ideas on the structure of
+mountains in general.* (* The Cols or passes indicate the minimum of
+the height to which the ridge of the mountains lowers in a particular
+country. Now, looking at the principal passes of the Alps of
+Switzerland (Col Terret, 1191 toises, Mont Cenis, 1060 toises; Great
+Saint Bernard, 1246 toises; Simplon, 1029 toises; and on the neck of
+the Pyrenees, Benasque, 1231 toises; Pinede, 1291 toises; Gavarnic,
+1197 toises; Cavarere, 1151 toises; it would be difficult to affirm
+that the Pyrenees are lower than the average height of the Swiss
+Alps.)
+
+TABLE OF HEIGHTS OF VARIOUS RANGES.
+
+COLUMN 1 : NAMES OF THE CHAINS OF MOUNTAINS.
+COLUMN 2 : THE HIGHEST SUMMITS IN TOISES.
+COLUMN 3 : MEAN HEIGHT OF THE RIDGE IN TOISES.
+COLUMN 4 : PROPORTION OF THE MEAN HEIGHT OF THE RIDGES TO THAT A THE
+HIGHEST SUMMITS.
+
+Himalayas (between north latitude       : 4026 : 2450 : 1 : 1.6.
+30 degrees 18 minutes and 31 degrees
+53 minutes, and longitude 75 degrees
+23 minutes and 77 degrees 38 minutes)
+
+Cordillera of the Andes (between        : 3350 : 1850 : 1 : 1.8.
+latitude 5 and 2 degrees south)
+
+
+Alps of Switzerland                     : 2450 : 1150 : 1 : 2.1.
+
+Pyrenees                                : 1787 : 1150 : 1 : 1.5.
+
+Littoral Chain of Venezuela             : 1350 :  750 : 1 : 1.8.
+
+Group of the Mountains of the Parime    : 1300 :  500 : 1 : 2.6.
+
+Group of the Mountains of Brazil        : 900  :  500 : 1 : 2.3.
+
+If we distinguish among the mountains those which rise sporadically,
+and form small insulated systems,* (* As the groups of the Canaries,
+the Azores, the Sandwich Islands, the Monts-Dores, and the Euganean
+mountains.) and those that make part of a continued chain,* (* The
+Himalayas, the Alps, and the Andes.) we find that, notwithstanding the
+immense height* of the summits of some insulated systems (* Among the
+insulated systems, or sporadic mountains, Mowna-Roa is generally
+regarded as the most elevated summit of the Sandwich Islands. Its
+height is computed at 2500 toises, and yet at some seasons it is
+entirely free from snow. An exact measure of this summit, situated in
+very frequented latitudes, has for 25 years been desired in vain by
+naturalists and geologists.), the culminant points of the whole globe
+belong to continuous chains--to the Cordilleras of Central Asia and
+South America.
+
+In that part of the Andes with which I am best acquainted, between 8
+degrees south latitude and 21 degrees north latitude, all the colossal
+summits are of trachyte. It may almost be admitted as a general rule
+that whenever the mass of mountains rises in that region of the
+tropics much above the limit of perpetual snow (2300 to 2470 toises),
+the rocks commonly called primitive (for instance, gneiss-granite or
+mica-slate) disappear, and the summits are of trachyte or
+trappean-porphyry. I know only a few rare exceptions to this law, and
+they occur in the Cordilleras of Quito where the Nevados of Conderasto
+and Cuvillan, situated opposite to the trachytic Chimborazo, are
+composed of mica-slate and contain veins of sulphuret of silver. Thus
+in the groups of detached mountains which rise abruptly from the
+plains the loftiest summits, such as Mowna-Roa, the Peak of Teneriffe,
+Etna and the Peak of the Azores, present only recent volcanic rocks.
+It would, however, be an error to extend that law to every other
+continent, and to admit, as a general rule, that, in every zone, the
+greatest elevations have produced trachytic domes: gneiss-granite and
+mica-slate constitute the summits of the ridge, in the almost
+insulated group of the Sierra Nevada of Grenada and the Peak of
+Malhacen,* (* This peak, according to the survey of M. Clemente Roxas,
+is 1826 toises above the level of the sea, consequently 39 toises
+higher than the loftiest summit of the Pyrenees (the granitic peak of
+Nethou) and 83 toises lower than the trachytic peak of Teneriffe. The
+Sierra Nevada of Grenada forms a system of mountains of mica-slate,
+passing to gneiss and clay-slate, and containing shelves of euphotide
+and greenstone.), as they also do in the continuous chain of the Alps,
+the Pyrenees and probably the Himalayas.* (* If we may judge from the
+specimens of rocks collected in the gorges and passes of the Himalayas
+or rolled down by the torrents.) These phenomena, discordant in
+appearance, are possibly all effects of the same cause: granite,
+gneiss, and all the so-styled primitive Neptunian mountains, may
+possibly owe their origin to volcanic forces, as well as the
+trachytes; but to forces of which the action resembles less the
+still-burning volcanoes of our days, ejecting lava, which at the
+moment of its eruption comes immediately into contact with the
+atmospheric air; but it is not here my purpose to discuss this great
+theoretic question.
+
+After having examined the general structure of South America according
+to considerations of comparative geology, I shall proceed to notice
+separately the different systems of mountains and plains, the mutual
+connection of which has so powerful an influence on the state of
+industry and commerce in the nations of the New Continent. I shall
+give only a general view of the systems situated beyond the limits of
+the region which forms the special object of this memoir. Geology
+being essentially founded on the study of the relations of
+juxtaposition and place, I could not treat of the littoral chain and
+the chain of the Parime separately, without touching on the other
+systems south and west of Venezuela.
+
+A. SYSTEMS OF MOUNTAINS.
+
+A.1. CORDILLERAS OF THE ANDES.
+
+This is the most continuous, the longest, the most uniform in its
+direction from south to north and north-north-west, of any chain of
+the globe. It approaches the north and south poles at unequal
+distances of from 22 to 33 degrees. Its development is from 2800 to
+3000 leagues (20 to a degree), a length equal to the distance from
+Cape Finisterre in Galicia to the north-east cape (Tschuktschoi-Noss)
+of Asia. Somewhat less than one half of this chain belongs to South
+America, and runs along its western shores. North of the isthmus of
+Cupica and of Panama, after an immense lowering, it assumes the
+appearance of a nearly central ridge, forming a rocky dyke that joins
+the great continent of North America to the southern continent. The
+low lands on the east of the Andes of Guatimala and New Spain appear
+to have been overwhelmed by the ocean and now form the bottom of the
+Caribbean Sea. As the continent beyond the parallel of Florida again
+widens towards the east, the Cordilleras of Durango and New Mexico, as
+well as the Rocky Mountains, merely a continuation of those
+Cordilleras, appear to be thrown still further westward, that is,
+towards the coast of the Pacific Ocean; but they still remain eight or
+ten times more remote from it than in the southern hemisphere. We may
+consider as the two extremities of the Andes, the rock or granitic
+island of Diego Ramirez, south of Cape Horn, and the mountains lying
+at the mouth of Mackenzie River (latitude 69 degrees, longitude 130
+1/2 degrees), more than twelve degrees west of the greenstone
+mountains, known by the name of the Copper Mountains, visited by
+Captain Franklin. The colossal peak of Saint Elias and that of Mount
+Fairweather, in New Norfolk, do not, properly speaking, belong to the
+northern prolongation of the Cordilleras of the Andes, but to a
+parallel chain (the maritime Alps of the north-west coast), stretching
+towards the peninsula of California, and connected by transversal
+ridges with a mountainous land, between 45 and 53 degrees of latitude,
+with the Andes of New Mexico (Rocky Mountains). In South America the
+mean breadth of the Cordillera of the Andes is from 18 to 22 leagues.*
+(* The breadth of this immense chain is a phenomenon well worthy of
+attention. The Swiss Alps extend, in the Grisons and in the Tyrol, to
+a breadth of 36 and 40 leagues, both in the meridians of the lake at
+Como, the canton of Appenzell, and in the meridian of Bassano and
+Tegernsee.) It is only in the knots of the mountains, that is where
+the Cordillera is swelled by side-groups or divided into several
+chains nearly parallel, and reuniting at intervals, for instance, on
+the south of the lake of Titicaca, that it is more than 100 to 120
+leagues broad, in a direction perpendicular to its axis. The Andes of
+South America bound the plains of the Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio
+de la Plata, on the west, like a rocky wall raised across a crevice
+1300 leagues long, and stretching from south to north. This upheaved
+part (if I may be permitted to use an expression founded on a
+geological hypothesis) comprises a surface of 58,900 square leagues,
+between the parallel of Cape Pilesar and the northern Choco. To form
+an idea of the variety of rocks which this space may furnish for the
+observation of the traveller, we must recollect that the Pyrenees,
+according to the observations of M. Charpentier, occupy only 768
+square sea leagues.
+
+The name of Andes in the Quichua language (which wants the consonants
+d, f, and g) Antis, or Ante, appears to me to be derived from the
+Peruvian word anta, signifying copper or metal in general. Anta chacra
+signifies mine of copper; antacuri, copper mixed with gold; and puca
+anta, copper, or red metal. As the group of the Altai mountains* takes
+its name from the Turkish word altor or altyn (* Klaproth. Asia
+polyglotta page 211. It appears to me less probable that the tribe of
+the Antis gave its name to the mountains of Peru.), in the same manner
+the Cordilleras may have been termed "Copper-country," or Anti-suyu,
+on account of the abundance of that metal, which the Peruvians
+employed for their tools. The Inca Garcilasso, who was the son of a
+Peruvian princess, and who wrote the history of his native country in
+the first years of the conquest, gives no etymology of the name of the
+Andes. He only opposes Anti-suyu, or the region of summits covered
+with eternal snow (ritiseca), to the plains or Yuncas, that is, to the
+lower region of Peru. The etymology of the name of the largest
+mountain chain of the globe cannot be devoid of interest to the
+mineralogic geographer.
+
+The structure of the Cordillera of the Andes, that is, its division
+into several chains nearly parallel, which are again joined by knots
+of mountains, is very remarkable. On our maps this structure is
+indicated but imperfectly; and what La Condamine and Bouguer merely
+guessed, during their long visit to the table-land of Quito, has been
+generalized and ill-interpreted by those who have described the whole
+chain according to the type of the equatorial Andes. The following is
+the most accurate information I could collect by my own researches and
+an active correspondence of twenty years with the inhabitants of
+Spanish America. The group of islands called Tierra del Fuego, in
+which the chain of the Andes begins, is a plain extending from Cape
+Espiritu Santo as far as the canal of San Sebastian. The country on
+the west of this canal, between Cape San Valentino and Cape Pilares,
+is bristled with granitic mountains covered (from the Morro de San
+Agueda to Cabo Redondo) with calcareous shells. Navigators have
+greatly exaggerated the height of the mountains of Tierra del Fuego,
+among which there appears to be a volcano still burning. M. de
+Churruca found the height of the western peak of Cape Pilares
+(latitude 52 degrees 45 minutes south) only 218 toises; even Cape Horn
+is probably not more than 500 toises* high. (* It is very distinctly
+seen at the distance of 60 miles, which, without calculating the
+effects of terrestrial refraction, would give it a height of 498
+toises.) The plain extends on the northern shore of the Straits of
+Magellan, from the Virgin's Cape to Cabo Negro; at the latter the
+Cordilleras rise abruptly, and fill the whole space as far as Cape
+Victoria (latitude 52 degrees 22 minutes). The region between Cape
+Horn and the southern extremity of the continent somewhat resembles
+the origin of the Pyrenees between Cape Creux (near the gulf of Rosas)
+and the Col des Perdus. The height of the Patagonian chain is not
+known; it appears, however, that no summit south of the parallel of 48
+degrees attains the elevation of the Canigou (1430 toises) which is
+near the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees. In that southern country,
+where the summers are so cold and short, the limit of eternal snow
+must lower at least as much as in the northern hemisphere, in Norway,
+in latitude 63 and 64 degrees; consequently below 800 toises. The
+great breadth, therefore, of the band of snow that envelopes these
+Patagonian summits, does not justify the idea which travellers form of
+their height in 40 degrees south latitude. As we advance towards the
+island of Chiloe, the Cordilleras draw near the coast; and the
+archipelago of Chonos or Huaytecas appears like the vestiges of an
+immense group of mountains overwhelmed by water. Narrow estuaries fill
+the lower valleys of the Andes, and remind us of the fjords of Norway
+and Greenland. We there find, running from south to north, the Nevados
+de Maca (latitude 45 degrees 19 minutes), of Cuptano (latitude 44
+degrees 58 minutes), of Yanteles (latitude 43 degrees 52 minutes), of
+Corcovado, Chayapirca (latitude 42 degrees 52 minutes) and of Llebean
+(latitude 41 degrees 49 minutes). The peak of Cuptana rises like the
+peak of Teneriffe, from the bosom of the sea; but being scarcely
+visible at thirty-six or forty leagues distance, it cannot be more
+than 1500 toises high. Corcovado, situated on the coast of the
+continent, opposite the southern point of the island of Chiloe,
+appears to be more than 1950 toises high; it is perhaps the loftiest
+summit of the whole globe, south of the parallel of 42 degrees south
+latitude. On the north of San Carlos de Chiloe, in the whole length of
+Chile to the desert of Atacama, the low western regions not having
+been overwhelmed by floods, the Andes there appear farther from the
+coast. The Abbe Molina affirms that the Cordilleras of Chile form
+three parallel chains, of which the intermediary is the most elevated;
+but to prove that this division is far from general, it suffices to
+recollect the barometric survey made by MM. Bauza and Espinosa, in
+1794, between Mendoza and Santiago de Chile. The road leading from one
+of those towns to the other, rises gradually from 700 to 1987 toises;
+and after passing the Col des Andes (La Cumbre, between the houses of
+refuge called Las Calaveras and Las Cuevas), it descends continually
+as far as the temperate valley of Santiago de Chile, of which the
+bottom is only 409 toises above the level of the sea. The same survey
+has made known the minimum of height at Chile of the lower limit of
+snow, in 33 degrees south latitude. The limit does not lower in summer
+to 2000 toises.* (* On the southern declivity of the Himalayas snow
+begins (3 degrees nearer the equator) at 1970 toises.) I think we may
+conclude according to the analogy of the Snowy Mountains of Mexico and
+southern Europe, and considering the difference of the summer
+temperature of the two hemispheres, that the real Nevadas at Chile, in
+the parallel of Valdivia (latitude 40 degrees), cannot be below 1300
+toises; in Valparaiso (latitude 33 degrees) not lower than 2000
+toises, and in that of Copiapo (latitude 27 degrees) not below 2200
+toises of height. These are the limit-numbers, the minimum of
+elevation, which the ridge of the Andes of Chile must attain in
+different degrees of latitude, to enable their summits to rise above
+the line of perpetual snow. The numerical results which I have just
+marked and which are founded on the laws of distribution of heat, have
+still the same importance which they possessed at the time of my
+travels in America; for there does not exist in the immense extent of
+the Andes, from 8 degrees south latitude to the Straits of Magellan,
+one Nevada of which the height above the sea-level has been
+determined, either by a simple geometric measure, or by the combined
+means of barometric and geodesic measurements.
+
+Between 33 and 18 degrees south latitude, between the parallels of
+Valparaiso and Arica, the Andes present towards the east three
+remarkable spurs, the Sierra de Cordova, the Sierra de Salta, and the
+Nevados de Cochabamba. Travellers partly cross and partly go along the
+side of the Sierra de Cordova (between 33 and 31 degrees of latitude)
+in their way from Buenos Ayres to Mendoza; it may be said to be the
+most southern promontory which advances, in the Pampas, towards the
+meridian of 65 degrees; it gives birth to the great river known by the
+name of Desaguadero de Mendoza and extends from San Juan de la
+Frontera and San Juan de la Punta to the town of Cordova. The second
+spur, called the Sierra de Salta and the Jujui, of which the greatest
+breadth is 25 degrees of latitude, widens from the valley of Catamarca
+and San Miguel del Tucuman, in the direction of the Rio Vermejo
+(longitude 64 degrees). Finally, the third and most majestic spur, the
+Sierra Nevada de Cochabamba and Santa Cruz (from 22 to 17 1/2 degrees
+of latitude), is linked with the knot of the mountains of Porco. It
+forms the points of partition (divortia aquarum, between the basin of
+the Amazon and that of the Rio de la Plata. The Cachimayo and the
+Pilcomayo, which rise between Potosi, Talavera de la Puna, and La
+Plata or Chuquisaca, run in the direction of south-east, while the
+Parapiti and the Guapey (Guapaiz, or Rio de Mizque) pour their waters
+into the Mamori, to north-east. The ridge of partition being near
+Chayanta, south of Mizque, Tomina and Pomabamba, nearly on the
+southern declivity of the Sierra de Cochabamba in latitude 19 and 20
+degrees, the Rio Guapey flows round the whole group, before it reaches
+the plains of the Amazon, as in Europe the Poprad, a tributary of the
+Vistula, makes a circuit in its course from the southern part of the
+Carpathians to the plains of Poland. I have already observed above,
+that where the mountains cease (west* of the meridian of 66 1/2
+degrees (* I agree with Captain Basil Hall, in fixing the port of
+Valparaiso in 71 degrees 31 minutes west of Greenwich, and I place
+Cordova 8 degrees 40 minutes, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra 7 degrees 4
+minutes east of Valparaiso. The longitudes mentioned in the text refer
+always to the meridian of the Observatory of Paris.)) the partition
+ridge of Cochabamba goes up towards the north-east, to 16 degrees of
+latitude, forming, by the intersection of two slightly inclined
+planes, only one ridge amidst the savannahs, and separating the waters
+of the Guapore, a tributary of the Madeira, from those of the Aguapehy
+and Jauru, tributaries of the Rio Paraguay. This vast country between
+Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Villabella, and Matogrosso, is one of the
+least known parts of South America. The two spurs of Cordova and Salta
+present only a mountainous territory of small elevation, and linked to
+the foot of the Andes of Chile. Cochabamba, on the contrary, attains
+the limit of perpetual snow (2300 toises) and forms in some sort a
+lateral branch of the Cordilleras, diverging even from their tops
+between La Paz and Oruro. The mountains composing this branch (the
+Cordillera de Chiriguanaes, de los Sauces and Yuracarees) extend
+regularly from west to east; their eastern declivity* is very rapid,
+and their loftiest summits are not in the centre, but in the northern
+part of the group. (* For much information concerning the Sierra de
+Cochabamba I am indebted to the manuscripts of my countryman, the
+celebrated botanist Taddeus Haenke, which a monk of the congregation
+of the Escurial, Father Cisneros, kindly communicated to me at Lima.
+Mr. Haenke, after having followed the expedition of Alexander
+Malaspina, settled at Cochabamba in 1798. A part of the immense herbal
+of this botanist is now at Prague.)
+
+The principal Cordillera of Chile and Upper Peru is, for the first
+time, ramified very distinctly into two branches, in the group of
+Porco and Potosi, between latitude 19 and 20 degrees. These two
+branches comprehend the table-land extending from Carangas to Lamba
+(latitude 19 3/4 to 15 degrees) and in which is situated the small
+mountain lake of Paria, the Desaguadero, and the great Laguna of
+Titicaca or Chucuito, of which the western part bears the name of
+Vinamarca. To afford an idea of the colossal dimensions of the Andes,
+I may here observe that the surface of the lake of Titicaca alone (448
+square sea leagues) is twenty times greater than that of the Lake of
+Geneva, and twice the average extent of a department of France. On the
+banks of this lake, near Tiahuanacu, and in the high plains of Callao,
+ruins are found which bear evidence of a state of civilization
+anterior to that which the Peruvians assign to the reign of the Inca
+Manco Capac. The eastern Cordillera, that of La Paz, Palca, Ancuma,
+and Pelechuco, join, north-west of Apolobamba, the western Cordillera,
+which is the most extensive of the whole chain of the Andes, between
+the parallels 14 and 15 degrees. The imperial city of Cuzco is
+situated near the eastern extremity of this knot, which comprehends,
+in an area of 3000 square leagues, the mountains of Vilcanota,
+Carabaya, Abancai, Huando, Parinacochas, and Andahuaylas. Though here,
+as in general, in every considerable widening of the Cordillera, the
+grouped summits do not follow the principal axis in uniform and
+parallel directions, a phenomenon observable in the general
+disposition of the chain of the Andes, from latitude 18 degrees, is
+well worthy the attention of geologists. The whole mass of the
+Cordilleras of Chile and Upper Peru, from the Straits of Magellan to
+the parallel of the port of Arica (18 degrees 28 minutes 35 seconds),
+runs from south to north, in the direction of a meridian at most 5
+degrees north-east; but from the parallel of Arica, the coast and the
+two Cordilleras east and west of the Alpine lake of Titicaca, abruptly
+change their direction and incline to north-west. The Cordilleras of
+Ancuma and Moquehua, and the longitudinal valley, or rather the basin
+of Titicaca, which they inclose, take a direction north 42 degrees
+west. Further on, the two branches again unite in the group of the
+mountains of Cuzco, and thence their direction is north 80 degrees
+west. This group of which the table-land inclines to the north-east,
+forms a curve, nearly from east to west, so that the part of the Andes
+north of Castrovireyna is thrown back more than 242,000 toises
+westward. This singular geological phenomenon resembles the variation
+of dip of the veins, and especially of the two parts of the chain of
+the Pyrenees, parallel to each other, and linked by an almost
+rectangular elbow, 16,000 toises long, near the source of the
+Garonne;* (* Between the mountain of Tentenade and the Port d'Espot.);
+but in the Andes, the axes of the chain, south and north of the curve,
+do not preserve parallelism. On the north of Castrovireyna and
+Andahuaylas (latitude 14 degrees), the direction is north 22 degrees
+west, while south of 15 degrees, it is north 42 degrees west. The
+inflexions of the coast follow these changes. The shore separated from
+the Cordillera by a plain 15 leagues in breadth, stretches from Camapo
+to Arica, between 27 1/2 and 18 1/2 degrees latitude north 5 degrees
+east; from Arica to Pisco, between 18 1/2 and 14 degrees latitude at
+first north 42 degrees west, afterwards north 65 degrees west; and
+from Pisco to Truxillo, between 14 and 8 degrees of latitude north 27
+degrees west. The parallelism between the coast and the Cordillera of
+the Andes is a phenomenon the more worthy of attention, as it occurs
+in several parts of the globe where the mountains do not in the same
+manner form the shore.
+
+After the great knot of mountains of Cuzco and Parinacochas, in 14
+degrees south latitude, the Andes present a second bifurcation, on the
+east and west of the Rio Jauja, which throws itself into the Mantaro,
+a tributary stream of the Apurimac. The eastern chain stretches on the
+east of Huanta, the convent of Ocopa and Tarma; the western chain, on
+the west of Castrovireyna, Huancavelica, Huarocheri, and Yauli. The
+basin, or rather the lofty table-land which is inclosed by these
+chains, is nearly half the length of the basin of Chucuito or
+Titicaca. Two mountains covered with eternal snow, seen from the town
+of Lima, and which the inhabitants name Toldo de la Nieve, belong to
+the western chain, that of Huarocheri.
+
+North-west of the valleys of Salcabamba, in the parallel of the ports
+of Huaura and Guarmey, between 11 and 10 degrees latitude, the two
+chains unite in the knot of the Huanuco and the Pasco, celebrated for
+the mines of Yauricocha or Santa Rosa. There rise two peaks of
+colossal height, the Nevados of Sasaguanca and of La Viuda. The
+table-land of this knot of mountains appears in the Pambas de Bombon
+to be more than 1800 toises above the level of the ocean. From this
+point, on the north of the parallel of Huanuco (latitude 11 degrees),
+the Andes are divided into three chains: the first, and most eastern,
+rises between Pozuzu and Muna, between the Rio Huallaga, and the Rio
+Pachitea, a tributary of the Ucayali; the second, or central, is
+between the Huallaga, and the Upper Maranon; the third, or western,
+between the Upper Maranon and the coast of Truxillo and Payta. The
+eastern chain is a small lateral branch which lowers into a range of
+hills: its direction is first north-north-east, bordering the Pampas
+del Sacramento, afterwards it turns west-north-west, where it is
+broken by the Rio Huallaga, in the Pongo, above the confluence of
+Chipurana, and then it loses itself in latitude 6 1/4 degrees, on the
+north-west of Lamas. A transversal ridge seems to connect it with the
+central chain, south of Paramo de Piscoguanuna (or Piscuaguna), west
+of Chachapoyas. The intermediary or central chain stretches from the
+knot of Pasco and Huanuco, towards north-north-west, between Xican and
+Chicoplaya, Huacurachuco and the sources of the Rio Monzan, between
+Pataz and Pajatan, Caxamarquilla and Moyobamba. It widens greatly in
+the parallel of Chachapoyas, and forms a mountainous territory,
+traversed by deep and extremely hot valleys. On the north of the
+Paramo de Piscoguanuna (latitude 6 degrees) the central chain throws
+two branches in the direction of La Vellaca and San Borja. We shall
+soon see that this latter branch forms, below the Rio Neva a tributary
+stream of the Amazon, the rocks that border the famous Pongo de
+Manseriche. In this zone, where North Peru approximates to the
+confines of New Grenada in latitude 10 and 5 degrees, no summit of the
+eastern and central chains rises as high as the region of perpetual
+snow; the only snowy summits are in the western chain. The central
+chain, that of the Paramos de Callacalla, and Piscoguanuna, scarcely
+attains 1800 toises, and lowers gently to 800 toises; so that the
+mountainous and temperate tract of country which extends on the north
+of Chachapoyas towards Pomacocha, La Vellaca and the source of the Rio
+Nieva is rich in fine cinchona trees. After having passed the Rio
+Huallaga and the Pachitea, which with the Beni forms the Ucayali, we
+find, in advancing towards the east, only ranges of hills. The western
+chain of the Andes, which is the most elevated and nearest to the
+coast, runs almost parallel with the shore north 22 degrees west,
+between Caxatambo and Huary, Conchucos and Guamachuco, by Caxamarca,
+the Paramo de Yanaguanga, and Montan, towards the Rio de Guancabamba.
+It comprises (between 9 and 7 1/2 degrees) the three Nevados de
+Pelagatos, Moyopata and Huaylillas. This last snowy summit, situated
+near Guamachuco (in 7 degrees 55 minutes latitude), is the more
+remarkable, since from thence on the north, as far as Chimborazo, on a
+length of 140 leagues, there is not one mountain that enters the
+region of perpetual snow. This depression, or absence of snow, extends
+in the same interval, over all the lateral chains; while, on the south
+of the Nevado de Huaylillas, it always happens that when one chain is
+very low, the summits of the other exceed the height of 2460 toises.
+It was on the south of Micuipampa (latitude 7 degrees 1 minute) that I
+found the magnetic equator.
+
+The Amazon, or as it is customary to say in those regions, the Upper
+Maranon, flows through the western part of the longitudinal valley
+lying between the Cordilleras of Chachapayas and Caxamarca.
+Comprehending in one point of view, this valley, and that of the Rio
+Jauja, bounded by the Cordilleras of Tarma and Huarocheri, we are
+inclined to consider them as one immense basin 180 leagues long, and
+crossed in the first third of its length, by a dyke, or ridge 18,000
+toises broad. In fact, the two alpine lakes of Lauricocha and
+Chinchaycocha, where the river Amazon and the Rio de Jauja take their
+rise, are situated south and north of this rocky dyke, which is a
+prolongation of the knot of Huanuco and Pasco. The Amazon, on issuing
+from the longitudinal valley which bounds the chains of Caxamarca and
+Chachacocha, breaks the latter chain; and the point where the great
+river penetrates the mountains, is very remarkable. Entering the
+Amazon by the Rio Chamaya or Guancabamba, I found opposite the
+confluence, the picturesque mountain of Patachuana; but the rocks on
+both banks of the Amazon begin only between Tambillo and Tomependa
+(latitude 5 degrees 31 minutes, longitude 80 degrees 56 minutes). From
+thence to the Pongo de Rentema, a long succession of rocks follow, of
+which the last is the Pongo de Tayouchouc, between the strait of
+Manseriche and the village of San Borja. The course of the Amazon,
+which is first directed north, then east, changes near Puyaya, three
+leagues north-east of Tomependa. Throughout the whole distance between
+Tambillo and San Borja, the waters force a way, more or less narrow,
+across the sandstones of the Cordillera of Chachapoyas. The mountains
+are lofty near the Embarcadero, at the confluence of the Imasa, where
+large trees of cinchona, which might be easily transplanted to
+Cayenne, or the Canaries, approach the Amazon. The rocks in the famous
+strait of Manseriche are scarcely 40 toises high; and further eastward
+the last hills rise near Xeberos, towards the mouth of the Rio
+Huallaga.
+
+I have not yet noticed the extraordinary widening of the Andes near
+the Apolobamba. The sources of the Rio Beni being found in the spur
+which stretches northward beyond the confluence of that river with the
+Apurimac, I shall give to the whole group the name of "the spur of
+Beni." The following is the most certain information I have obtained
+respecting those countries, from persons who had long inhabited
+Apolobamba, the Real das Minas of Pasco, and the convent of Ocopa.
+Along the whole eastern chain of Titicaca, from La Paz to the knot of
+Huanuco (latitude 17 1/2 to 10 1/2 degrees) a very wide mountainous
+land is situated eastward, at the back of the declivity of the Andes.
+It is not a widening of the eastern chain itself, but rather of the
+small heights that surround the foot of the Andes like a penumbra,
+filling the whole space between the Beni and the Pachitca. A chain of
+hills bounds the eastern bank of the Beni to latitude 8 degrees; for
+the rivers Coanache and Magua, tributaries of the Ucayali (flowing in
+latitude 6 and 7 degrees) come from a mountainous tract between the
+Ucayali and the Javari. The existence of this tract in so eastern a
+longitude (probably longitude 74 degrees), is the more remarkable, as
+we find at four degrees of latitude further north, neither a rock nor
+a hill on the east of Xeberos, or the mouth of the Huallaga (longitude
+77 degrees 56 minutes).
+
+We have just seen that the spur of Beni, a sort of lateral branch,
+loses itself about latitude 8 degrees; the chain between the Ucayali
+and the Huallaga terminates at the parallel of 7 degrees, in joining,
+on the west of Lamas, the chain of Chachapayas, stretching between the
+Huallaga and the Amazon. Finally, the latter chain, to which I have
+given the designation of central, after forming the rapids and
+cataracts of the Amazon, between Tomependa and San Borja, turns to
+north-north-west, and joins the western chain, that of Caxamarca, or
+the Nevados of Pelagatos and Huaylillas, and forms the great knot of
+the mountains of Loxa. The mean height of this knot is only from 1000
+to 1200 toises: its mild climate renders it peculiarly favourable to
+the growth of the cinchona trees, the finest kinds of which are found
+in the celebrated forest of Caxanuma and Uritusinga, between the Rio
+Zamora and the Cachiyacu, and between Tavacona and Guancabamba. Before
+the cinchona of Popayan and Santa Fe de Bogota (north latitude 2 1/2
+to 5 degrees), of Huacarachuco, Huamalies and Huanuco (south latitude
+9 to 11 degrees) became known, the group of the mountains of Loxa had
+for ages been regarded as the sole region whence the febrifuge bark of
+cinchona could be obtained. This group occupies the vast territory
+between Guancabamba, Avayaca, Ona and the ruined towns of Zamora and
+Loyola, between latitude 5 1/2 and 3 1/4 degrees. Some of the summits
+(the Paramos of Alpachaca, Saraguru, Savanilla, Gueringa, Chulucanas,
+Guamani, and Yamoca, which I measured) rise from 1580 to 1720 toises,
+but are not even sporadically covered with snow, which in this
+latitude falls only above 1860 to 1900 toises of absolute height.
+Eastward, in the direction of the Rio Santiago and the Rio de Chamaya,
+two tributary streams of the Amazon, the mountains lower rapidly:
+between San Felipe, Matara, and Jaen de Bracamoros, they are not more
+than 500 or 300 toises.
+
+As we advance from the mica-slate mountain of Loxa towards the north,
+between the Paramos of Alpachaca and Sara (in latitude 3 degrees 15
+minutes) the knot of mountains ramifies into two branches which
+comprehend the longitudinal valley of Cuenca. This separation
+continues for a length of only 12 leagues; for in latitude 2 degrees
+27 minutes the two Cordilleras again re-unite in the knot of Assuy, a
+trachytic group, of which the table-land near Cadlud (2428 toises
+high) nearly enters the region of perpetual snow.
+
+The group of the mountains of Assuy, which affords a very frequented
+pass of the Andes between Cuenca and Quito (latitude 2 1/2 to 0
+degrees 40 minutes south) is succeeded by another division of the
+Cordilleras, celebrated by the labours of Bouguer and La Condamine,
+who placed their signals sometimes on one, sometimes on the other of
+the two chains. The eastern chain is that of Chimborazo (3350 toises)
+and Carguairazo; the western is the chain of the volcano Sangay, the
+Collanes, and of Llanganate. The latter is broken by the Rio Pastaza.
+The bottom of the longitudinal basin that bounds those two chains,
+from Alausi to Llactacunga, is somewhat higher than the bottom of the
+basin of Cuenca. North of Llactacanga, 0 degrees 40 minutes latitude,
+between the tops of Yliniza (2717 toises) and Cotopaxi (2950 toises),
+of which the former belongs to the chain of Chimborazo, and the latter
+to that of Sangay, is situated the knot of Chisinche; a kind of narrow
+dyke that closes the basin, and divides the waters between the
+Atlantic and the Pacific. The Alto de Chisinche is only 80 toises
+above the surrounding table-lands. The waters of its northern
+declivity form the Rio de San Pedro, which, joining the Rio Pita,
+throws itself into the Gualabamba, or Rio de las Esmeraldas. The
+waters of the southern declivity, called Cerro de Tiopullo, run into
+the Rio San Felipe and the Pastaza, a tributary stream of the Amazon.
+
+The bipartition of the Cordilleras re-commences and continues from 0
+degrees 40 minutes latitude south to 0 degrees 20 minutes latitude
+north; that is, as far as the volcano of Imbabura near the villa of
+Ibarra. The eastern Cordillera presents the snowy summits of Antisana
+(2992 toises), of Guamani, Cayambe (3070 toises) and of Imbabura; the
+western Cordillera, those of Corazon, Atacazo, Pichinca (2491 toises)
+and Catocache (2570 toises). Between these two chains, which may be
+regarded as the classic soil of the astronomy of the 18th century, is
+a valley, part of which is again divided longitudinally by the hills
+of Ichimbio and Poignasi. The table-lands of Puembo and Chillo are
+situated eastward of those hills; and those of Quito, Inaquito and
+Turubamba lie westward. The equator crosses the summit of the Nevado
+de Cayambe and the valley of Quito, in the village of San Antonio de
+Lulumbamba. When we consider the small mass of the knot of Assuy, and
+above all, of that of Chisinche, we are inclined to regard the three
+basins of Cuenca, Hambato and Quito as one valley (from the Paramo de
+Sarar to the Villa de Ibarra) 73 sea leagues long, from 4 to 5 leagues
+broad, having a general direction north 8 degrees east, and divided by
+two transverse dykes one between Alausi and Cuenca (2 degrees 27
+minutes south latitude), and the other between Machache and Tambilbo
+(0 degrees 40 minutes). Nowhere in the Cordillera of the Andes are
+there more colossal mountains heaped together than on the east and
+west of this vast basin of the province of Quito, one degree and a
+half south, and a quarter of a degree north of the equator. This basin
+which, next to the basin of Titicaca, is the centre of the most
+ancient native civilization, touches, southward, the knot of the
+mountains of Loxa, and northward the tableland of the province of Los
+Pastos.
+
+In this province, a little beyond the villa of Ibarra, between the
+snowy summits of Cotocache and Imbabura, the two Cordilleras of Quito
+unite, and form one mass, extending to Meneses and Voisaco, from 0
+degrees 21 minutes north latitude to 1 degree 13 minutes. I call this
+mass, on which are situated the volcanoes of Cumbal and Chiles, the
+knot of the mountains of Los Pastos, from the name of the province
+that forms the centre. The volcano of Pasto, the last eruption of
+which took place in the year 1727, is on the south of Yenoi, near the
+northern limit of this group, of which the inhabited table-lands are
+more than 1600 toises above sea-level. It is the Thibet of the
+equinoctial regions of the New World.
+
+On the north of the town of Pasto (latitude 1 degree 13 minutes north;
+longitude 79 degrees 41 minutes) the Andes again divide into two
+branches and surround the table-land of Mamendoy and Almaguer. The
+eastern Cordillera contains the Sienega of Sebondoy (an alpine lake
+which gives birth to the Putumayo), the sources of the Jupura or
+Caqueta, and the Paramos of Aponte and Iscanse. The western
+Cordillera, that of Mamacondy, called in the country Cordillera de la
+Costa, on account of its proximity to the shore of the Pacific, is
+broken by the great Rio de Patias, which receives the Guativa, the
+Guachicon and the Quilquase. The table-land or intermediary basin has
+great inequalities; it is partly filled by the Paramos of Pitatumba
+and Paraguay, and the separation of the two chains appeared to me
+indistinct as far as the parallel of Almaguer (latitude 1 degree 54
+minutes; longitude 79 degrees 15 minutes). The general direction of
+the Andes, from the extremity of the basin of the province of Quito to
+the vicinity of Popayan, changes from north 8 degrees east to north 36
+degrees east; and follows the direction of the coast of Esmeralda and
+Barbacoas.
+
+On the parallel of Almaguer, or rather a little north-east of that
+town, the geological structure of the ground displays very remarkable
+changes. The Cordillera, to which we have given the name of eastern,
+that of the lake of Sebondoy, widens considerably between Pansitara
+and Ceja. The knot of the Paramo de las Papas and of Socoboni gives
+birth to the great rivers of Cauca and Magdalena, and is divided into
+two chains, latitude 2 degrees 5 minutes east and west of La Plata,
+Vieja and Timana. These two chains continue nearly parallel as far as
+5 degrees of latitude, and they bound the longitudinal valley through
+which winds the Rio Magdalena. We shall give the name of the eastern
+Cordillera of New Grenada to that chain which stretches towards Santa
+Fe de Bogota, and the Sierra Nevada de Merida, east of Magdalena; the
+chain which lies between the Magdalena and the Cauca, in the direction
+of Mariquita, we will call the central Cordillera of New Grenada; and
+the chain which continues the Cordillera de la Costa from the basin of
+Almaguer, and separates the bed of the Rio Cauca from the
+platiniferous territory of Choco, we will designate the western
+Cordillera of New Grenada. For additional clearness, we may also name
+the chain, that of Suma Paz, after the colossal group of mountains on
+the south of Santa Fe de Bogota, which empties the waters of its
+eastern declivity into the Rio Meta. The second chain may bear the
+name of the chain of Guanacas or Quindiu, after the two celebrated
+passages of the Andes, on the road from Santa Fe de Bogota to Popayan.
+The third chain may be called the chain of Choco, or of the shore.
+Some leagues south of Popayan (latitude 2 degrees 21 minutes north),
+west of Paramo de Palitara and the volcano of Purace, a ridge of
+mica-slate runs from the knot of the mountains of Sacoboni to
+north-west, and divides the waters between the Pacific and the
+Caribbean Sea; they flow from the northern declivity into the Rio
+Cauca, and from the southern declivity, into the Rio de Patias.
+
+The tripartition of the Andes (north latitude 1 3/4 to 2 1/4 degrees)
+resembles that which takes place at the source of the Amazon in the
+knot of the mountains of Huanuco and Pasco (latitude 11 degrees
+south); but the most western of the three chains that bound the basins
+of the Amazon and the Huallaga, is the loftiest; while that of Choco,
+or the shore, is the least elevated of the three chains of New
+Grenada. Ignorance of this tripartition of the Andes in that part of
+South America near the Rio Atrato and the isthmus of Panama, has led
+to many erroneous opinions respecting the possibility of a canal that
+should connect the two seas.
+
+The eastern chain of the Andes of New Grenada* preserves its
+parallelism during some time with the two other chains, those of
+Quindiu and Choco; but beyond Tunja (latitude 5 1/2 degrees) it
+inclines more towards the north-east, passing somewhat abruptly from
+the direction north 25 degrees east to that of north 45 degrees east.
+(* I employ a systematic denomination, for the name of the Andes is
+unknown in the countries situated north of the equator.) It is like a
+vein that changes its direction; and it rejoins the coast after being
+greatly enlarged by the grouping of the snowy mountains of Merida. The
+tripartition of the Cordilleras, and above all, the spreading of their
+branches, have a vast influence on the prosperity of the nations of
+New Grenada. The diversity of the superposed table-lands and climates
+varies the agricultural productions as well as the character of the
+inhabitants. It gives activity to the exchange of productions, and
+renews over a vast surface, north of the equator, the picture of the
+sultry valleys and cool and temperate plains of Peru. It is also
+worthy of remark that, by the separation of one of the branches of the
+Cordilleras of Cundinamarca and by the deviation of the chain of
+Bogota towards the north-east, the colossal group of the mountains of
+Merida is enclosed in the territory of the ancient Capitania-general
+of Venezuela, and that the continuity of the same mountainous land
+from Pamplona to Barquisimeto and Nirgua may be said to have
+facilitated the political union of the Columbian territory. As long as
+the central chain (that of Quindiu) presents its snowy summits, no
+peak of the eastern chain (that of La Suma Paz) rises, in the same
+parallels, to the limit of perpetual snow. Between latitude 2 and 5
+1/2 degrees neither the Paramos situated on the east of Gigante and
+Neiva, nor the tops of La Suma Paz, Chingasa, Guachaneque, and Zoraca,
+exceed the height of 1900 to 2000 toises; while on the north of the
+parallel of Paramo d'Erve (latitude 5 degrees 5 minutes), the last of
+the Nevados of the central Cordillera, we discover in the eastern
+chain the snowy summits of Chita (latitude 5 degrees 50 minutes), and
+of Mucuchies (latitude 8 degrees 12 minutes). Hence it results that
+from latitude 5 degrees the only mountains covered with snow during
+the whole year are the Cordilleras of the east; and although the
+Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta is not, properly speaking, a continuation
+of the Nevados of Chita and Mucuchies (west of Patute and east of
+Merida), it is at least very near their meridian.
+
+Having now arrived at the northern extremity of the Cordilleras,
+comprehended between Cape Horn and the isthmus of Panama, we shall
+proceed to notice the loftiest summits of the three chains which
+separate in the knot of the mountains of Socoboni, and the ridge of
+Roble (latitude 1 degree 50 minutes to 2 degrees 20 minutes). I begin
+with the most eastern chain, that of Timana and Suma Paz, which
+divides the tributary streams of the Magdalena and the Meta: it runs
+by the Paramos de Chingasu, Guachaneque, Zoraca, Toquillo (near
+Labranza Grande), Chita, Almorsadero, Laura, Cacota, Zumbador and
+Porqueras, in the direction of the Sierra Nevada de Merida. These
+Paramos indicate ten partial risings of the back of the Cordilleras.
+The declivity of the eastern chain is extremely rapid on the eastern
+side, where it bounds the basin of the Meta and the Orinoco; it is
+widened on the west by the spurs on which are situated the towns of
+Santa Fe de Bogota, Tunja, Sogamoso and Leiva. They are like
+tablelands fixed to the western declivity, and are from 1300 to 1400
+toises high; that of Bogota (the bottom of an ancient lake) contains
+fossil bones of the mastodon, in the plain called (from them) the
+Campo de Gigantes, near Suacha.
+
+The intermediary, or central chain, runs east of Popayan, by the high
+plains of Mabasa, the Paramos of Guanacas, Huila, Savelillo, Iraca,
+Baraguan, Tolima, Ruiz and Herveo, towards the province of Antioquia.
+In 5 degrees 15 minutes of latitude this chain, the only one that
+shows traces of recent volcanic fire, in the summits of Sotara and
+Purace, widens considerably towards the west, and joins the western
+chain, which we have called the chain of Choco, because the
+platiniferous land of that province lies on the slope opposite the
+Pacific ocean. By the union of the two chains, the basin of the
+province of Popayan is close on the north of Cartago Viejo; and the
+river of Cauca, issuing from the plain of Buga, is forced, from the
+Salto de San Antonio, to La Boca del Espiritu Santo, to open its way
+across the mountains, along a course of from 40 to 50 leagues. The
+difference of the level is very remarkable in the bottom of the two
+parallel basins of Cauca and Magdalena. The former, between Cali and
+Cantago, is from 500 to 404 toises; the latter, from Neiva to
+Ambalema, is from 265 to 150 toises high. According to different
+geological hypotheses, it may be said either that the secondary
+formations have not accumulated to the same thickness between the
+eastern and central, as between the central and western chains; or,
+that the deposits have been made on the base of primitive rocks,
+unequally upheaved on the east and west of the Andes of Quindiu. The
+average difference of the thickness of these formations is 300 toises.
+The rocky ridge of the Angostura of Carare branches from the
+south-east, from the spur of Muzo, through which winds the Rio Negro.
+By this spur, and by those that come from the west, the eastern and
+central chains approach between Nares, Honda, and Mendales. In fact,
+the bed of the Rio Magdalena is narrowed in 5 and 5 degrees 18
+minutes, on the east by the mountains of Sergento, and on the west by
+the spurs that are linked with the granitic mountains of Maraquito and
+Santa Ana. This narrowing of the bed of the river is in the same
+parallel with that of the Cauca, near the Salto de San Antonio; but,
+in the knot of the mountains of Antioquia the central and western
+chains join each other, while between Honda and Mendales, the tops of
+the central and eastern chains are so far removed that it is only the
+spurs of each system that draw near and are confounded together. It is
+also worthy of remark that the central Cordillera of New Grenada
+displays the loftiest summit of the Andes in the northern hemisphere.
+The peak of Tolima (latitude 4 degrees 46 minutes) which is almost
+unknown even by name in Europe, and which I measured in 1801, is at
+least 2865 toises high. It consequently surpasses Imbabura and
+Cotocache in the province of Quito, the Chiles of the table-lands of
+Los Pastos, the two volcanoes of Popayan and even the Nevados of
+Mexico and Mount Saint Elias of Russian America. The peak of Tolima,
+which in form resembles Cotapaxi, is perhaps inferior in height only
+to the ridge of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which may be
+considered as an insulated system of mountains.
+
+The eastern chain, also called the chain of Choco and the east coast
+(of the Pacific), separates the provinces of Popayan and Antioquia
+from those of Barbacoas, Raposo and Choco. It is in general but little
+elevated, compared to the height of the central and eastern chains; it
+however presents great obstacles to the communications between the
+valley of Cauca and the shore. On its western slope lies the famous
+auriferous and platiniferous land,* which has during ages yielded more
+than 13,000 marks of gold annually. (* Choco, Barbacoas and Brazil are
+the only countries in which the existence of grains of platinum and
+palladium has hitherto been fully ascertained. The small town of
+Barbacoas is situated on the left bank of the Rio Telembi (a tributary
+of Patias or the Rio del Castigo) a little above the confluence of
+Telembi and the Guagi or Guaxi, nearly in latitude 1 degree 48
+minutes. The ancient Provincia, or rather the Partido del Raposo,
+comprehends the insalubrious land extending from the Rio Dagua, or San
+Buenaventura, to the Rio Iscuande, the southern limit of Choco.) This
+alluvial zone is from ten to twelve leagues broad; its maximum of
+productiveness lies between the parallels of 2 and 6 degrees latitude;
+it sensibly impoverishes towards the north and south, and almost
+entirely disappears between 1 1/4 degree north latitude and the
+equator. The auriferous soil fills the basin of Cauca, as well as the
+ravines and plains west of the Cordillera of Choco; it rises sometimes
+nearly 600 toises above the level of the sea, and descends at least 40
+toises.* (* M. Caldas assigns to the upper limit of the zone of
+gold-washings, only the height of 350 toises. Semanario tome 1 page
+18; but I found the Seraderos[?] of Quilichao, on the north of
+Popayan, to be 565 toises high.) Platinum (and this fact is worthy of
+attention) has hitherto been found only on the west of the Cordillera
+of Choco, and not on the east, notwithstanding the analogy of the
+fragments of rocks of greenstone, phonolite, trachyte, and ferruginous
+quartz, of which the soil of the two slopes is composed. From the
+ridge of Los Robles, which separates the table-land of Almaguer from
+the basin of Cauca, the western chain forms, first, in the Cerros de
+Carpinteria, east of the Rio San Juan de Micay, the continuation of
+the Cordillera of Sindagua, broken by the Rio Patias; then, lowering
+northward, between Cali and Las Juntas de Dagua, and at the elevation
+of 800 to 900 toises, it sends out considerable spurs (latitude 4 1/4
+to 5 degrees) towards the source of the Calima, the Tamana and the
+Andagueda. The two former of these auriferous rivers are tributary
+streams of the Rio San Juan del Choco; the second empties its waters
+into the Atrato. This widening of the western chain forms the
+mountainous part of Choco: here, between the Tado and Zitara, called
+also Francisco de Quibdo, lies the isthmus of Raspadura, across which
+a monk traced a navigable line of communication between the two
+oceans. The culminant point of this system of mountains appears to be
+the Peak of Torra, situated south-east of Novita.
+
+The northern extremity of this enlargement of the Cordillera of Choco,
+which I have just described, corresponds with the junction formed on
+the east, between the same Cordillera and the central chain, that of
+Quindiu. The mountains of Antioquia, on which we have the excellent
+observations of Mr. Restrepo, may be called a knot of mountains, and
+on the northern limit of the plains of Buga, or the basin of Cauca,
+they join the central and western chains. The ridge of the eastern
+Cordillera is at the distance of thirty-five leagues from this knot,
+so that the contraction of the bed of the Rio Magdalena, between Honda
+and Ambalema, is caused only by the approximation of the spurs of
+Mariquita and Guaduas. There is not, therefore, properly speaking, a
+group of mountains between latitude 5 and 5 1/4 degrees, uniting the
+three chains at once. In the group of the province of Antioquia, which
+forms the junction of the central and western Cordilleras, we may
+distinguish two great masses; one between the Magdalena and the Cauca,
+and the other between the Cauca and the Atrato. The first of these
+masses, which is linked most immediately to the snowy summits of
+Herveo, gives birth on the east to the Rio de la Miel and the Nare;
+and on the north to Porce and Nechi; its average height is only from
+1200 to 1350 toises. The culminant point appears to be near Santa
+Rosa, south-west of the celebrated Valley of Bears (Valle de Osos).
+The towns of Rio Negro and Marinilla are built on table-lands 1060
+toises high. The western mass of the knot of the mountains of
+Antioquia, between the Cauca and the Atrato, gives rise, on its
+western descent, to the Rio San Juan, Bevara, and Murri. It attains
+its greatest height in the Alto del Viento, north of Urrao, known to
+the first conquistadores by the name of the Cordilleras of Abide or
+Dabeida. This height (latitude 7 degrees 15 minutes) does not,
+however, exceed 1500 toises. Following the western slope of this
+system of mountains of Antioquia, we find that the point of partition
+of the waters that flow towards the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea
+(latitude 5 1/2 and 6 degrees ) nearly corresponds with the parallel
+of the isthmus of Raspadura, between the Rio San Juan and the Atrato.
+It is remarkable that in this group, more than 30 leagues broad,
+without sharp summits, between latitude 5 1/4 and 7 degrees, the
+highest masses rise towards the west; while, further south, before the
+union of the two chains of Quindiu and Choco, we saw them on the east
+of Cauca.
+
+The ramifications of the knot of Antioquia, on the north of the
+parallel 7 degrees, are very imperfectly known; it is observed only
+that their lowering is in general more rapid and complete towards the
+north-west, in the direction of the ancient province of Biruquete and
+Darien, than towards the north and north-east, on the side of Zaragoza
+and Simiti. From the northern bank of the Rio Nare, near its
+confluence with the Samana, a spur stretches out, known by the name of
+La Simitarra, and the Mountains of San Lucar. We may call it the first
+branch of the group of Antioquia. I saw it, in going up the Rio
+Magdalena, on the west, from the Regidor and the mouth of the Rio
+Simiti, as far as San Bartolome (on the south of the mouth of the Rio
+Sogamozo); while, eastward, in latitude 7 3/4 and 8 1/4 degrees, the
+spur of the mountains of Ocana appear in the distance; they are
+inhabited by some tribes of Molitone Indians. The second branch of the
+group of Antioquia (west of Samitarra) commences at the mountains of
+Santa Rosa, stretches out between Zaragoza and Caceres, and terminates
+abruptly at the confluence of the Rio Nechi (latitude 8 degrees 33
+minutes): at least if the hills, often conical, between the mouth of
+the Rio Sinu and the small town of Tolu, or even the calcareous
+heights of Turbaco and Popa, near Carthagena, may not be regarded as
+the most northern prolongation of this second branch. A third advances
+towards the gulf of Uraba or Darien, between the Rio San Jorge and the
+Atrato. It is linked southward with the Alto del Viento, or Sierra de
+Abide, and is rapidly lost, advancing as far as the parallel of 8
+degrees. Finally, the fourth branch of the Andes of Antioquia,
+situated westward of Zitara and the Rio Atrato, undergoes, long before
+it enters the isthmus of Panama, such a depression, that between the
+Gulf of Cupica and the embarcadero of the Rio Naipipi, we find only a
+plain across which M. Gogueneche has projected a canal for the
+junction of the two seas. It would be interesting to know the
+configuration of the strata between Cape Garachine, or the Gulf of St.
+Miguel, and Cape Tiburon, especially towards the source of the Rio
+Tuyra and Chucunaque or Chucunque, so as to determine with precision
+where the mountains of the isthmus of Panama begin to rise; mountains
+whose elevation does not appear to be more than 100 toises. The
+interior of Darfur is not more unknown to geographers than the humid,
+insalubrious forest-land which extends on the north-west of Betoi and
+the confluence of the Bevara with the Atrato, towards the isthmus of
+Panama. All that we positively know of it hitherto is that between
+Cupica and the left bank of the Atrato there is either a land-strait,
+or a total absence of the Cordillera. The mountains of the isthmus of
+Panama, by their direction and their geographical position, may be
+considered as a continuation of the mountains of Antioquia and Choco;
+but on the west of Bas-Atrato, there is scarcely a ridge in the plain.
+We do not find in this country a group of interposed mountains like
+that which links (between Barquisimeto, Nirgua and Valencia) the
+eastern chain of New Grenada (that of Suma Paz and the Sierra Nevada
+de Merida) to the Cordillera of the shore of Venezuela.
+
+The Cordillera of the Andes, considered in its whole extent, from the
+rocky wall of the island of Diego Ramirez to the isthmus of Panama, is
+sometimes ramified into chains more or less parallel, and sometimes
+articulated by immense knots of mountains. We distinguish nine of
+those knots, and consequently an equal number of branching-points and
+ramifications. The latter are generally bifurcations. The Andes are
+twice only divided into three chains; in the knot of Huanuco, near the
+source of the Amazon, and the Huallaga (latitude 10 to 11 degrees) and
+in the knot of the Paramo de las Papas (latitude 2 degrees), near the
+source of the Magdalena and the Cauca. Basins, almost shut in at their
+extremities, parallel with the axis of the Cordillera and bounded by
+two knots and two lateral chains, are characteristic features of the
+structure of the Andes. Among these knots of mountains some, for
+instance those of Cuzco, Loxa and Los Pastos, comprise 3300, 1500 and
+1130 square leagues, while others no less important in the eye of the
+geologist are confined to ridges or transversal dykes. To the latter
+belong the Altos de Chisinche (latitude 0 degrees 40 minutes south)
+and the Los Robles (latitude 2 degrees 20 minutes north), on the south
+of Quito and Popayan. The knot of Cuzco, so celebrated in the annals
+of Peruvian civilization, presents an average height of from 1200 to
+1400 toises, and a surface nearly three times greater than the whole
+of Switzerland. The ridge of Chisinche, which separates the basins of
+Tacunga and Quito, is 1580 toises high, but scarcely a mile broad. The
+knots or groups which unite several partial chains have not the
+highest summits, either in the Andes or, for the most part, in the
+great mountain ranges of the old continent; it is not even certain
+that there is always in those knots a widening of the chain. The
+greatness of the mass, and the height so long attributed to points
+whence several considerable branches issue, was founded either on
+theoretic ideas or on false measures. The Cordilleras were compared to
+rivers that swell as they receive a number of tributary streams.
+
+Among the basins which the Andes present, and which form probably as
+many lakes or small inland seas, those of Titicaca, Rio Jauja and the
+Upper Maranon, comprise respectively 3500, 1300, and 2400 square
+leagues of surface.* (* I here subjoin some measures interesting to
+geologists. Area of the Andes, from Tierra del Fuego to the Paramo de
+las Rosas (latitude 9 1/4 degrees north), where the mountainous land
+of Tocuyo and Barquesimeto begins, part of the Cordillera of the shore
+of Venezuela, 58,900 square leagues, (20 to a degree) the four spurs
+of Cordova, Salta, Cochabamba and Beni alone, occupy 23,300 square
+leagues of this surface, and the three basins contained between
+latitude 6 and 20 degrees south measure 7200 square leagues. Deducting
+33,200 square leagues for the whole of the enclosed basins and spurs,
+we find, in latitude 65 degrees, the area of the Cordilleras elevated
+in the form of walls, to be 25,700 square leagues, whence results
+(comprehending the knots, and allowing for the inflexion of the
+chains) an average breadth of the Andes of 18 to 20 leagues. The
+valleys of Huallaga and the Rio Magdalena are not comprehended in
+these 58,900 square leagues, on account of the diverging direction of
+the chain, east of Cipoplaya and Santa Fe de Bogota.) The first is so
+encompassed that no drop of water can escape except by evaporation; it
+is like the enclosed valley of Mexico,* (* We consider it in its
+primitive state, without respect to the gap or cleft of the mountains,
+known by the name of Desaghue de Huehuetoca.) and of those numerous
+circular basins which have been discerned in the moon, and which are
+surrounded by lofty mountains. An immense alpine lake characterizes
+the basin of Tiahuanaco or Titicaca; this phenomenon is the more
+worthy of attention, as in South America there are scarcely any of
+those reservoirs of fresh water which are found at the foot of the
+European Alps, on the northern and southern slopes, and which are
+permanent during the season of drought. The other basins of the Andes,
+for instance, those of Jauja, the Upper Maranon and Cauca, pour their
+waters into natural canals, which may be considered as so many
+crevices situated either at one of the extremities of the basin, or on
+its banks, nearly in the middle of the lateral chain. I dwell on this
+articulated form of the Andes, on those knots or transverse ridges,
+because, in the continuation of the Andes called the Cordilleras of
+the shore of Venezuela, we shall find the same transverse dykes, and
+the same phenomena.
+
+The ramification of the Andes and of all the great masses of mountains
+into several chains merits particular consideration in reference to
+the height more or less considerable of the bottom of the enclosed
+basins, or longitudinal valleys. Geologists have hitherto directed
+more attention to the successive narrowing of these basins, their
+depth compared with the walls of rock that surround them, and the
+correspondence between the re-entering and the salient angles, than to
+the level of the bottom of the valleys. No precise measure has yet
+fixed the absolute height of the three basins of Titicaca, Jauja and
+the Upper Maranon;* (* I am inclined to believe that the southern part
+of the basin of the Upper Maranon, between Huary and Huacarachuco,
+exceeds 350 toises.) but I was fortunate enough to be able to
+determine the six other basins, or longitudinal valleys, which succeed
+each other, as if by steps, towards the north. The bottom of the
+valley of Cuenca, between the knots of Loxa and Assuay, is 1350
+toises; the valley of Allansi and of Hambato, between the knot of the
+Assuay and the ridge of Chisinche, 1320 toises; the valley of Quito in
+the eastern part, 1340 toises, and in the western part, 1490 toises;
+the basin of Almaguer, 1160 toises; the basin of the Rio Cauca,
+between the lofty plains of Cali, Buga, and Cartago, 500 toises; the
+valley of Magdalena, first between Neiva and Honda, 200 toises; and
+further on, between Honda and Mompox, 100 toises of average height
+above the level of the sea.* (* In the region of the Andes
+comprehended between 4 degrees of south latitude and 2 degrees of
+north, the longitudinal valleys or basins inclosed by parallel chains
+are regularly between 1200 and 1500 toises high; while the transversal
+valleys are remarkable for their depression, or rather the rapid
+lowering of their bottom. The valley of Patias, for instance, running
+from north-east to south-west is only 350 toises of absolute height,
+even above the junction of the Rio Guachion with the Quilquasi,
+according to the barometric measures of M. Caldas; and yet it is
+surrounded by the highest summits, the Paramos de Puntaurcu and
+Mamacondy. Going from the plains of Lombardy, and penetrating into the
+Alps of the Tyrol, by a line perpendicular to the axis of the chain,
+we advance more than 20 marine leagues towards the north, yet we find
+the bottom of the valley of the Adige and of Eysack near Botzen, to be
+only 182 toises of absolute height, an elevation which exceeds but 117
+toises that of Milan. From Botzen however, to the ridge of Brenner
+(culminant point 746 toises) is only 11 leagues. The Valais is a
+longitudinal valley; and in a barometric measurement which I made very
+recently from Paris to Naples and Berlin, I was surprised to find that
+from Sion to Brigg, the bottom of the valley rises only to from 225 to
+350 toises of absolute height; nearly the level of the plains of
+Switzerland, which, between the Alps and the Jura, are only from 274
+to 300 toises.) In this region, which has been carefully measured, the
+different basins lower very sensibly from the equator northward. The
+elevation of the bottom of enclosed basins merits great attention in
+connection with the causes of the formation of the valleys. I do not
+deny that the depressions in the plains may be sometimes the effect of
+ancient pelagic currents, or slow erosions. I am inclined to believe
+that the transversal valleys, resembling crevices, have been widened
+by running waters; but these hypotheses of successive erosions cannot
+well be applied to the completely enclosed basins of Titicaca and
+Mexico. These basins, as well as those of Jauja, Cuenca and Almaguer,
+which lose their waters only by a lateral and narrow issue, owe their
+origin to a cause more instantaneous, more closely linked with the
+upheaving of the whole chain. It may be said that the phenomenon of
+the narrow declivities of the Sarenthal and of the valley of Eysack in
+the Tyrol, is repeated at every step, and on a grander scale, in the
+Cordilleras of equinoctial America. We seem to recognize in the
+Cordilleras those longitudinal sinkings, those rocky vaults, which, to
+use the expression of a great geologist,* "are broken when extended
+over a great space, and leave deep and almost perpendicular rents." (*
+Von Buch, Tableau du Tyrol meridional page 8 1823.)
+
+If, to complete the sketch of the structure of the Andes from Tierra
+del Fuego to the northern Polar Sea, we pass the boundaries of South
+America, we find that the western Cordillera of New Grenada, after a
+great depression between the mouth of the Atrato and the gulf of
+Cupica, again rises in the isthmus of Panama to 80 or 100 toises high,
+augmenting towards the west, in the Cordilleras of Veragua and
+Salamanca,* and extending by Guatimala as far as the confines of
+Mexico. (* If it be true, as some navigators affirm, that the
+mountains at the north-western extremity of the republic of Columbia,
+known by the names of Silla de Veragua, and Castillo del Choco, be
+visible at 36 leagues distance, the elevation of their summits must be
+nearly 1400 toises, little lower than the Silla of Caracas.) Within
+this space it extends along the coast of the Pacific where, from the
+gulf of Nicoya to Soconusco (latitude 9 1/2 to 16 degrees) is found a
+long series of volcanoes,* most frequently insulated, and sometimes
+linked to spurs or lateral branches. (* See the list of twenty-one
+volcanoes of Guatimala, partly extinct and partly still burning, given
+by Arago and myself, in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour
+1824 page 175. No mountain of Guatimala having been hitherto measured,
+it is the more important to fix approximately the height of the Volcan
+de Agua, or the Volcano of Pacaya, and the Volcan de Fuego, called
+also Volcano of Guatimala. Mr. Juarros expressly says that this
+volcano which, by torrents of water and stones, destroyed, on the 11th
+September, 1541, the Ciudad Vieja, or Almolonga (the ancient capital
+of the country, which must not be confounded with the ancient
+Guatimala), is covered with snow, during several months of the year.
+This phenomenon would seem to indicate a height of more than 1750
+toises.) Passing the isthmus of Tehuantepecor Huasacualco, on the
+Mexican territory, the Cordillera of central America extends on toward
+the intendancia of Oaxaca, at an equal distance from the two oceans;
+then from 18 1/2 to 21 degrees latitude, from Misteca to the mines of
+Zimapan, it approximates to the eastern coast. Nearly in the parallel
+of the city of Mexico, between Toluca, Xalapa and Cordoba, it attains
+its maximum height; several colossal summits rising to 2400 and 2770
+toises. Farther north the chain called Sierra Madre runs north 40
+degrees west towards San Miguel el Grande and Guanaxuato. Near the
+latter town (latitude 21 degrees 0 minutes 15 seconds) where the
+richest silver mines of the known world are situated, it widens in an
+extraordinary degree and separates into three branches. The most
+eastern branch advances towards Charcas and the Real de Catorce, and
+lowers progressively (turning to north-east) in the ancient kingdom of
+Leon, in the province of Cohahuila and Texas. That branch is prolonged
+from the Rio Colorado de Texas, crossing the Arkansas near the
+confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri (latitude 38 degrees 51
+minutes). In those countries it bears the name of the Mountains of
+Ozark,* and attains 300 toises of height. (* Ozark is at once the
+ancient name of Arkansas and of the tribe of Quawpaw Indians who
+inhabit the banks of that great river. The culminant point of the
+Mountains of Ozark is in latitude 37 1/2 degrees, between the sources
+of the White and Osage rivers.) It has been supposed that on the east
+of the Mississippi (latitude 44 to 46 degrees) the Wisconsin Hills,
+which stretch out to north-north-east in the direction of Lake
+Superior, may be a continuation of the mountains of Ozark. Their
+metallic wealth seems to denote that they are a prolongation of the
+eastern Cordillera of Mexico. The western branch or Cordillera
+occupies a part of the province of Guadalajara and stretches by
+Culiacan, Aripe and the auriferous lands of the Pimeria Alta and La
+Sonora, as far as the banks of the Rio Gila (latitude 33 to 34
+degrees), one of the most ancient dwellings of the Aztek nations. We
+shall soon see that this western chain appears to be linked by the
+spurs that advance to the west, with the maritime Alps of California.
+Finally, the central Cordillera of Anahuac, which is the most
+elevated, runs first from south-east to north-west, by Zacatecas
+towards Durango, and afterwards from south to north, by Chihuahua,
+towards New Mexico. It takes successively the names of Sierra de Acha,
+Sierra de Los Mimbres, Sierra Verde, and Sierra de las Grullas, and
+about the 29 and 39 degrees of latitude, it is connected by spurs with
+two lateral chains, those of the Texas and La Sonora, which renders
+the separation of the chains more imperfect than the trifurcations of
+the Andes in South America.
+
+That part of the Cordilleras of Mexico which is richest in silver beds
+and veins, is comprehended between the parallels of Oaxaca and
+Cosiquiriachi (latitude 16 1/2 to 29 degrees); the alluvial soil that
+contains disseminated gold extends some degrees still further
+northwards. It is a very striking phenomenon that the gold-washing of
+Cinaloa and Sonora, like that of Barbacoas and Choco on the south and
+north of the isthmus of Panama, is uniformly situated on the west of
+the central chain, on the descent opposite the Pacific. The traces of
+a still-burning volcanic fire which was no longer seen, on a length of
+200 leagues, from Pasto and Popayan to the gulf of Nicoya (latitude 1
+1/4 to 9 1/2 degrees), become very frequent on the western coast of
+Guatimala (latitude 9 1/2 to 16 degrees); these traces of fire again
+cease in the gneiss-granite mountains of Oaxaca, and re-appear,
+perhaps for the last time, towards the north, in the central
+Cordillera of Anahuac, between latitude 18 1/4 and 19 1/2 degrees,
+where the volcanoes of Taxtla, Orizaba, Popocatepetl, Toluca, Jorullo
+and Colima appear to be situated in a crevice* extending from
+east-south-east to west-north-west, from one ocean to the other. (* On
+this zone of volcanoes is the parallel of the greatest heights of New
+Spain. If the survey of Captain Basil Hall afford results alike
+certain in latitude and in longitude, the volcano of Colima is north
+of the parallel of Puerto de Navidad in latitude 19 degrees 36
+minutes; and, like the volcano of Tuxtla, if not beyond the zone, at
+least beyond the average parallel of the volcanic fire of Mexico,
+which parallel seems to be between 18 degrees 59 minutes and 19
+degrees 12 minutes.) This line of summits, several of which enter the
+limit of perpetual snow, and which are the loftiest of the Cordilleras
+from the peak of Tolima (latitude 40 degrees 46 minutes north), is
+almost perpendicular to the great axis of the chain of Guatimala and
+Anahuac, advancing to the 27th parallel, uniformly north 42 degrees
+east. A characteristic feature of every knot, or widening of the
+Cordilleras, is that the grouping of the summits is independent of the
+general direction of the axis. The backs of the mountains in New Spain
+form very elevated plains, along which carriages can roll for an
+extent of 400 leagues, from the capital to Santa-Fe and Taos, near the
+sources of Rio del Norte. This immense table-land, in 19 and 24 1/2
+degrees, is constantly at the height of from 950 to 1200 toises, that
+is, at the elevation of the passes of the Great Saint Bernard and the
+Splugen. We find on the back of the Cordilleras of Anahuac, which
+lower progressively from the city of Mexico towards Taos, a succession
+of basins: they are separated by hills little striking to the eye of
+the traveller because they rise only from 250 to 400 toises above the
+surrounding plains. The basins are sometimes closed, like the valley
+of Tenochtitlan, where lie the great Alpine lakes, and sometimes they
+exhibit traces of ancient ejections, destitute of water.
+
+Between latitude 33 and 38 degrees, the Rio del Norte forms, in its
+upper course, a great longitudinal valley; and the central chain seems
+here to be divided into several parallel ranges. This distribution
+continues northward, in the Rocky Mountains,* where, between the
+parallels of 37 and 41 degrees, several summits covered with eternal
+snow (Spanish Peak, James Peak and Big Horn) are from 1600 to 1870
+toises of absolute height. (* The Rocky Mountains have been at
+different periods designated by the names of Chypewyan, Missouri,
+Columbian, Caous, Stony, Shining and Sandy Mountains.) Towards
+latitude 40 degrees south of the sources of the Paduca, a tributary of
+the Rio de la Plata, a branch known by the name of the Black Hills,
+detaches itself towards the north-east from the central chain. The
+Rocky Mountains at first seem to lower considerably in 46 and 48
+degrees; and then rise to 48 and 49 degrees, where their tops are from
+1200 to 1300 toises, and their ridge near 950 toises. Between the
+sources of the Missouri and the River Lewis, one of the tributaries of
+the Oregon or Columbia, the Cordilleras form in widening, an elbow
+resembling the knot of Cuzco. There, also, on the eastern declivity of
+the Rocky Mountains, is the partition of water between the Caribbean
+Sea and the Polar Sea. This point corresponds with those in the Andes
+of South America, at the spur of Cochabamba, on the east, latitude 19
+degrees 20 minutes south; and in the Alto de los Robles (latitude 2
+degrees 20 minutes north), on the west. The ridge that separates the
+Rocky Mountains extends from west to east, towards Lake Superior,
+between the basins of the Missouri and those of Lake Winnipeg and the
+Slave Lake. The central Cordillera of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains
+follow the direction north 10 degrees west, from latitude 25 to 38
+degrees; the chain from that point to the Polar Sea prolongs in the
+direction north 24 degrees west, and ends in the parallel 69 degrees,
+at the mouth of the Mackenzie River.*
+
+    (* The eastern boundary of the Rocky Mountains lies:--
+    In 38 degrees latitude : 107 degrees 20 minutes longitude.
+    In 40 degrees latitude : 108 degrees 30 minutes longitude.
+    In 63 degrees latitude : 124 degrees 40 minutes longitude.
+    In 68 degrees latitude : 130 degrees 30 minutes longitude.)
+
+In thus developing the structure of the Cordilleras of the Andes from
+56 degrees south to beyond the Arctic circle, we see that its northern
+extremity (longitude 130 degrees 30 minutes) is nearly 61 degrees of
+longitude west of its southern extremity (longitude 60 degrees 40
+minutes); this is the effect of the long-continued direction from
+south-east to north-west north of the isthmus of Panama. By the
+extraordinary breadth of the New Continent, in the 30 and 60 degrees
+north latitude, the Cordillera of the Andes, continually approaching
+nearer to the western coast in the southern hemisphere, is removed 400
+leagues on the north from the source of the Rio de la Paz. The Andes
+of Chile may be considered as maritime Alps,* (* Geognostically
+speaking, a littoral chain is not a range of mountains forming of
+itself the coast; this name is extended to a chain separated from the
+coast by a narrow plain.) while, in their most northern continuation,
+the Rocky Mountains are a chain in the interior of a continent. There
+is, no doubt, between latitude 23 and 60 degrees from Cape Saint Lucas
+in California, to Alaska on the western coast of the Sea of
+Kamschatka, a real littoral Cordillera; but it forms a system of
+mountains almost entirely distinct from the Andes of Mexico and
+Canada. This system, which we shall call the Cordillera of California,
+or of New Albion, is linked between latitude 33 and 34 degrees with
+the Pimeria alta, and the western branch of the Cordilleras of
+Anahuac; and between latitude 45 and 53 degrees, with the Rocky
+Mountains, by transversal ridges and spurs that widen towards the
+east. Travellers who may at some future time pass over the unknown
+land between Cape Mendocino and the source of the Rio Colorado, may
+perhaps inform us whether the connexion of the maritime Alps of
+California or New Albion, with the western branch of the Cordilleras
+of Mexico, resembles that which, notwithstanding the depression, or
+rather total interruption observed on the west of the Rio Atrato, is
+admitted by geographers to exist between the mountains of the isthmus
+of Panama and the western branch of the Andes of New Grenada. The
+maritime Alps, in the peninsula of Old California, rise progressively
+towards the north in the Sierra of Santa Lucia (latitude 34 1/2
+degrees), in the Sierra of San Marcos (latitude 37 to 38 degrees) and
+in the Snowy Mountains near Cape Mendocino (latitude 39 degrees 41
+minutes); the last seem to attain at least the height of 1500 toises.
+From Cape Mendocino the chain follows the coast of the Pacific, but at
+the distance of from twenty to twenty-five leagues. Between the lofty
+summits of Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helen, in latitude 45 3/4
+degrees, the chain is broken by the River Columbia. In New Hanover,
+New Cornwall and New Norfolk these rents of a rocky coast are
+repeated, these geologic phenomena of the fjords that characterize
+western Patagonia and Norway. At the point where the Cordillera turns
+towards the west (latitude 58 3/4 degrees, longitude 139 degrees 40
+minutes) there are two volcanic peaks, one of which (Mount Saint
+Elias) perhaps equals Cotopaxi in height; the other (Fair-Weather
+Mountain) equals the height of Mount Rosa. The elevation of the former
+exceeds all the summits of the Cordilleras of Mexico and the Rocky
+Mountains, north of the parallel 19 1/4 degrees; it is even the
+culminant point in the northern hemisphere, of the whole known world
+north of 50 degrees of latitude. North-west of the peaks of Saint
+Elias and Fair-Weather the chain of California widens considerably in
+the interior of Russian America. Volcanoes multiply in number as we
+advance westward, in the peninsula of Alaska and the Fox Islands,
+where the volcano Ajagedan rises to the height of 1175 toises above
+the level of the sea. Thus the chain of the maritime Alps of
+California appears to be undermined by subterraneous fires at its two
+extremities; on the north in 60 degrees of latitude, and on the south,
+in 28 degrees, in the volcanoes of the Virgins.* (* Volcanes de las
+Virgenes. The highest summit of Old California, the Cerro de la
+Giganta (700 toises), appears to be also an extinguished volcano.) If
+it were certain that the mountains of California belong to the western
+branch of the Andes of Anahuac, it might be said that the volcanic
+fire, still burning, abandons the central Cordillera when it recedes
+from the coast, that is, from the volcano of Colima; and that the fire
+is borne on the north-west by the peninsula of Old California, Mount
+Saint Elias, and the peninsula of Alaska, towards the Aleutian Islands
+and Kamschatka.
+
+I shall terminate this sketch of the structure of the Andes by
+recapitulating the principal features that characterize the
+Cordilleras, north-west of Darien.
+
+Latitude 8 to 11 degrees. Mountains of the isthmus of Panama, Veragua
+and Costa Rica, slightly linked to the western chain of New Grenada,
+which is that of Choco.
+
+Latitude 11 to 16 degrees. Mountains of Nicaragua and Guatimala; line
+of volcanoes north 50 degrees west, for the most part still burning,
+from the gulf of Nicoya to the volcano of Soconusco.
+
+Latitude 16 to 18 degrees. Mountains of gneiss-granite in the province
+of Oaxaca.
+
+Latitude 18 1/2 to 19 1/2 degrees. Trachytic knot of Anahuac, parallel
+with the Nevados and the burning volcanoes of Mexico.
+
+Latitude 19 1/2 to 20 degrees. Knot of the metaliferous mountains of
+Guanaxuato and Zacatecas.
+
+Latitude 21 3/4 to 22 degrees. Division of the Andes of Anahuac into
+three chains:
+
+Eastern chain (that of Potosi and Texas), continued by the Ozark and
+Wisconsin mountains, as far as Lake Superior.
+
+Central chain (of Durango, New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains),
+sending on the north of the source of the river Platte (latitude 42
+degrees) a branch (the Black hills) to north-east, widening greatly
+between the parallels 46 and 50 degrees, and lowering progressively as
+it approaches the mouth of Mackenzie River (latitude 68 degrees).
+
+Western chain (of Cinaloa and Sonora). Linked by spurs to the maritime
+Alps, or mountains of California.
+
+We have yet no means of judging with precision the elevation of the
+Andes south of the knot of the mountains of Loxa (south latitude 3
+degrees 5), but we know that on the north of that knot the Cordilleras
+rise five times higher than the majestic elevation of 2600 toises:
+
+In the group of Quito, 0 to 2 degrees south latitude (Chimborazo,
+Antisano, Cayambe, Cotopaxi, Collanes, Yliniza, Sangay, Tungurahua.)
+
+In the group of Cundinamarca, latitude 4 3/4 degrees north (peak of
+Tolima, north of the Andes of Quindiu).
+
+In the group of Anahuac, from latitude 18 degrees 59 minutes to 19
+degrees 12 minutes (Popocatepetl or the Great Volcano of Mexico, and
+Peak of Orizaba). If we consider the maritime Alps or mountains of
+California and New Norfolk, either as a continuation of the western
+chain of Mexico, that of Sonora, or as being linked by spurs to the
+central chain, that of the Rocky Mountains, we may add to the three
+preceding groups:
+
+The group of Russian America, from latitude 60 to 70 degrees (Mount
+Saint Elias). Over an extent of 63 degrees of latitude, I know only
+twelve summits of the Andes which reach the height of 2600 toises, and
+consequently exceed by 140 toises, the height of Mont Blanc. Only
+three of these twelve summits are situated north of the isthmus of
+Panama.
+
+2. INSULATED GROUP OF THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS OF SANTA MARTA.
+
+In the enumeration of the different systems of mountains, I place this
+group before the littoral chain of Venezuela, though the latter, being
+a northern prolongation of the Cordillera of Cundinamarca, is
+immediately linked with the chain of the Andes. The Sierra Nevado of
+Santa Marta is encompassed within two divergent branches of the Andes,
+that of Bogota, and that of the isthmus of Panama. It rises abruptly
+like a fortified castle, amidst the plains extending from the gulf of
+Darien, by the mouth of the Magdalena, to the lake of Maracaybo. The
+old geographers erroneously considered this insulated group of
+mountains covered with eternal snow, as the extremity of the high
+Cordilleras of Chita and Pamplona. The loftiest ridge of the Sierra
+Nevada de Santa Marta is only three or four leagues in length from
+east to west; it is bounded (at nine leagues distance from the coast)
+by the meridians of the capes of San Diego and San Augustin. The
+culminant points, called El Picacho and Horqueta, are near the western
+border of the group; they are entirely separated from the peak of San
+Lorenzo, also covered with eternal snow, but only four leagues distant
+from the port of Santa Marta, towards the south-east. I saw this
+latter peak from the heights that surrounded the village of Turbaco,
+south of Carthagena. No precise measurement has hitherto given us the
+height of the Sierra Nevada, which Dampier affirms to be one of the
+highest mountains of the northern hemisphere. Calculations founded on
+the maximum of distance at which the group is discerned at sea, give a
+height of more than 3004 toises. That the group of the mountains of
+Santa Marta is insulated is proved by the hot climate of the lands
+(tierras calientes) that surround it. Low ridges and a succession of
+hills indicate, perhaps, an ancient connection between the Sierra
+Nevada de Santa Marta on one side, by the Alto de las Minas, with the
+phonolitic and granitic rocks of the Penon and Banca, and on the
+other, by the Sierra de Perija, with the mountains of Chiliguana and
+Ocana, which are the spurs of the eastern chain of the Andes of New
+Grenada. In this latter chain, the febrifuge species of cinchona
+(corollis hirsutis, staminibus inclusis) are found in the Sierra
+Nevada de Merida; but the real cinchona, the most northern of South
+America, is found in the temperate region of the Sierra Nevada de
+Santa Marta.
+
+3. LITTORAL CHAIN OF VENEZUELA.
+
+This is the system of mountains the configuration and direction of
+which have excited so powerful an influence on the cultivation and
+commerce of the ancient Capitania General of Venezuela. It bears
+different names, as the mountains of Coro, of Caracas, of the
+Bergantin, of Barcelona, of Cumana, and of Paria; but all these names
+belong to the same chain, of which the northern part runs along the
+coast of the Caribbean Sea. This system of mountains, which is 160
+leagues long,* is a prolongation of the eastern Cordillera of the
+Andes of Cundinamarca. (* It is more than double the length of the
+Pyrenees, from Cape Creux to the point of Figuera.) There is an
+immediate connection of the littoral chain with the Andes, like that
+of the Pyrenees with the mountains of Asturia and Galicia; it is not
+the effect of transversal ridges, like the connection of the Pyrenees
+with the Swiss Alps, by the Black Mountain and the Cevennes. The
+points of junction are between Truxillo and the lake of Valencia.
+
+The eastern chain of New Grenada stretches north-east by the Sierra
+Nevada de Merida, as well as by the four Paramos of Timotes, Niquitao,
+Bocono and Las Rosas, of which the absolute height cannot be less than
+from 1400 to 1600 toises. After the Paramo of Las Rosas, which is more
+elevated than the two preceding, there is a great depression, and we
+no longer see a distinct chain or ridge, but merely hills, and high
+table-lands surrounding the towns of Tocuyo and Barquisimeto. We know
+not the height even of Cerro del Altar, between Tocuyo and Caranacatu;
+but we know by recent measures that the most inhabited spots are from
+300 to 350 toises above sea-level. The limits of the mountainous land
+between Tocuyo and the valleys of Aragua are, the plains of San Carlos
+on the south, and the Rio Tocuyo on the north; the Rio Siquisique
+flows into that river. From the Cerro del Altar on the north-east
+towards Guigue and Valencia, succeed, as culminant points, the
+mountains of Santa Maria (between Buria and Nirgua); then the Picacho
+de Nirgua, supposed to be 600 toises high; and finally Las Palomeras
+and El Torito (between Valencia and Nirgua). The line of
+water-partition runs from west to east, from Quibor to the lofty
+savannahs of London, near Santa Rosa. The waters flow on the north,
+towards the Golfo triste of the Caribbean Sea; and on the south,
+towards the basins of the Apure and the Orinoco. The whole of this
+mountainous country, by which the littoral chain of Caracas is linked
+to the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca, was celebrated in Europe in the
+middle of the nineteenth century; for that part of the territory
+formed of gneiss-granite, and lying between the Rio Tocuyo and the Rio
+Yaracui, contains the auriferous veins of Buria, and the copper-mine
+of Aroa which is worked at the present day. If, across the knot of the
+mountains of Barquisimeto, we trace the meridians of Aroa, Nirgua and
+San Carlos, we find that on the north-west that knot is linked with
+the Sierra de Coro, and on the north-east with the mountains of
+Capadare, Porto Cabello and the Villa de Cura. It may be said to form
+the eastern wall of that vast circular depression of which the lake of
+Maracaybo is the centre and which is bounded on the south and west by
+the mountains of Merida, Ocana, Perija and Santa Marta.
+
+The littoral chain of Venezuela presents towards the centre and the
+east the same phenomena of structure as those observed in the Andes of
+Peru and New Grenada; namely, the division into several parallel
+ranges and the frequency of longitudinal basins or valleys. But the
+irruptions of the Caribbean Sea having apparently overwhelmed, at a
+very remote period, a part of the mountains of the shore, the ranges
+or partial chains are interrupted and some basins have become oceanic
+gulfs. To comprehend the Cordillera of Venezuela in mass we must
+carefully study the direction and windings of the coast from Punta
+Tucacas (west of Porto Cabello) as far as Punta de la Galera of the
+island of Trinidad. That island, those of Los Testigos, Marguerita and
+Tortuga constitute, with the mica-slates of the peninsula of Araya,
+one and the same system of mountains. The granitic rocks which appear
+between Buria, Duaca and Aroa cross the valley of the Rio Yaracui and
+draw near the shore, whence they extend, like a continuous wall, from
+Porto Cabello to Cape Codera. This prolongation forms the northern
+chain of the Cordillera of Venezuela and is traversed in going from
+south to north, either from Valencia and the valleys of Aragua, to
+Burburata and Turiamo, or from Caracas to La Guayra. Hot springs*
+issue from those mountains (* The other hot springs of the Cordillera
+of the shore are those of San Juan, Provisor, Brigantin, the gulf of
+Cariaco, Cumucatar and Irapa. MM. Rivero and Boussingault, who visited
+the thermal waters of Mariara in February, 1823, during their journey
+from Caracas to Santa Fe de Bogota, found their maximum to be 64
+degrees centigrade. I found it at the same season only 59.2 degrees.
+Has the great earthquake of the 26th March, 1812, had an influence on
+the temperature of these springs? The able chemists above mentioned
+were, like myself, struck with the extreme purity of the hot waters
+that issue from the primitive rocks of the basin of Aragua. Those of
+Onoto, which flow at the height of 360 toises above the level of the
+sea, have no smell of sulphuretted hydrogen; they are without taste,
+and cannot be precipitated, either by nitrate of silver or any other
+re-agent. When evaporated they have an inappreciable residue which
+consists of a little silica and a trace of alkali; their temperature
+is only 44.5 degrees, and the bubbles of air which are disengaged at
+intervals are at Onoto, as well as in the thermal waters of Mariara,
+pure nitrogen. The waters of Mariara (244 toises) have a faint smell
+of sulphuretted hydrogen; they leave, by evaporation, a slight
+residuum, that yields carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, soda, magnesia
+and lime. The quantities are so small that the water is altogether
+without taste. In the course of my journey I found only the springs of
+Cumangillas hotter than the thermal waters of Las Trincheras: they are
+situated on the south of Porto Cabello. The waters of Comangillas are
+at the height of 1040 toises and are alike remarkable for their purity
+and their temperature of 96.3 degrees centigrade.), those of Las
+Trincheras (90.4 degrees) on its southern slope and those of Onoto and
+Mariara on its southern slope. The former issue from a granite with
+large grains, very regularly stratified; the latter from a rock of
+gneiss. What especially characterizes the northern chain is a summit
+which is not only the loftiest of the system of the mountains of
+Venezuela, but of all South America, on the east of the Andes. The
+eastern summit of the Silla of Caracas, according to my barometric
+measurement made in 1800, is 1350 toises high,* (* The Silla of
+Caracas is only 80 toises lower than the Canigou in the Pyrenees.) and
+notwithstanding the commotion which took place on the Silla during the
+great earthquake of Caracas, that mountain did not sink 50 or 60
+toises, as some North American journals asserted. Four or five leagues
+south of the northern chain (that of Mariara, La Silla and Cape
+Codera) the mountains of Guiripa, Ocumare and Panaquire form the
+southern chain of the coast, which stretches in a parallel direction
+from Guigue to the mouth of the Rio Tuy, by the Guesta of Yusma and
+the Guacimo. The latitudes of the Villa de Cura and San Juan, so
+erroneously marked on our maps, enabled me to ascertain the mean
+breadth of the whole Cordillera of Venezuela. Ten or twelve leagues
+may be reckoned as the distance from the descent of the northern chain
+which bounds the Caribbean Sea, to the descent of the southern chain
+bounding the immense basin of the Llanos. This latter chain, which
+also bears the name of the Inland Mountains, is much lower than the
+northern chain; and I can hardly believe that the Sierra de Guayraima
+attains the height of 1200 toises.
+
+The two partial chains, that of the interior, and that which runs
+along the coast, are linked by a ridge or knot of mountains known by
+the names of Altos de las Cocuyzas (845 toises) and the Higuerote (835
+toises between Los Teques and La Victoria) in longitude 69 degrees 30
+minutes and 69 degrees 50 minutes. On the west of this ridge lies the
+enclosed basin* of the lake of Valencia or the Valles de Aragua (*
+This basin contains a small system of inland rivers which do not
+communicate with the ocean. The southern chain of the litteral
+Cordillera of Venezuela is so depressed on the south-west that the Rio
+Pao is separated from the tributary streams of the lake of Tacarigua
+or Valencia. Towards the east the Rio Tuy, which takes its rise on the
+western declivity of the knot of mountains of Las Cocuyzas, appears at
+first to empty itself into the valleys of Aragua; but hills of
+calcareous tufa, forming a ridge between Consejo and Victoria, force
+it to take its course south-east.); and on the east the basin of
+Caracas and of the Rio Tuy. The bottom of the first-mentioned basins
+is between 220 and 250 toises high; the bottom of the latter is 460
+toises above the level of the Caribbean Sea. It follows from these
+measures that the most western of the two longitudinal valleys
+enclosed by the littoral Cordillera is the deepest; while in the
+plains near the Apure and the Orinoco the declivity is from west to
+east; but we must not forget that the peculiar disposition of the
+bottom of the two basins, which are bounded by two parallel chains, is
+a local phenomenon altogether separate from the causes on which the
+general structure of the country depends. The eastern basin of the
+Cordillera of Venezuela is not shut up like the basin of Valencia. It
+is in the knot of the mountains of Las Cocuyzas, and of Higuerote,
+that the Serrania de los Teques and Oripoto, stretching eastward, form
+two valleys, those of the Rio Guayre and Rio Tuy; the former contains
+the town of Caracas and both unite below the Caurimare. The Rio Tuy
+runs through the rest of the basin, from west to east, as far as its
+mouth which is situated on the north of the mountains of Panaquire.
+
+Cape Codera seems to terminate the northern range of the littoral
+mountains of Venezuela but this termination is only apparent. The
+coast forms a vast nook, thirty-five sea leagues in length, at the
+bottom of which is the mouth of the Rio Unare and the road of Nueva
+Barcelona. Stretching first from west to east, in the parallel of 10
+degrees 37 minutes, this coast recedes at the parallel 10 degrees 6
+minutes, and resumes its original direction (10 degrees 37 minutes to
+10 degrees 44 minutes) from the western extremity of the peninsula of
+Araya to the eastern extremities of Montana de Paria and the island of
+Trinidad. From this dissection of the coast it follows that the range
+of mountains bordering the shore of the provinces of Caracas and
+Barcelona, between the meridian 66 degrees 32 minutes and 68 degrees
+29 minutes (which I saw on the south of the bay of Higuerote and on
+the north of the Llanos of Pao and Cachipo), must be considered as the
+continuation of the southern chain of Venezuela and as being linked on
+the west with the Sierras de Panaquire and Ocumare. It may therefore
+be said that between Cape Codera and Cariaco the inland chain itself
+forms the coast. This range of very low mountains, often interrupted
+from the mouth of the Rio Tuy to that of the Rio Neveri, rises
+abruptly on the east of Nueva Barcelona, first in the rocky island of
+Chimanas, and then in the Cerro del Bergantin, elevated probably more
+than 800 toises, but of which the astronomical position and the
+precise height are yet alike unknown. On the meridian of Cumana the
+northern chain (that of Cape Codera and the Silla of Caracas) again
+appears. The micaceous slate of the peninsula of Araya and Maniquarez
+joins by the ridge or knot of mountains of Meapire the southern chain,
+that of Panaquire the Bergantin, Turimiquiri, Caripe and Guacharo.
+This ridge, not more than 200 toises of absolute height, has, in the
+ancient revolutions of our planet, prevented the irruption of the
+ocean, and the union of the gulfs of Paria and Cariaco. On the west of
+Cape Codera the northern chain, composed of primitive granitic rocks,
+presents the loftiest summits of the whole Cordillera of Venezuela;
+but the culminant points east of that cape are composed in the
+southern chain of secondary calcareous rocks. We have seen above that
+the peak of Turimiquiri, at the back of the Cocollar, is 1050 toises,
+while the bottoms of the high valleys of the convent of Caripe and of
+Guardia de San Augustin are 412 and 533 toises of absolute height. On
+the east of the ridge of Meapire the southern chain sinks abruptly
+towards the Rio Arco and the Guarapiche; but, on quitting the main
+land, we again see it rising on the southern coast of the island of
+Trinidad which is but a detached portion of the continent, and of
+which the northern side unquestionably presents the vestiges of the
+northern chain of Venezuela, that is, of the Montana de Paria (the
+Paradise of Christopher Columbus), the peninsula of Araya and the
+Silla of Caracas. The observations of latitude I made at the Villa de
+Cura (10 degrees 2 minutes 47 seconds), the farm of Cocollar (10
+degrees 9 minutes 37 seconds) and the convent of Caripe (10 degrees 10
+minutes 14 seconds), compared with the more anciently known position
+of the south coast of Trinidad (latitude 10 degrees 6 minutes), prove
+that the southern chain, south of the basins of Valencia and of Tuy*
+(* The bottom of the first of these four basins bounded by parallel
+chains is from 230 to 460 toises above, and that of the two latter
+from 30 to 40 toises below the present sea-level. Hot springs gush
+from the bottom of the gulf of the basin of Cariaco, as from the
+bottom of the basin of Valencia on the continent.) and of the gulfs of
+Cariaco and Paria, is still more uniform in the direction from west to
+east than the northern chain from Porto Cabello to Punta Galera. It is
+highly important to know the southern limit of the littoral Cordillera
+of Venezuela because it determines the parallel at which the Llanos or
+the savannahs of Caracas, Barcelona and Cumana begin. On some
+well-known maps we find erroneously marked between the meridians of
+Caracas and Cumana two Cordilleras stretching from north to south, as
+far as latitude 8 3/4 degrees, under the names of Cerros de Alta
+Gracia and del Bergantin, thus describing as mountainous a territory
+of 25 leagues broad, where we should seek in vain a hillock of a few
+feet in height.
+
+Turning to the island of Marguerita, composed, like the peninsula of
+Araya, of micaceous slate, and anciently linked with that peninsula by
+the Morro de Chacopata and the islands of Coche and Cubagua, we seem
+to recognize in the two mountainous groups of Macanao and La Vega de
+San Juan traces of a third coast-chain of the Cordillera of Venezuela.
+Do these two groups of Marguerita, of which the most westerly is above
+600 toises high, belong to a submarine chain stretching by the isle of
+Tortuga, towards the Sierra de Santa Lucia de Coro, on the parallel of
+11 degrees? Must we admit that in latitude 11 1/4 and 12 1/2 degrees a
+fourth chain, the most northerly of all, formerly stretched out in the
+direction of the island of Hermanos, by Blanquilla, Los Roques,
+Orchila, Aves, Buen Ayre, Curacao and Oruba, towards Cape Chichivacoa?
+These important problems can only be solved when the chain of islands
+parallel with the coast has been properly examined. It must not be
+forgotten that a great irruption of the ocean appears to have taken
+place between Trinidad and Grenada,* and that no where else in the
+long series of the Lesser Antilles are two neighbouring islands so far
+removed from each other. (* It is affirmed that the island of Trinidad
+is traversed in the northern part by a chain of primitive slate, and
+that Grenada furnishes basalt. It would be important to examine of
+what rock the island of Tobago is composed; it appeared to me of
+dazzling whiteness; and on what point, in going from Trinidad
+northward, the trachytic and trappean system of the Lesser Antilles
+begins.) We observe the effect of the rotatory current in the
+direction of the coast of Trinidad, as in the coasts of the provinces
+of Cumana and Caracas, between Cape Paria and Punta Araya and between
+Cape Codera and Porto Cabello. If a part of the continent has been
+overwhelmed by the ocean on the north of the peninsula of Araya it is
+probable that the enormous shoal which surrounds Cubagua, Coche the
+island of Marguerita, Los Frailes, La Sola and the Testigos marks the
+extent and outline of the submerged land. This shoal or placer, which
+is of the extent of 200 square leagues, is well known only to the
+tribe of the Guayqueries; it is frequented by these Indians on account
+of its abundant fishery in calm weather. The Gran Placer is believed
+to be separated only by some canals or deep furrows of the bank of
+Grenada from the sand-bank that extends like a narrow dyke from Tobago
+to Grenada, and which is known by the lowering of the temperature of
+the water and from the sand-banks of Los Roques and Aves. The
+Guayquerie Indians and, generally speaking, all the inhabitants of the
+coast of Cumana and Barcelona, are imbued with an idea that the water
+of the shoals of Marguerita and the Testigos diminishes from year to
+year; they believe that, in the lapse of ages, the Morro do Chacopata
+on the peninsula of Araya will be joined by a neck of land to the
+islands of Lobos and Coche. The partial retreat of the waters on the
+coast of Cumana is undeniable and the bottom of the sea has been
+upheaved at various times by earthquakes; but these local phenomena,
+which it is so difficult to account for by the action of volcanic
+force, the changes in the direction of currents, and the consequent
+swelling of the waters, are very different from the effects manifested
+at once over the space of several hundred square leagues.
+
+4. GROUP OF THE MOUNTAINS OF PARIME.
+
+It is essential to mineralogical geography to designate by one name
+all the mountains that form one system. To attain this end, a
+denomination belonging to a partial group only may be extended over
+the whole chain; or a name may be employed which, by reason of its
+novelty, is not likely to give rise to homogenic mistakes.
+Mountaineers designate every group by a special denomination; and a
+chain is generally considered as forming a whole only when it is seen
+from afar bounding the horizon of the plains. We find the name of
+snowy mountains (Himalaya, Imaus) repeated in every zone, white
+(Alpes, Alb), black and blue. The greater part of the Sierra Parime
+is, as it were, edged round by the Orinoco. I have, however, avoided a
+denomination having reference to this circumstance, because the group
+of mountains to which I am about to direct attention extends far
+beyond the banks of the Orinoco. It stretches south-east, towards the
+banks of the Rio Negro and the Rio Branco, to the parallel of 1 1/2
+degrees north latitude. The geographical name of Parime has the
+advantage of reviving recollections of the fable of El Dorado, and the
+lofty mountains which, in the sixteenth century, were supposed to
+surround the lake Rupunuwini, or the Laguna de Parime. The
+missionaries of the Orinoco still give the name of Parime to the whole
+of the vast mountainous country comprehended between the sources of
+the Erevato, the Orinoco, the Caroni, the Rio Parime* (a tributary of
+the Rio Branco) and the Rupunuri or Rupunuwini, a tributary of the Rio
+Essequibo. (* The Rio Parime, after receiving the waters of the
+Uraricuera, joins the Tacutu, and forms, near the fort of San
+Joacquim, the Rio Branco, one of the tributary streams of the Rio
+Negro.) This country is one of the least known parts of South America
+and is covered with thick forests and savannahs; it is inhabited by
+independent Indians and is intersected by rivers of dangerous
+navigation, owing to the frequency of shoals and cataracts.
+
+The system of the mountains of Parime separates the plains of the
+Lower Orinoco from those of the Rio Negro and the Amazon; it occupies
+a territory of trapezoidal form, comprehended between the parallels of
+3 and 8 degrees, and the meridians of 61 and 70 1/2 degrees. I here
+indicate only the elements of the loftiest group, for we shall soon
+see that towards south-east the mountainous country, in lowering,
+draws near the equator, as well as to French and Portuguese Guiana.
+The Sierra Parime extends most in the direction north 85 degrees west
+and the partial chains into which it separates on the westward
+generally follow the same direction. It is less a Cordillera or a
+continuous chain in the sense given to those denominations when
+applied to the Andes and Caucasus than an irregular grouping of
+mountains separated the one from the other by plains and savannahs. I
+visited the northern, western and southern parts of the Sierra Parime,
+which is remarkable by its position and its extent of more than 25,000
+square leagues. From the confluence of the Apure, as far as the delta
+of the Orinoco, it is uniformly three or four leagues removed from the
+right bank of the great river; only some rocks of gneiss-granite,
+amphibolic slate and greenstone advance as far as the bed of the
+Orinoco and create the rapids of Torno and of La Boca del Infierno.*
+(* To this series of advanced rocks also belong those which pierce the
+soil between the Rio Aquire and the Rio Barima; the granitic and
+amphibolic rocks of the Vieja Guayana and of the town of Angostura;
+the Cerro de Mono on the south-east of Muitaco or Real Corono; the
+Cerro of Taramuto near the Alta Gracia, etc.) I shall name
+successively, from north-north-east to south-south-west, the different
+chains seen by M. Bonpland and myself as we approached the equator and
+the river Amazon. First. The most northern chain of the whole system
+of the mountains of Parime appeared to us to be that which stretches
+(latitude 7 degrees 50 minutes) from the Rio Arui, in the meridian of
+the rapids of Camiseta, at the back of the town of Angostura, towards
+the great cataracts of the Rio Carony and the sources of the Imataca.
+In the missions of the Catalonian Capuchins this chain, which is not
+300 toises high, separates the tributary streams of the Orinoco and
+those of the Rio Cuyuni, between the town of Upata, Cupapui and Santa
+Marta. Westward of the meridian of the rapids of Camiseta (longitude
+67 degrees 10 minutes) the high mountains in the basin of the Rio
+Caura only commence at 7 degrees 20 minutes of latitude, on the south
+of the mission of San Luis Guaraguaraico, where they occasion the
+rapids of Mura. This chain stretches westward by the sources of the
+Rio Cuchivero, the Cerros del Mato, the Cerbatana and Maniapure, as
+far as Tepupano, a group of strangely-formed granitic rocks
+surrounding the Encaramada. The culminant points of this chain
+(latitude 7 degrees 10 minutes to 7 degrees 28 minutes) are, according
+to the information I gathered from the Indians, situated near the
+sources of Cano de la Tortuga. In the chain of the Encaramada there
+are some traces of gold. This chain is also celebrated in the
+mythology of the Tamanacs; for the painted rocks it contains are
+associated with ancient local traditions. The Orinoco changes its
+direction at the confluence of the Apure, breaking a part of the chain
+of the Encaramada. The latter mountains and scattered rocks in the
+plain of the Capuchino and on the north of Cabruta may be considered
+either as the vestiges of a destroyed spur or (on the hypothesis of
+the igneous origin of granite) as partial eruptions and upheavings. I
+shall not here discuss the question whether the most northerly chain,
+that of Angostura and of the great fall of Carony, be a continuation
+of the chain of Encaramada. Third. In navigating the Orinoco from
+north to south we observe, alternately, on the east, small plains and
+chains of mountains of which we cannot distinguish the profiles, that
+is, the sections perpendicular to their longitudinal axes. From the
+mission of the Encaramada to the mouth of the Rio Qama I counted seven
+recurrences of this alternation of savannahs and high mountains.
+First, on the south of the isle Cucuruparu rises the chain of
+Chaviripe (latitude 7 degrees 10 minutes); it stretches, inclining
+towards the south (latitude 6 degrees 20 minutes to 6 degrees 40
+minutes), by the Cerros del Corozal, the Amoco, and the Murcielago, as
+far as the Erevato, a tributary of the Caura. It there forms the
+rapids of Paru and is linked with the summits of Matacuna. Fourth. The
+chain of Chaviripe is succeeded by that of the Baraguan (latitude 6
+degrees 50 minutes to 7 degrees 5 minutes), celebrated for the strait
+of the Orinoco, to which it gives its name. The Saraguaca, or mountain
+of Uruana, composed of detached blocks of granite, may be regarded as
+a northern spur of the chain of the Baraguan, stretching south-west
+towards Siamacu and the mountains (latitude 5 degrees 50 minutes) that
+separate the sources of the Erevato and the Caura from those of the
+Ventuari. Fifth. The chain of Carichana and of Paruaci (latitude 6
+degrees 25 minutes), wild in aspect, but surrounded by charming
+meadows. Piles of granite crowned with trees and insulated rocks of
+prismatic form (the Mogote of Cocuyza and the Marimaruta or Castillito
+of the Jesuits) belong to this chain. Sixth. On the western bank of
+the Orinoco, which is low and flat, the Peak of Uniana rises abruptly
+more than 3000 feet high. The spurs (latitude 5 degrees 35 minutes to
+5 degrees 40 minutes) which this peak sends eastward are crossed by
+the Orinoco in the first Great Cataract (that of Mapura or the
+Atures); further on they unite together and, rising in a chain,
+stretch towards the sources of the Cataniapo, the rapids of Ventuari,
+situated on the north of the confluence of the Asisi (latitude 5
+degrees 10 minutes) and the Cerro Cunevo. Seventh. Five leagues south
+of the Atures is the chain of Quittuna, or of Maypures (latitude 15
+degrees 13 minutes), which forms the bar of the Second Great Cataract.
+None of those lofty summits are situated on the west of the Orinoco;
+on the east of that river rises the Cunavami, the truncated peak of
+Calitamini and the Jujamari, to which Father Gili attributes an
+extraordinary height. Eighth. The last chain of the south-west part of
+the Sierra Parime is separated by woody plains from the chain of
+Maypures; it is the chain of the Cerros de Sipapo (latitude 4 degrees
+50 minutes); an enormous wall behind which the powerful chief of the
+Guaypunabi Indians intrenched himself during the expedition of Solano.
+The chain of Sipapo may be considered as the beginning of the range of
+lofty mountains which bound, at the distance of some leagues, the
+right bank of the Orinoco, where that river runs from south-east to
+north-west, between the mouth of the Ventuari, the Jao and the Padamo
+(latitude 3 degrees 15 minutes). In ascending the Orinoco, above the
+cataract of Maypures, we find, long before we reach the point where it
+turns, near San Fernando del Atabapo, the mountains disappearing from
+the bed of the river, and from the mouth of the Zama there are only
+insulated rocks in the plains. The chain of Sipapo forms the
+south-west limit of the system of mountains of Parime, between 70 1/2
+and 68 degrees of longitude. Modern geologists have observed that the
+culminant points of a group are less frequently found at its centre
+than towards one of its extremities, preceding, and announcing in some
+sort, a great depression* of the chain. (* As seen in Mont Blanc and
+Chimborazo.) This phenomenon is again observed in the group of the
+Parime, the loftiest summits of which, the Duida and the Maraguaca,
+are in the most southerly range of mountains, where the plains of the
+Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro begin.
+
+These plains or savannahs which are covered with forests only in the
+vicinity of the rivers do not, however, exhibit the same uniform
+continuity as the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, of the Meta and of
+Buenos Ayres. They are interrupted by groups of hills (Cerros de
+Daribapa) and by insulated rocks of grotesque form which pierce the
+soil and from a distance fix the attention of the traveller. These
+granitic and often stratified masses resemble the ruins of pillars or
+edifices. The same force which upheaved the whole group of the Sierra
+Parime has acted here and there in the plains as far as beyond the
+equator. The existence of these steeps and sporadic hills renders it
+difficult to determine the precise limits of a system in which the
+mountains are not longitudinally ranged as in a vein. As we advance
+towards the frontier of the Portuguese province of the Rio Negro the
+high rocks become more rare and we no longer find the shelves or dykes
+of gneiss-granite which cause rapids and cataracts in the rivers.
+
+Such is the surface of the soil between 68 1/2 and 70 1/2 degrees of
+longitude, between the meridian of the bifurcation of the Orinoco and
+that of San Fernando de Atabapo; further on, westward of the Upper Rio
+Negro, towards the source of that river, and its tributary streams the
+Xie and the Uaupes (latitude 1 to 2 1/4 degrees, longitude 72 to 74
+degrees) lies a small mountainous tableland, in which Indian
+traditions place a Laguna de oro, that is, a lake surrounded with beds
+of auriferous earth.* (* According to the journals of Acunha and Fritz
+the Manao Indians (Manoas) obtained from the banks of the Yquiari
+(Iguiare or Iguare) gold of which they made thin plates. The
+manuscript notes of Don Apollinario also mention the gold of the Rio
+Uaupes. La Condamine, Voyage a l'Amazone. We must not confound the
+Laguna de Oro, which is said to be found in going up the Uaupes (north
+latitude 0 degrees 40 minutes) with another gold lake (south latitude
+1 degree 10 minutes) which La Condamine calls Marahi or Morachi
+(water), and which is merely a tract often inundated between the
+sources of the Jurubech (Urubaxi) and the Rio Marahi, a tributary
+stream of the Caqueta.) At Maroa, the most westerly mission of the Rio
+Negro, the Indians assured me that that river as well as the Inirida
+(a tributary of the Guavare) rises at the distance of five days'
+march, in a country bristled with hills and rocks. The natives of San
+Marcellino speak of a Sierra Tunuhy, nearly thirty leagues west of
+their village, between the Xie and the Icanna. La Condamine learned
+also from the Indians of the Amazon that the Quiquiari comes from a
+country of mountains and mines. Now, the Iquiari is placed by the
+French astronomer between the equator and the mouth of the Xie (Ijie),
+which identifies it with the Iguiare that falls into the Icanna. We
+cannot advance in the geologic knowledge of America without having
+continually recourse to the researches of comparative geography. The
+small system of mountains, which we may provisionally call that of the
+sources of the Rio Negro and the Uaupes, and the culminant points of
+which are not probably more than 100 or 120 toises high, appears to
+extend southward to the basin of Rio Yupura, where rocky ridges form
+the cataracts of the Rio de los Enganos and the Salto Grande de Yupura
+(south latitude 0 degrees 40 minutes to north latitude 0 degrees 28
+minutes), and the basin of the Upper Guaviare towards the west. We
+find in the course of this river, from 60 to 70 leagues west of San
+Fernando del Atabapo, two walls of rocks bounding the strait (nearly 3
+degrees 10 minutes north latitude and 73 3/4 degrees longitude) where
+father Maiella terminated his excursion. That missionary told me that,
+in going up the Guaviare, he perceived near the strait (angostura) a
+chain of mountains bounding the horizon on the south. It is not known
+whether those mountains traverse the Guaviare more to the west, and
+join the spurs which advance from the eastern Cordillera of New
+Grenada, between the Rio Umadea and the Rio Ariari, in the direction
+of the savannahs of San Juan de los Llanos. I doubt the existence of
+this junction. If it really existed, the plains of the Lower Orinoco
+would communicate with those of the Amazon only by a very narrow
+land-strait, on the east of the mountainous country which surrounds
+the source of the Rio Negro: but it is more probable that this
+mountainous country (a small system of mountains, geognostically
+dependent on the Sierra Parime) forms as it were an island in the
+Llanos of Guaviare and Yupura. Father Pugnet, Principal of the
+Franciscan convent at Popayan, assured me, that when he went from the
+missions settled on the Rio Caguan to Aramo, a village situated on the
+Rio Guayavero, he found only treeless savannahs, extending as far as
+the eye could reach. The chain of mountains placed by several modern
+geographers, between the Meta and the Vichada, and which appears to
+link the Andes of New Grenada with the Sierra Parime, is altogether
+imaginary.
+
+We have now examined the prolongation of the Sierra Parime on the
+west, towards the source of the Rio Negro: it remains for us to follow
+the same group in its eastern direction. The mountains of the Upper
+Orinoco, eastward of the Raudal of the Guaharibos (north latitude 1
+degree 15 minutes longitude 67 degrees 38 minutes), join the chain of
+Pacaraina, which divides the waters of the Carony and the Rio Branco,
+and of which the micaceous schist, resplendent with silvery lustre,
+figures so conspicuously in Raleigh's El Dorado. The part of that
+chain containing the sources of the Orinoco has not yet been explored;
+but its prolongation more to the east, between the meridian of the
+military post of Guirior and the Rupunuri, a tributary of the
+Essequibo, is known to me through the travels of the Spaniards Antonio
+Santos and Nicolas Rodriguez, and also by the geodesic labours of two
+Portuguese, Pontes and Almeida. Two portages but little frequented*
+are situated between the Rio Branco and the Rio Essequibo, south of
+the chain of Pacaraina; they shorten the land-road leading from the
+Villa del Rio Negro to Dutch Guiana. (* The portages of Sarauru and
+the lake Amucu.) On the contrary, the portage between the basin of the
+Rio Branco and that of the Carony crosses the summit of the chain of
+Pacaraina. On the northern slope of this chain rises the Anocapra, a
+tributary of the Paraguamusi or Paravamusi; and on the southern slope,
+the Araicuque, which, with the Uraricapara, forms the famous Valley of
+Inundations, above the destroyed mission of Santa Rosa (latitude 3
+degrees 46 minutes, longitude 65 degrees 10 minutes). The principal
+Cordillera, which appears of little breadth, stretches on a length of
+80 leagues, from the portage of Anocapra (longitude 65 degrees 35
+minutes) to the left bank of the Rupunuri (longitude 61 degrees 50
+minutes), following the parallels of 4 degrees 4 minutes and 4 degrees
+12 minutes. We there distinguish from west to east the mountains of
+Pacaraina, Tipique, Tauyana, among which rises the Rio Parime (a
+tributary of the Uraricuera), Tubachi, Christaux (latitude 3 degrees
+56 minutes, longitude 62 degrees 52 minutes) and Canopiri. The Spanish
+traveller, Rodriguez, marks the eastern part of the chain by the name
+of Quimiropaca; but preferring to adopt general names, I continue to
+give the name of Pacaraina to the whole of this Cordillera which links
+the mountains of the Orinoco to the interior of Dutch and French
+Guiana, and which Raleigh and Keymis made known in Europe at the end
+of the 16th century. This chain is broken by the Rupunuri and the
+Essequibo, so that one of their tributary streams, the Tavaricuru,
+takes its rise on the southern declivity, and the other, the Sibarona,
+on the northern. On approaching the Essequibo, the mountains are more
+developed towards the south-east, and extend beyond 2 1/2 degrees
+north latitude. From this eastern branch of the chain of Pacaraina the
+Rio Rupunuri rises near the Cerro Uassari. On the right bank of the
+Rio Branco, in a still more southern latitude (between 1 and 2 degrees
+north) is a mountainous territory in which the Caritamini, the
+Padaviri, the Cababuri (Cavaburis) and the Pacimoni take their source,
+from east to west. This western branch of the mountains of Pacaraina
+separates the basin of Rio Branco from that of the Upper Orinoco, the
+sources of which are probably not found east of the meridian of 66 15
+minutes: it is linked with the mountains of Unturan and Yumariquin,
+situated south-east of the mission of Esmeralda. Thence it results
+that, while on the west of the Cassiquiare, between that river, the
+Atabapo, and the Rio Negro, we find only vast plains, in which rise
+some little hills and insulated rocks; real spurs stretch eastward of
+the Cassiquiare, from north-west to south-east, and form a continued
+mountainous territory as far as 2 degrees north latitude. The basin
+only, or rather the transversal valley of the Rio Branco, forms a kind
+of gulf, a succession of plains and savannahs (campos) several of
+which penetrate from south to north, into the mountainous land between
+the eastern and western branches of the chain of Pacaraina, to the
+distance of eight leagues north of the parallel of San Joaquin.
+
+We have just examined the southern part of the vast system of the
+mountains of Parime, between 2 and 4 degrees of latitude, and between
+the meridians of the sources of the Orinoco and the Essequibo. The
+development of this system of mountains northward between the chain of
+Pacaraina and Rio Cuyuni, and between the meridians 66 and 61 3/4
+degrees, is still less known. The only road frequented by white men is
+that of the river Paragua, which receives the Paraguamusi, near the
+Guirior. We find indeed, in the journal of Nicolas Rodriguez, that he
+was constantly obliged to have his canoe carried by men (arrastrando)
+past the cataracts which intercept the navigation; but we must not
+forget a circumstance of which my own experience furnished me with
+frequent proofs--that the cataracts in this part of South America are
+often caused only by ridges of rocks which do not form mountains.
+Rodriguez names but two between Barceloneta and the mission of San
+Jose; while the missionaries place more to the east, in 6 degrees
+latitude, between the Rio Caroni and the Cuyuni, the Serranias of
+Usupama and Rinocote. The latter crosses the Mazaruni, and forms
+thirty-nine cataracts in the Essequibo, from the military post of
+Arinda (latitude 5 degrees 30 minutes) to the mouth of Rupunuri.
+
+With respect to the continuation of the system of the mountains of
+Parime, south-east of the meridian of the Essequibo, the materials are
+entirely wanting for tracing it with precision. The whole interior of
+Dutch, French and Portuguese Guiana is a terra incognita; and the
+astronomical geography of those countries has scarcely made any
+progress during the space of thirty years. If the American limits
+recently fixed between France and Portugal should one day cease to be
+mere diplomatic illusions and acquire reality in being traced on the
+territory by means of astronomical observations (as was projected in
+1817), this undertaking would lead geographical engineers to that
+unknown region which, at 3 1/2 degrees west of Cayenne, divides the
+waters between the coast of Guiana and the Amazon. Till that period,
+which the political state of Brazil seems to retard, the geognostic
+table of the group of Parime can only be completed by scattered
+notions collected in the Portuguese and Dutch colonies. In going from
+the Uassari mountains (latitude 2 degrees 25 minutes, longitude 61
+degrees 50 minutes) which form a part of the eastern branch of the
+Cordillera of Pacaraina, we find towards the east a chain of
+mountains, called by the missionaries Acaray and Tumucuraque. Those
+two names are found on our maps between 1/2 and 3 degrees north
+latitude. Raleigh first made known, in 1596, the system of the
+mountains of Parime, between the sources of the Rio Carony and the
+Essequibo, by the name of Wacarima (Pacarima), and the Jesuits Acunha
+and Artedia furnished, in 1639, the first precise notions of that part
+of this system which extends from the meridian of Essequibo to that of
+Oyapoc. There they place the mountains of Yguaracuru and Paraguaxo,
+the former of which gives birth to a gold river (Rio de oro), a
+tributary of the Curupatuba;* (* When we know that in Tamanac gold is
+called caricuri; in Carib, caricura: in Peruvian, cori (curi), we
+easily recognize in the names of the mountains and rivers
+(Yguara-curu, Cura-patuba) which we have just marked, the indication
+of auriferous soil. Such is the analogy of the imported roots in the
+American tongues, which otherwise differ altogether from each other,
+that 300 leagues west of the mountain Ygaracuru, on the banks of the
+Caqueta, Pedro de Ursua heard of the province of Caricuri, rich in
+gold washings. The Curupatuba falls into the Amazon near the Villa of
+Monte Alegre, north-east of the mouth of the Rio Topayos.); and
+according to the assertion of the natives, subterraneous noises are
+sometimes heard from the latter. The ridge of this chain of mountains,
+which runs in a direction south 85 degrees east from the peak of Duida
+near the Esmeralda (latitude 3 degrees 19 minutes), to the rapids of
+the Rio Manaye near Cape Nord (latitude 1 degree 50 minutes), divides,
+in the parallel of 2 degrees, the northern sources of the Essequibo,
+the Maroni and the Oyapoc, from the southern sources of the Rio
+Trombetas, Curupatuba and Paru. The most southern spurs of this chain
+approach nearer to the Amazon, at the distance of fifteen leagues.
+These are the first heights which we perceived after having left
+Xeberos and the mouth of the Huallaga. They are constantly seen in
+navigating from the mouth of the Rio Topayo towards that of Paru, from
+the town of Santarem to Almeirim. The peak Tripoupou is nearly in the
+meridian of the former of those towns and is celebrated among the
+Indians of Upper Maroni. It is said that farther eastward, at Melgaco,
+the Serras do Velho and do Paru are still distinguished in the
+horizon. The real boundaries of this series of sources of the Rio
+Trombetas are better known southward than northward, where a
+mountainous country appears to advance in Dutch and French Guiana, as
+far as within twenty to twenty-five leagues of the coast. The numerous
+cataracts of the rivers of Surinam, Maroni and Oyapoc, prove the
+extent and the prolongation of rocky ridges; but in those regions
+nothing indicates the existence of continued plains or table-lands
+some hundred toises high, fitted for the cultivation of the plants of
+the temperate zone.
+
+The system of the mountains of Parime surpasses in extent nineteen
+times that of the whole of Switzerland. Even considering the
+mountainous group of the sources of the Rio Negro and the Xie as
+independent or insulated amidst the plains, we still find the Sierra
+Parime (between Maypures and the sources of the Oyapoc) to be 340
+leagues in length; its greatest breadth (the rocks of Imataca, near
+the delta of the Orinoco, at the sources of the Rio Paru) is 140
+leagues. In the group of the Parime, as well as in the group of the
+mountains of central Asia, between the Himalaya and the Altai, the
+partial chains are often interrupted and have no uniform parallelism.
+Towards the south-west, however (between the strait of Baraguan, the
+mouth of the Rio Zama and the Esmeralda), the line of the mountains is
+generally in the direction of north 70 degrees west. Such is also the
+position of a distant coast, that of Portuguese, French, Dutch and
+English Guiana, from Cape North to the mouth of the Orinoco; such is
+the mean direction of the course of the Rio Negro and Yupura. It is
+desirable to fix our attention on the angles formed by the partial
+chains, in different regions of America, with the meridians; because
+on less extended surfaces, for instance in Germany, we find also this
+singular co-existence of groups of neighbouring mountains following
+laws of direction altogether different, though every separate group
+exhibits the greatest uniformity in the line of chains.
+
+The soil on which the mountains of Parime rise, is slightly convex. By
+barometric measures I found that, between 3 and 4 degrees north
+latitude, the plains are elevated from 160 to 180 toises above
+sea-level. This height will appear considerable if we reflect that at
+the foot of the Andes of Peru, at Tomependa, 900 leagues from the
+coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the Llanos or plains of the Amazon rise
+only to the height of 194 toises. The distinctive characteristics of
+the group of the mountains of Parime are the rocks of granite and
+gneiss-granite, the total absence of calcareous secondary formations,
+and the shelves of bare rock (the tsy of the Chinese deserts), which
+occupy immense spaces in the savannahs.
+
+5. GROUP OF THE BRAZIL MOUNTAINS.
+
+This group has hitherto been marked on the maps in a very erroneous
+way. The temperate table-lands and real chains of 300 to 500 toises
+high have been confounded with countries of exceedingly hot
+temperature, and of which the undulating surface presents only ranges
+of hills variously grouped. But the observations of scientific
+travellers have recently thrown great light on the orography of
+Portuguese America. The mountainous region of Brazil, of which the
+mean height rises at least to 400 toises, is comprehended within very
+narrow limits, nearly between 18 and 28 degrees south latitude; it
+does not appear to extend, between the provinces of Goyaz and
+Matogrosso, beyond longitude 53 degrees west of the meridian of Paris.
+
+When we regard in one view the eastern configuration of North and
+South America, we perceive that the coast of Brazil and Guiana, from
+Cape Saint Roque to the mouth of the Orinoco (stretching from
+south-east to north-west), corresponds with that of Labrador, as the
+coast from Cape Saint Roque to the Rio de la Plata corresponds with
+that of the United States (stretching from south-west to north-east).
+The chain of the Alleghenies is opposite to the latter coast, as the
+principal Cordilleras of Brazil are nearly parallel to the shore of
+the provinces of Porto Seguro, Rio Janeiro and Rio Grande. The
+Alleghenies, generally composed of grauwacke and transition rocks, are
+somewhat loftier than the almost primitive mountains (of granite,
+gneiss and mica-slate) of the Brazilian group; they are also of a far
+more simple structure, their chains lying nearer to each other and
+preserving, as in the Jura, a more uniform parallelism.
+
+If, instead of comparing those parts of the new continent situated
+north and south of the equator, we confine ourselves to South America,
+we find on the western and northern coasts in their whole length, a
+continued chain near the shore (the Andes and the Cordillera of
+Venezuela), while the eastern coast presents masses of more or less
+lofty mountains only between the 12 and 30 degrees south latitude. In
+this space, 360 leagues in length, the system of the Brazil mountains
+corresponds geologically in form and position with the Andes of Chile
+and Peru. Its most considerable portion lies between the parallels 15
+and 22 degrees, opposite the Andes of Potosi and La Paz, but its mean
+height is five toises less, and cannot even be compared with that of
+the mountains of Parime, Jura and Auvergne. The principal direction of
+the Brazilian chains, where they attain the height of from four to
+five hundred toises, is from south to north, and from south-south-west
+to north-north-east; but, between 13 and 19 degrees the chains are
+considerably enlarged, and at the same time lowered towards the west.
+Ridges and ranges of hills seem to advance beyond the land-straits
+which separate the sources of the Rio Araguay, Parana, Topayos,
+Paraguay, Guapore and Aguapehy, in 63 degrees longitude. As the
+western widening of the Brazilian group, or rather the undulations of
+the soil in the Campos Parecis, correspond with the spurs of Santa
+Cruz de la Sierra, and Beni, which the Andes send out eastward, it was
+formerly concluded that the system of the mountains of Brazil was
+linked with that of the Andes of Upper Peru. I myself laboured under
+this error in my first geologic studies.
+
+A coast chain (Serra do Mar) runs nearly parallel with the coast,
+north-east of Rio Janeiro, lowering considerably towards Rio Doce, and
+losing itself almost entirely near Bahia (latitude 12 degrees 58
+minutes). According to M. Eschwege* some small ridges reach Cape Saint
+Roque (latitude 5 degrees 12 minutes). (* Geognostiches Gemulde von
+Brasilien, 1822. The limestone of Bahia abounds in fossil wood.)
+South-east of Rio Janeiro the Serra do Mar follows the coast behind
+the island of Saint Catherine as far as Torres (latitude 29 degrees 20
+minutes); it there turns westward and forms an elbow stretching by the
+Campos of Vacaria towards the banks of the Jacuy.
+
+Another chain is situated westward of the shore-chain of Brazil. This
+is the most lofty and considerable of all and is called the chain of
+Villarica. Mr. Eschwege distinguishes it by the name of Serra do
+Espinhaco and considers it as the principal part of the whole
+structure of the mountains of Brazil. This Cordillera loses itself
+northward,* between Minas Novas and the southern extremity of the
+Capitania of Bahia, in 16 degrees latitude. (* The rocky ridges that
+form the cataract of Paulo Affonso, in the Rio San Francisco, are
+supposed to belong to the northern prolongation of the Serra do
+Espinhaco, as a series of heights in the province of Seara (fetid
+calcareous rocks containing a quantity of petrified fish) belong to
+the Serra dos Vertentes.) It is there more than 60 leagues removed
+from the coast of Porto Seguro; but southward, between the parallels
+of Rio Janeiro and Saint Paul (latitude 22 to 23 degrees), in the knot
+of the mountains of Serra da Mantiquiera, it draws so near to the
+Cordillera of the shore (Serra do Mar), that they are almost
+confounded together. In the same manner the Serra do Espinhaco follows
+constantly the direction of a meridian, towards the north; while
+towards the south it runs south-east, and terminates about 25 degrees
+latitude. The chain reaches its highest elevation between 18 and 21
+degrees; and there the spurs and table-lands at its back are of
+sufficient extent to furnish lands for cultivation where, at
+successive heights, there are temperate climates comparable to the
+delicious climates of Xalapa, Guaduas, Caracas and Caripe. This
+advantage, which depends at once on the widening of the mass of the
+chain and of its spurs, is nowhere found in the same degree east of
+the Andes, not even in chains of more considerable absolute height, as
+those of Venezuela and the Orinoco. The culminant points of the Serra
+do Espinhaco, in the Capitania of Minas Geraes, are the Itambe (932
+toises), the Serra da Piedade, near Sabara (910 toises), the
+Itacolumi, properly Itacunumi (900 toises), the Pico of Itabira (816
+toises), the Serras of Caraca, Ibitipoca and Papagayo. Saint Hilaire
+felt piercing cold in the month of November (therefore in summer) in
+the whole Cordillera of Lapa, from the Villa do Principe to the Morro
+de Gaspar Suares.
+
+We have just noticed two chains of mountains nearly parallel but of
+which the most extensive (the littoral chain) is the least lofty. The
+capital of Brazil is situated at the point where the two chains draw
+nearest together and are linked together on the east of the Serra de
+Mantiqueira, if not by a transversal ridge, at least by a mountainous
+territory. Old systematic ideas respecting the rising of mountains in
+proportion as we advance into a country, would have warranted the
+belief that there existed, in the Capitania of Mato Grosso, a central
+Cordillera much loftier than that of Villarica or do Espinhaco; but we
+now know (and this is confirmed by climateric circumstances) that
+there exists no continued chain, properly speaking, westward of Rio
+San Francisco, on the frontiers of Minas Geraes and Goyaz. We find
+only a group of mountains, of which the culminant points are the
+Serras da Canastra (south-west of Paracatu) and da Marcella (latitude
+18 1/2 and 19.10 degrees), and, further north, the Pyrenees stretching
+from east to west (latitude 16 degrees 10 minutes) between Villaboa
+and Mejaponte). M. Eschwege has named the group of mountains of Goyaz
+the Serra dos Vertentes, because it divides the waters between the
+southern tributary streams of the Rio Grande or Parana, and the
+northern tributary streams of Rio Tucantines. It runs southward beyond
+the Rio Grande (Parana), and approaches the chain of Espinpapo in 23
+degrees latitude, by the Serra do Franca. It attains only the height
+of 300 or 400 toises, with the exception of some summits north-west of
+Paracatu, and is consequently much lower than the chain of Villarica.
+
+Further on, west of the meridian of Villaboa, there are only ridges
+and a series of low hills which, on a length of 12 degrees, form the
+division of water (latitude 13 to 17 degrees) between the Araguay and
+the Paranaiba (a tributary of the Parana), between the Rio Topayos and
+the Paraguay, between the Guapore and the Aguapehy. The Serra of San
+Marta (longitude 15 1/2 degrees) is somewhat lofty, but maps have
+vastly exaggerated the height of the Serras or Campos Parecis north of
+the towns of Cuyaba and Villabella (latitude 13 to 14 degrees,
+longitude 58 to 62 degrees). These Campos, which take their name from
+that of a tribe of wild Indians, are vast, barren table-lands,
+entirely destitute of vegetation; and in them the sources of the
+tributary streams of three great rivers, the Topayos, the Madeira and
+the Paraguay, take their rise.
+
+According to the measures and geologic observations of M. Eschwege,
+the high summits of the Serra do Mar (the coast-chain) scarcely attain
+660 toises; those of the Serra do Espinhaco (chain of Villarica), 950
+toises; those of Serra de los Vertentes (group of Canastra and the
+Brazilian Pyrenees), 450 toises. Further west the surface of the soil
+seems to present but slight undulations; but no measure of height has
+been made beyond the meridian of Villaboa. Considering the system of
+the mountains of Brazil in their real limits, we find, except some
+conglomerates, the same absence of secondary formations as in the
+system of the mountains of the Orinoco (group of Parime). These
+secondary formations, which rise to considerable heights in the
+Cordillera of Venezuela and Cumana, belong only to the low regions of
+Brazil.
+
+B. PLAINS (LLANOS) OR BASINS.
+
+In that part of South America situated on the east of the Andes we
+have successively examined three systems of mountains, those of the
+shore of Venezuela, of the Parime and Brazil: we have seen that this
+mountainous region, which equals the Cordillera of the Andes, not in
+mass, but in area and horizontal section of surface, is three times
+less elevated, much less rich in precious metals adhering to the rock,
+destitute of recent traces of volcanic fire and, with the exception of
+the coast of Venezuela, little exposed to the violence of earthquakes.
+The average height of the three systems diminishes from north to
+south, from 750 to 400 toises; those of the culminant points (maxima
+of the height of each group) from 1350 to 1000 or 900 toises. Hence it
+results that the loftiest chain, with the exception of the small
+insulated system of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, is the
+Cordillera of the shore of Venezuela, which is itself but a
+continuation of the Andes. Directing our attention northward, we find
+in Central America (latitude 12 to 30 degrees) and North America
+(latitude 30 to 70 degrees), on the east of the Andes of Guatimala,
+Mexico and Upper Louisiana, the same regular lowering which struck us
+towards the south. In this vast extent of land, from the Cordillera of
+Venezuela to the polar circle, eastern America presents two distinct
+systems, the group of the mountains of the West Indies (which in its
+eastern part is volcanic) and the chain of the Alleghenies. The former
+of these systems, partly covered by the ocean, may be compared, with
+respect to its relative position and form, to the Sierra Parime; the
+latter, to the Brazil chains, running also from south-west to
+north-east. The culminant points of those two systems rise to 1138 and
+1040 toises. Such are the elements of this curve, of which the convex
+summit is in the littoral chain of Venezuela:
+
+AMERICA, EAST OF THE ANDES.
+
+COLUMN 1 : SYSTEMS OF MOUNTAINS.
+
+COLUMN 2 : MAXIMA OF HEIGHTS IN TOISES.
+
+Brazil Group : Itacolumi 900 (south latitude 20 1/2 degrees).
+
+Parime Group : Duida 1300 (north latitude 3 1/4 degrees).
+
+Littoral Chain of Venezuela : Silla of Caracas 1350 (north latitude 10
+1/2 degrees).
+
+Group of the West Indies : Blue Mountains 1138 (north latitude 18 1/5
+degrees).
+
+Chain of the Alleghenies : Mount Washington 1040 (north latitude 44
+1/4 degrees).
+
+I have preferred indicating in this table the culminant points of each
+system to the mean height of the line of elevation; the culminant
+points are the results of direct measures, while the mean height is an
+abstract idea somewhat vague, particularly when there is only one
+group of mountains, as in Brazil, Parime and the West Indies, and not
+a continued chain. Although it cannot be doubted that, among the five
+systems of mountains on the east of the Andes, of which one only
+belongs to the southern hemisphere, the littoral chain of Venezuela is
+the most elevated (having a culminant point of 1350 toises, and a mean
+height from the line of elevation of 750), we yet recognise with
+surprise that the mountains of eastern America (whether continental or
+insular) differ very inconsiderably in their height above the level of
+the sea. The five groups are all nearly of an average height of from
+500 to 700 toises; and the culminant points (maxima of the lines of
+elevation) from 1000 to 1300 toises. That uniformity of structure, in
+an extent twice as great as Europe, appears to me a very remarkable
+phenomenon. No summit east of the Andes of Peru, Mexico and Upper
+Louisiana rises beyond the limit of perpetual snow.* (* Not even the
+White Mountains of the state of New Hampshire, to which Mount
+Washington belongs. Long before the accurate measurement of Captain
+Partridge I had proved (in 1804), by the laws of the decrement of
+heat, that no summit of the White Mountains could attain the height
+assigned to them by Mr. Cutler, of 1600 toises.) It may be added that,
+with the exception of the Alleghenies, no snow falls sporadically in
+any of the eastern systems which we have just examined. From these
+considerations it results, and above all, from the comparison of the
+New Continent with those parts of the old world which we know best,
+with Europe and Asia, that America, thrown into the aquatic
+hemisphere* of our planet, is still more remarkable for the continuity
+and extent of the depressions of its surface, than for the height and
+continuity of its longitudinal ridge. Beyond and within the isthmus of
+Panama, but eastward of the Cordillera of the Andes, the mountains
+scarcely attain, over an extent of 600,000 square leagues, the height
+of the Scandinavian Alps, the Carpathians, the Monts-Dores (in
+Auvergne) and the Jura. (* The southern hemisphere, owing to the
+unequal distribution of seas and continents, has long been marked as
+eminently aquatic; but the same inequality is found when we consider
+the globe as divided not according to the equator but by meridians.
+The great masses of land are stinted between the meridian of 10
+degrees west, and 150 degrees east of Paris, while the hemisphere
+eminently aquatic begins westward of the meridian of the coast of
+Greenland, and ends on the east of the meridian of the eastern coast
+of New Holland and the Kurile Isles. This unequal distribution of land
+and water has the greatest influence on the distribution of heat over
+the surface of the globe, on the inflexions of the isothermal lines,
+and the climateric phenomena in general. For the inhabitants of the
+central parts of Europe the aquatic hemisphere may be called western,
+and the land hemisphere eastern; because in going to the west we reach
+the former sooner than the latter. It is the division according to the
+meridians, which is intended in the text. Till the end of the 15th
+century the western hemisphere was as much unknown to the nations of
+the eastern hemisphere, as one half of the lunar globe is to us at
+present, and will probably always remain.) One system only, that of
+the Andes, comprises in America, over a long and narrow zone of 3000
+leagues, all the summits exceeding 1400 toises high. In Europe, on the
+contrary, even considering the Alps and the Pyrenees as one sole line
+of elevation, we still find summits far from this line or principal
+ridge, in the Sierra Nevada of Grenada, Sicily, Greece, the Apennines,
+perhaps also in Portugal, from 1500 to 1800 toises high.* (* Culminant
+points; Malhacen of Grenada, 1826 toises; Etna, according to Captain
+William Henry Smith, 1700 toises; Monte Corno of the Apennines, 1489
+toises. If Mount Tomoros in Greece and the Serra Gaviarra of Portugal
+enter, as is alleged, into the limit of perpetual snow, those summits,
+according to their position in latitude, should attain from 1400 to
+1600 toises. Yet on the loftiest mountains of Greece, Tomoros, Olympus
+in Thessaly, Polyanos in Dolope and Mount Parnassus, M. Pouqueville
+saw, in the month of August, snow lying only in patches, and in
+cavities sheltered from the rays of the sun.) The contrast between
+America and Europe, with respect to distribution of the culminant
+points, which attain from 1300 to 1500 toises, is the more striking,
+as the low eastern mountains of South America, of which the maximum of
+elevation is only from 1300 to 1400 toises, are situated beside a
+Cordillera of which the mean height exceeds 1800 toises, while the
+secondary system of the mountains of Europe rises to maxima of
+elevation of 1500 to 1800 toises, near a principal chain of at least
+1200 toises of average height.
+
+MAXIMA OF THE LINE OF ELEVATION IN THE SAME PARALLELS.
+
+Andes of Chile, Upper Peru. Knots of the mountains of Porco and Cuzco,
+2500 toises. : Group of the Brazil Mountains; a little lower than the
+Cevennes 900 to 1000 toises.
+
+Andes of Popayan and Cundinamarca. Chain of Guacas, Quindiu, and
+Antioquia. More than 2800 toises. : Group of Parime Mountains; little
+lower than the Carpathians; 1300 toises.
+
+Insulated group of the Snowy Mountains of Santa Marta. It is believed
+to be 3000 toises high. : Littoral Chain of Venezuela; 80 toises lower
+than the Scandinavian Alps; 1350 toises.
+
+Volcanic Andes of Guatimala, and primitive Andes of Oaxaca, from 1700
+to 1800 toises. : Group of the West Indies, 170 toises higher than the
+mountains of Auvergne, 1140 toises.
+
+Andes of New Mexico and Upper Louisiana (Rocky Mountains) and further
+west. The Maritime Alps of New Albion, 1600 to 1900 toises. : Chain of
+the Alleghenies; 160 toises higher than the chains of Jura and the
+Gates of Malabar; 1040 toises.
+
+This table contains the whole system of mountains of the New
+Continent; namely: the Andes, the maritime Alps of California or New
+Albion and the five groups of the east.
+
+I may subjoin to the facts I have just stated an observation equally
+striking; in Europe the maxima of secondary systems, which exceed 1500
+toises, are found solely on the south of the Alps and Pyrenees, that
+is, on the south of the principal continental ridge. They are situated
+on the side where that ridge approaches nearest the shore, and where
+the Mediterranean has not overwhelmed the land. On the north of the
+Alps and Pyrenees, on the contrary, the most elevated secondary
+systems, the Carpathian and the Scandinavian mountains* do not attain
+the height of 1300 toises. (* The Lomnitzer Spitz of the Carpathians
+is, according to M. Wahlenberg, 1245 toises; Sneehattan, in the chain
+of Dovrefjeld in Norway (the highest summit of the old continent,
+north of the parallel of 55 degrees), is 1270.) The depression of the
+line of elevation of the second order is consequently found in Europe
+as well as in America, where the principal ridge is farthest removed
+from the shore. If we did not fear to subject great phenomena to too
+small a scale, we might compare the difference of the height of the
+Alps and the mountains of eastern America, with the difference of
+height observable between the Alps or the Pyrenees, and the Monts
+Dores, the Jura, the Vosges or the Black Forest.
+
+We have just seen that the causes which upheaved the oxidated crust of
+the globe in ridges, or in groups of mountains, have not acted very
+powerfully in the vast extent of country stretching from the eastern
+part of the Andes towards the Old World; that depression and that
+continuity of plains are geologic facts, the more remarkable, as they
+extend nowhere else in other latitudes. The five mountain systems of
+eastern America, of which we have stated the limits, divide that part
+of the continent into an equal number of basins of which only that of
+the Caribbean Sea remains submerged. From north to south, from the
+polar circle to the Straits of Magellan, we see in succession:
+
+1. THE BASIN OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND OF CANADA.
+
+An able geologist, Mr. Edwin James, has recently shown that this basin
+is comprehended between the Andes of New Mexico, or Upper Louisiana,
+and the chains of the Alleghenies which stretch northward in crossing
+the rapids of Quebec. It being quite as open northward as southward,
+it may be designated by the collective name of the basin of the
+Mississippi, the Missouri, the river St. Lawrence, the great lakes of
+Canada, the Mackenzie river, the Saskatchewan and the coast of
+Hudson's Bay. The tributary streams of the lakes and those of the
+Mississippi are not separated by a chain of mountains running from
+east to west, as traced on several maps; the line of partition of the
+waters is marked by a slight ridge, a rising of two counter-slopes in
+the plain. There is no chain between the sources of the Missouri and
+the Assineboine, which is a branch of the Red River and of Hudson's
+Bay. The surface of these plains, almost all savannah, between the
+polar sea and the gulf of Mexico, is more than 270,000 square sea
+leagues, nearly equal to the area of the whole of Europe. On the north
+of the parallel of 42 degrees the general slope of the land runs
+eastward; on the south of that parallel it inclines southward. To form
+a precise idea how little abrupt are these slopes we must recollect
+that the level of Lake Superior is 100 toises; that of Lake Erie, 88
+toises, and that of Lake Ontario, 36 toises above the level of the
+sea. The plains around Cincinnati (latitude 39 degrees 6 minutes) are
+scarcely, according to Mr. Drake, 80 toises of absolute height.
+Towards the west, between the Ozark mountains and the foot of the
+Andes of Upper Louisiana (Rocky Mountains, latitude 35 to 38 degrees),
+the basin of the Mississippi is considerably elevated in the vast
+desert described by Mr. Nuttal. It presents a series of small
+table-lands, gradually rising one above another, and of which the most
+westerly (that nearest the Rocky Mountains, between the Arkansas and
+the Padouca), is more than 450 toises high. Major Long measured a base
+to determine the position and height of James Peak. In the great basin
+of the Mississippi the line that separates the forests and the
+savannahs runs, not, as may be supposed, in the manner of a parallel,
+but like the Atlantic coast, and the Allegheny mountains themselves,
+from north-east to south-west, from Pittsburg towards Saint Louis, and
+the Red River of Nachitoches, so that the northern part only of the
+state of Illinois is covered with gramina. This line of demarcation is
+not only interesting for the geography of plants, but exerts, as we
+have said above, great influence in retarding culture and population
+north-west of the Lower Mississippi. In the United States the prairie
+countries are more slowly colonized; and even the tribes of
+independent Indians are forced by the rigour of the climate to pass
+the winter on the banks of rivers, where poplars and willows are
+found. The basins of the Mississippi, of the lakes of Canada and the
+St. Lawrence, are the largest in America; and though the total
+population does not rise at present beyond three millions, it may be
+considered as that in which, between latitude 29 and 45 degrees
+(longitude 74 to 94 degrees), civilization has made the greatest
+progress. It may even be said that in the other basins (of the
+Orinoco, the Amazon and Buenos Ayres) agricultural life scarcely
+exists; it begins, on a small number of points only, to supersede
+pastoral life, and that of fishing and hunting nations. The plains
+between the Alleghenies and the Andes of Upper Louisiana are of such
+vast extent that, like the Pampas of Choco and Buenos Ayres, bamboos
+(Ludolfia miega) and palm-trees grow at one extremity, while the
+other, during a great part of the year, is covered with ice and snow.
+
+2. THE BASIN OF THE GULF OF MEXICO, AND OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
+
+This is a continuation of the basin of the Mississippi, Louisiana and
+Hudson's Bay. It may be said that all the low lands on the coast of
+Venezuela situated north of the littoral chain and of the Sierra
+Nevada de Merida belong to the submerged part of this basin. If I
+treat here separately of the basin of the Caribbean Sea, it is to
+avoid confounding what, in the present state of the globe, is partly
+above and partly below the ocean. The recent coincidence of the
+periods of earthquakes observed at Caracas and on the banks of the
+Mississippi, the Arkansas and the Ohio, justifies the geologic
+theories which regard as one basin the plains bounded on the south, by
+the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela; on the east, by the Alleghenies
+and the series of the volcanoes of the West Indies; and on the west,
+by the Rocky Mountains (Mexican Andes) and by the series of the
+volcanoes of Guatimala. The basin of the West Indies forms, as we have
+already observed, a Mediterranean with several issues, the influence
+of which on the political destinies of the New Continent depends at
+once on its central position and the great fertility of its islands.
+The outlets of the basin, of which the four largest* are 75 miles
+broad, are all on the eastern side, open towards Europe, and agitated
+by the current of the tropics. (* Between Tobago and Grenada; Saint
+Martin and the Virgin Isles; Porto Rico and Saint Domingo; and between
+the Little Bank of Bahama and Cape Canaveral of Florida.) In the same
+manner as we recognize, in our Mediterranean, the vestiges of three
+ancient basins by the proximity of Rhodes, Scarpanto, Candia, and
+Cerigo, as well as by that of Cape Sorello of Sicily, the island of
+Pantelaria and Cape Bon, in Africa; so the basin of the West India
+Islands, which exceeds the Mediterranean in extent, seems to present
+the remains of ancient dykes which join* Cape Catoche of Yucatan to
+Cape San Atonio of the island of Cuba (* I do not pretend that this
+hypothesis of the rupture and the ancient continuity of lands can be
+extended to the eastern foot of the basin of the West Indies, that is,
+to the series of the volcanic islands in a line from Trinidad to Porto
+Rico.); and that island to Cape Tiburon of St. Domingo; Jamaica, the
+Bank of La Vibora and the rock of Serranilla to Cape Gracias a Dios on
+the Mosquito Shore. From this situation of the most prominent islands
+and capes of the continent, there results a division into three
+partial basins. The most northerly has long been distinguished by a
+particular denomination, that of the Gulf of Mexico; the intermediary
+or central basin may be called the Sea of Honduras, on account of the
+gulf of that name which makes a part of it; and the southern basin,
+comprehended between the Caribbean Islands and the coast of Venezuela,
+the isthmus of Panama, and the country of the Mosquito Indians, would
+form the Caribbean Sea. The modern volcanic rocks distributed on the
+two opposite banks of the basin of the West Indies on the east and
+west, but not on the north and south, is also a phenomenon worthy of
+attention. In the Caribbean Islands, a group of volcanoes, partly
+extinct and partly burning, stretches from 12 to 18 degrees; and in
+the Cordilleras of Guatimala and Mexico from latitude 9 to 19 1/2
+degrees. I noticed on the north-west extremity of the basin of the
+West Indies that the secondary formations dip towards south-east;
+along the coast of Venezuela rocks of gneiss and primitive mica-slate
+dip to north-west. The basalts, amygdaloids, and trachytes, which are
+often surmounted by tertiary limestones, appear only towards the
+eastern and western banks.
+
+3. THE BASIN OF THE LOWER ORINOCO, OR THE PLAINS OF VENEZUELA.
+
+This basin, like the plains of Lombardy, is open to the east. Its
+limits are the littoral chain of Venezuela on the north, the eastern
+Cordillera of New Grenada on the west, and the Sierra Parime on the
+south; but as the latter group extends on the west only to the
+meridian of the cataracts of Maypures (longitude 70 degrees 37
+minutes), there remains an opening or land-strait, running from north
+to south, by which the Llanos of Venezuela communicate with the basin
+of the Amazon and the Rio Negro. We must distinguish between the basin
+of the Lower Orinoco, properly so called (north of that river and the
+Rio Apure), and the plains of Meta and Guaviare. The latter occupy the
+space between the mountains of Parime and New Grenada. The two parts
+of this basin have an opposite direction; but being alike covered with
+gramina, they are usually comprehended in the country under the same
+denomination. Those Llanos extend, in the form of an arch, from the
+mouth of the Orinoco, by San Fernando de Apure, to the confluence of
+the Rio Caguan with the Jupura, consequently along a length of more
+than 360 leagues.
+
+(3a.) PART OF THE BASIN OF VENEZUELA RUNNING FROM EAST TO WEST.
+
+The general slope is eastward, and the mean height from 40 to 50
+toises. The western bank of that great sea of verdure (mar de yerbas)
+is formed by a group of mountains, several of which equal or exceed in
+height the Peak of Teneriffe and Mont Blanc. Of this number are the
+Paramos del Almorzadero, Cacota, Laura, Porquera, Mucuchies, Timotes,
+and Las Rosas. The height of the northern and southern banks is
+generally less than 500 or 600 toises. It is somewhat extraordinary
+that the maximum of the depression of the basin is not in its centre,
+but on its southern limit, at the Sierra Parime. It is only between
+the meridians of Cape Codera and Cumana, where a great part of the
+littoral Cordillera of Venezuela has been destroyed, that the waters
+of the Llanos (the Rio Unare and the Rio Neveri) reach the northern
+coast. The partition ridge of this basin is formed by small
+table-lands, known by the names of Mesas de Amana, Guanipa and Jonoro.
+In the eastern part, between the meridians 63 and 66 degrees, the
+plains or savannahs run southward beyond the bed of the Orinoco and
+the Imataca, and form (as they approach the Cujuni and the Essequibo)
+a kind of gulf along the Sierra Pacaraina.
+
+(3b.) PART OF THE BASIN OF VENEZUELA RUNNING FROM SOUTH TO NORTH.
+
+The great breadth of this zone of savannahs (from 100 to 120 leagues)
+renders the denomination of land-strait somewhat improper, at least if
+it be not geognostically applied to every communication of basins
+bounded by high Cordilleras. Perhaps this denomination more properly
+belongs to that part in which is situated the group of almost unknown
+mountains that surround the sources of the Rio Negro. In the basin
+comprehended between the eastern declivity of the Andes of New Grenada
+and the western part of the Sierra Parime, the savannahs, as we have
+observed above, stretch far beyond the equator; but their extent does
+not determine the southern limits of the basin here under
+consideration. These limits are marked by a ridge which divides the
+waters between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, a tributary stream of
+the Amazon. The rising of a counter-slope almost imperceptible to the
+eye, forms a ridge that seems to join the eastern Cordillera of the
+Andes to the group of the Parime. This ridge runs from Ceja (latitude
+1 degree 45 minutes), or the eastern slope of the Andes of Timana,
+between the sources of the Guayavero and the Rio Caguan, towards the
+isthmus that separates the Tuamini from Pimichin. In the Llanos,
+consequently, it follows the parallels of 20 degrees 30 minutes and 2
+degrees 45 minutes. It is remarkable that we find the divortia aquarum
+further westward on the back of the Andes, in the knot of mountains
+containing the sources of the Magdalena, at a height of 900 toises
+above the level of the Llanos, between the Caribbean Sea and the
+Pacific ocean, and almost in the same latitude (1 degree 45 minutes to
+2 degrees 20 minutes). From the isthmus of Javita towards the east,
+the line of the partition of waters is formed by the mountains of the
+Parime group; it first rises a little on the north-east towards the
+sources of the Orinoco (latitude 3 degrees 45 minutes ?) and the chain
+of Pacaraina (latitude 4 degrees 4 minutes to 4 degrees 12 minutes);
+then, during a course of 80 leagues, between the portage of the
+Anocapra and the banks of the Rupunuri, it runs very regularly from
+west to east; and finally, beyond the meridian 61 degrees 50 minutes,
+it again deviates towards lower latitudes, passing between the
+northern sources of the Rio Suriname, the Maroni, the Oyapoc and the
+southern sources of Rio Trombetas, Curupatuba, and Paru (latitude 2
+degrees to 1 degree 50 minutes). These facts suffice to prove that
+this first line of partition of the waters of South America (that of
+the northern hemisphere) traverses the whole continent between the
+parallels of 2 and 4 degrees. The Cassiquiare alone has cut its way
+across the ridge just described. The hydraulic system of the Orinoco
+displays the singular phenomenon of a bifurcation where the limit of
+two basins (those of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro) crosses the bed of
+the principal recipient. In that part of the basin of the Orinoco
+which runs in the direction of from south to north, as well as in that
+running from west to east, the maxima of depression are found at the
+foot of the Sierra Parime, we may even say, on its outline.
+
+4. THE BASIN OF THE RIO NEGRO AND THE AMAZON.
+
+This is the central and largest basin of South America. It is exposed
+to frequent equatorial rains, and the hot and humid climate develops a
+force of vegetation to which nothing in the two continents can be
+compared. The central basin, bounded on the north by the Parime group,
+and on the south by the mountains of Brazil, is entirely covered by
+thick forests, while the two basins at the extremities of the
+continent (the Llanos of Venezuela and the Lower Orinoco, and the
+Pampas of Buenos Ayres or the Rio de la Plata) are savannahs or
+prairies, plains without trees and covered with gramina. This
+symmetric distribution of savannahs bounded by impenetrable forests,
+must be connected with physical revolutions which have operated
+simultaneously over great surfaces.
+
+(4a.) PART OF THE BASIN OF THE AMAZON, RUNNING FROM EAST TO WEST,
+BETWEEN 2 DEGREES NORTH AND 12 DEGREES SOUTH; 880 LEAGUES IN LENGTH.
+
+The western shore of this basin is formed by the chain of the Andes,
+from the knot of the mountains of Huanuco to the sources of the
+Magdalena. It is enlarged by the spurs of the Rio Beni,* (* The real
+name of this great river, respecting the course of which geographers
+have been so long divided, is Uchaparu, probably water (para) of Ucha;
+Peni also signifies river or water; for the language of the Maypures
+has very many analogies with that of the Moxos; and veni (oueni)
+signifies water in Maypure, as una in Moxo. Perhaps the river retained
+the name of Maypure, after the Indians who spoke that language had
+emigrated northward in the direction of the banks of the Orinoco.)
+rich in gem-salt, and composed of several ranges of hills (latitude 8
+degrees 11 minutes south) which advance into the plains on the eastern
+bank of the Paro. These hills are transformed on our maps into Upper
+Cordilleras and Andes of Cuchao. Towards the north the basin of the
+Amazon, of which the area (244,000 square leagues) is only one-sixth
+less than the area of all Europe, rises in a gentle slope towards the
+Sierra Parime. At 68 degrees of west longitude the elevated part of
+this Sierra terminates at 3 1/2 degrees north latitude. The group of
+little mountains surrounding the source of the Rio Negro, the Inirida
+and the Xie (latitude 2 degrees) the scattered rocks between the
+Atabapo and the Cassiquiare, appear like groups of islands and rocks
+in the middle of the plain. Some of those rocks are covered with signs
+or symbolical sculpture. Nations, very different from those who now
+inhabit the banks of the Cassiquiare, penetrated into the savannahs;
+and the zone of painted rocks, extending more than 150 leagues in
+breadth, bears traces of ancient civilization. On the east of the
+sporadic groups of rocks (between the meridian of the bifurcation of
+the Orinoco and that of the confluence of the Essequibo with the
+Rupunuri) the lofty mountains of the Parime commence only in 3 degrees
+north latitude; where the plains of the Amazon terminate.
+
+The limits of the plains of the Amazon are still less known towards
+the south than towards the north. The mountains that exceed 400 toises
+of absolute height do not appear to extend in Brazil northward of the
+parallels 14 or 15 degrees of south latitude, and west of the meridian
+of 52 degrees; but it is not known how far the mountainous country
+extends, if we may call by that name a territory bristled with hills
+of one hundred or two hundred toises high. Between the Rio dos
+Vertentes and the Rio de Tres Barras (tributary streams of the Araguay
+and the Topayos) several ridges of the Monts Parecis run northward. On
+the right bank of the Topayos a series of little hills advance as far
+as the parallel of 5 degrees south latitude, to the fall (cachoeira)
+of Maracana; while further west, in the Rio Madeira, the course of
+which is nearly parallel with that of the Topayos, the rapids and
+cataracts indicate no rocky ridges beyond the parallel of 8 degrees.
+The principal depression of the basin of which we have just examined
+the outline, is not near one of its banks, as in the basin of the
+Lower Orinoco, but at the centre, where the great recipient of the
+Amazon forms a longitudinal furrow inclining from west to east, under
+an angle of at least 25 degrees. The barometric measurements which I
+made at Javita on the banks of the Tuamini, at Vasivia on the banks of
+the Cassiquiare and at the cataract of Rentema, in the Upper Maranon,
+seem to prove that the rising of the Llanos of the Amazon northward
+(at the foot of the Sierra Parime) is 150 toises, and westward (at the
+foot of the Cordillera of the Andes of Loxa), 190 toises above the
+sea-level.
+
+(4b.) PART OF THE BASIN OF THE AMAZON STRETCHING FROM SOUTH TO NORTH.
+
+This is the zone or land-strait by which, between 12 and 20 degrees of
+south latitude, the plains of the Amazon communicate with the Pampas
+of Buenos Ayres. The western bank of this zone is formed by the Andes,
+between the knot of Porco and Potosi, and that of Huanuco and Pasco.
+Part of the spurs of the Rio Beni, which is but a widening of the
+Cordilleras of Apolobamba and Cuzco and the whole promontory of
+Cochabamba, advance eastward into the plains of the Amazon. The
+prolongation of this promontory has given rise to the idea that the
+Andes are linked with a series of hills which the Serras dos Parecis,
+the Serra Melgueira, and the supposed Cordillera of San Fernando,
+throw out towards the west. This almost unknown part of the frontiers
+of Brazil and Upper Peru merits the attention of travellers. It is
+understood that the ancient mission of San Jose de Chiquitos (nearly
+latitude 17 degrees, longitude 67 degrees 10 minutes, supposing Santa
+Cruz de la Sierra, in latitude 17 degrees 25 minutes, longitude 66
+degrees 47 minutes) is situated in the plains, and that the mountains
+of the spur of Cochabamba terminate between the Guapaix (Rio de
+Mizque) and the Parapiti, which lower down takes the names of Rio San
+Miguel and Rio Sara. The savannahs of the province of Chiquitos
+communicate on the north with those of Moxos, and on the south with
+those of Chaco; but a ridge or line of partition of the waters is
+formed by the intersection of two gently sloping plains. This ridge
+takes its origin on the north of La Plata (Chuquisaca) between the
+sources of the Guapaix and the Cachimayo, and it ascends from the
+parallel of 20 degrees to that of 15 1/2 degrees south latitude,
+consequently on the north-east, towards the isthmus of Villabella.
+From this point, one of the most important of the whole hydrography of
+America, we may follow the line of the partition of the water to the
+Cordillera of the shore (Serra do Mar). It is seen winding (latitude
+17 to 20 degrees) between the northern sources of the Araguay, the
+Maranhao or Tocantines, the Rio San Francisco and the southern sources
+of the Parana. This second line of partition which enters the group of
+the Brazil mountains on the frontier of Capitania of Goyaz separates
+the flowings of the basin of the Amazon from those of the Rio de la
+Plata, and corresponds, south of the equator, with the line we have
+indicated in the northern hemisphere (latitude 2 to 4 degrees), on the
+limits of the basins of the Amazon and the Lower Orinoco.
+
+If the plains of the Amazon (taking that denomination in the
+geognostic sense we have given it) are in general distinguished from
+the Llanos of Venezuela and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, by the extent
+and thickness of their forests, we are the more struck by the
+continuity of the savannahs in that part running from south to north.
+It would seem as though this sea of verdure stretched forth an arm
+from the basin of Buenos Ayres, by the Llanos of Tucuman, Manso,
+Chuco, the Chiquitos, and the Moxos, to the Pampas del Sacramento and
+the savannahs of Napo, Guaviare, Meta and Apure. This arm crosses,
+between 7 and 3 degrees south latitude, the basin of the forests of
+the Amazon; and the absence of trees on so great an extent of
+territory, together with the preponderance which the small
+monocotyledonous plants have acquired, is a phenomenon of the
+geography of plants which belongs perhaps to the action of ancient
+pelagic currents or other partial revolutions of our planet.
+
+5. PLAINS OF THE RIO DE LA PLATA, AND OF PATAGONIA, FROM THE
+SOUTH-WESTERN SLOPE OF THE GROUP OF THE BRAZIL MOUNTAINS TO THE STRAIT
+OF MAGELLAN; FROM 20 TO 53 DEGREES OF LATITUDE.
+
+These plains correspond with those of the Mississippi and of Canada in
+the northern hemisphere. If one of their extremities approaches less
+nearly to the polar regions, the other enters much further into the
+region of palm-trees. That part of this vast basin extending from the
+eastern coast towards the Rio Paraguay does not present a surface so
+perfectly smooth as the part situated on the west and the south-east
+of the Rio de la Plata, and which has been known for ages by the name
+of Pampas, derived from the Peruvian or Quichua language.* (* Hatan
+Pampa signifies in that language, a great plain. We find the word
+Pampa also in Riobamba and Guallabamba; the Spaniards, in order to
+soften the geographical names, changing the p into b.) Geognostically
+speaking these two regions of east and west form only one basin,
+bounded on the east by the Sierra de Villarica or do Espinhaco, which
+loses itself in the Capitania of San Paul, near the parallel of 24
+degrees; issuing on the north-east by little hills, from the Serra da
+Canastra and the Campos Parecis towards the province of Paraguay; on
+the west by the Andes of Upper Peru and Chile; and on the north-west
+by the ridge of the partition of the waters which runs from the spur
+of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, across the plains of the Chiquitos,
+towards the Serras of Albuquerque (latitude 19 degrees 2 minutes) and
+San Fernando. That part only of this basin lying on the west of the
+Rio Paraguay, and which is entirely covered with gramina, is 70,000
+square leagues. This surface of the Pampas or Llanos of Manse,
+Tucuman, Buenos Ayres and eastern Patagonia is consequently four times
+greater than the surface of the whole of France. The Andes of Chile
+narrow the Pampas by the two spurs of Salta and Cordova; the latter
+promontory forms so projecting a point that there remains (latitude 31
+to 32 degrees) a plain only 45 leagues broad between the eastern
+extremity of the Sierra de Cordova and the right bank of the river
+Paraguay, stretching in the direction of a meridian, from the town of
+Nueva Coimbra to Rosario, below Santa Fe. Far beyond the southern
+frontiers of the old viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, between the Rio
+Colorado and the Rio Negro (latitude 38 to 39 degrees) groups of
+mountains seem to rise in the form of islands in the middle of a
+muriatiferous plain. A tribe of Indians of the south (Tehuellet) have
+there long borne the characteristic name of men of the mountains
+(Callilehet) or Serranos. From the parallel of the mouth of the Rio
+Negro to that of Cabo Blanco (latitude 41 to 47 degrees) scattered
+mountains on the eastern Patagonian coast denote more considerable
+inequalities inland. All that part, however, of the Straits of
+Magellan, from the Virgins' Cape to the North Cape, on the breadth of
+more than 30 leagues, is surrounded by savannahs or Pampas; and the
+Andes of western Patagonia only begin to rise near the latter cape,
+exercising a marked influence on the direction of that part of the
+strait nearest the Pacific, proceeding from south-east to north-west.
+
+If we have given the plains or great basins of South America the names
+of the rivers that flow in their longitudinal furrows, we have not
+meant by so-doing to compare them to mere valleys. In the plains of
+the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon all the lines of the declivity
+doubtless reach a principal recipient, and the tributaries of
+tributary streams, that is the basins of different orders, penetrate
+far into the group of the mountains. The upper parts or high valleys
+of the tributary streams must be considered in a geological table as
+belonging to the mountainous region of the country, and beyond the
+plains of the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon. The views of the geologist
+are not identical with those of the hydrographer. In the basin of the
+Rio de la Plata and Patagonia the waters that follow the lines of the
+greatest declivities have many issues. The same basin contains several
+valleys of rivers; and when we examine nearly the polyedric surface of
+the Pampas and the portion of their waters which, like the waters of
+the steppes of Asia, do not go to the sea, we conceive that these
+plains are divided by small ridges or lines of elevation, and have
+alternate slopes, inclined, with reference to the horizon, in opposite
+directions. In order to point out more clearly the difference between
+geological and hydrographic views, and to prove that in the former,
+abstracting the course of the waters which meet in one recipient, we
+obtain a far more general point of view, I shall here again recur to
+the hydrographic basin of the Orinoco. That immense river rises on the
+southern slope of the Sierra Parime. It is bounded by plains on the
+left bank, from the Cassiquiare to the mouth of the Atabapo, and flows
+in a basin which, geologically speaking, according to one great
+division of the surface of South America into three basins, we have
+called the basin of the Rio Negro and the Amazon. The low regions,
+which are bounded by the southern and northern declivities of the
+Parime and Brazil mountains, and which the geologist ought to mark by
+one name, contain, according to the no less precise language of
+hydrography, two basins of rivers, those of the Upper Orinoco and the
+Amazon, separated by a ridge that runs from Javita towards Esmeralda.
+From these considerations it results that a geological basin (sit
+venia verbo) may have several recipients and several emissaries,
+divided by small ridges almost imperceptible; it may at the same time
+contain waters that flow to the sea by different furrows independent
+of each other, and the systems of inland rivers flowing into lakes
+more or less charged with saline matter. A basin of a river, or
+hydrographic basin, has but one recipient, one emissary; if, by a
+bifurcation, it gives a part of its waters to another hydrographic
+basin, it is because the bed of the river, or the principal recipient,
+approaches so near the banks of the basin or the ridge of partition
+that the ridge partly crosses it.
+
+The distribution of the inequalities of the surface of the globe does
+not present any strongly marked limits between the mountainous country
+and the low regions, or geologic basins. Even where real chains of
+mountains rise like rocky dykes issuing from a crevice, spurs more or
+less considerable, seem to indicate a lateral upheaving. While I admit
+the difficulty of properly defining the groups of mountains and the
+basins or continuous plains, I have attempted to calculate their
+surfaces according to the statements contained in the preceding
+sheets.
+
+TABLE OF AREAS FOR SOUTH AMERICA.
+
+COLUMN 1 : GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION.
+
+COLUMN 2 : AREA IN SQUARE MARINE LEAGUES.
+
+1. MOUNTAINOUS PART:
+
+Andes                                         :  58,900.
+Littoral Chain of Venezuela                   :   1,900.
+Sierra Nevada de Merida                       :     200.
+Group of the Parime                           :  25,800.
+System of the Brazil mountains                :  27,600.
+
+TOTAL                                         : 114,400.
+
+2. PLAINS:
+
+Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, the Meta,        :  29,000.
+and the Guaviare
+Plains of the Amazon                          : 260,400.
+Pampas of Rio de la Plata and Patagonia       : 135,200.
+Plains between the eastern chain of the
+Andes of Cundinamarca and the chain of Choco  :  12,300.
+Plains of the shore on the west of the Andes  :  20,000.
+
+TOTAL                                         : 456,900.
+
+The whole surface of South America contains 571,300 square leagues (20
+to a degree), and the proportion of the mountainous country to the
+region of the plains is as 1 to 3.9. The latter region, on the east of
+the Andes, comprises more than 424,600 square leagues, half of which
+consists of savannahs; that is to say, it is covered with gramina.
+
+SECTION 2.
+
+GENERAL PARTITION OF GROUND.
+DIRECTION AND INCLINATION OF THE STRATA.
+RELATIVE HEIGHT OF THE FORMATIONS ABOVE THE LEVEL OF THE OCEAN.
+
+In the preceding section we have examined the inequalities of the
+surface of the soil, that is to say, the general structure of the
+mountains and the form of the basins rising between those variously
+grouped mountains. These mountains are sometimes longitudinal, running
+in narrow bands or chains, similar to the veins that preserve their
+directions at great distances, as the Andes, the littoral chain of
+Venezuela, the Serra do Mar of Brazil, and the Alleghenies of the
+United States. Sometimes they are in masses with irregular forms, in
+which upheavings seem to have taken place as on a labyrinth of
+crevices or a heap of veins, as for example in the Sierra Parime and
+the Serra dos Vertentes. These modes of formation are linked with a
+geognostic hypothesis, which has at least the recommendation of being
+founded on facts observed in remote times, and which strongly
+characterize the chains and groups of mountains. Considerations on the
+aspect of a country are independent of those which indicate the nature
+of the soil, the heterogeneity of matter, the superposition of rocks
+and the direction and inclination of strata.
+
+In taking a general view of the geological constitution of a chain of
+mountains, we may distinguish five elements of direction too often
+confounded in works of geognosy and physical geography. These elements
+are:--
+
+  1. The longitudinal axis of the whole chain.
+  2. The line that divides the waters (divortia aquarum).
+  3. The line of ridges or elevation passing along the maxima of height.
+  4. The line that separates two contiguous formations into horizontal
+        sections.
+  5. The line that follows the fissures of stratification.
+
+This distinction is the more necessary, there existing probably no
+chain on the globe that furnishes a perfect parallelism of all these
+directing lines. In the Pyrenees, for instance, 1, 2, 3, do not
+coincide, but 4 and 5 (that is, the different formations which come to
+light successively, and the direction of the strata) are obviously
+parallel to 1, or to the direction of the whole chain. We find so
+often in the most distant parts of the globe, a perfect parallelism
+between 1 and 5, that it may be supposed that the causes which
+determine the direction of the axis (the angle under which that axis
+cuts the meridian) are generally linked with causes that determine the
+direction and inclination of the strata. This direction of the strata
+is independent of the line of the formations, or their visible limits
+at the surface of the soil; the lines 4 and 5 sometimes cross each
+other, even when one of them coincides with 1, or with the direction
+of the longitudinal axis of the whole chain. The RELIEF of a country
+cannot be precisely explained on a map, nor can the most erroneous
+opinions on the locality and superposition of the strata be avoided,
+if we do not apprehend with clearness the relation of the directing
+lines just mentioned.
+
+In that part of South America to which this memoir principally
+relates, and which is bounded by the Amazon on the south, and on the
+west by the meridian of the Snowy Mountains (Sierra Nevada) of Merida,
+the different bands or zones of formations (4) are sensibly parallel
+with the longitudinal axis (1) of the chains of mountains, basins or
+interposed plains. It may be said in general that the granitic zone
+(including under that denomination the rocks of granite, gneiss and
+mica-slate) follows the direction of the Cordillera of the shore of
+Venezuela, and belongs exclusively to that Cordillera and the group of
+the Parime mountains; since it nowhere pierces the secondary and
+tertiary strata in the Llanos or basin of the Lower Orinoco. Thence it
+results that the same formations do not constitute the region of
+plains and that of mountains.
+
+If we may be allowed to judge of the structure of the whole Sierra
+Parime, from the part which I examined in 6 degrees of longitude, and
+4 degrees of latitude, we may believe it to be entirely composed of
+gneiss-granite; I saw some beds of greenstone and amphibolic slate,
+but neither mica-slate, clay-slate, nor banks of green limestone,
+although many phenomena render the presence of mica-slate probable on
+the east of the Maypures and in the chain of Pacaraina. The geological
+formation of the Parime group is consequently still more simple than
+that of the Brazilian group, in which granites, gneiss and mica-slate
+are covered with thonschiefer, chloritic quartz (Itacolumite),
+grauwacke and transition-limestone; but those two groups exhibit in
+common the absence of a real system of secondary rocks; we find in
+both only some fragments of sandstone or silicious conglomerate. In
+the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela the granitic formations
+predominate; but they are wanting towards the east, and especially in
+the southern chain, where we observe (in the missions of Caripe and
+around the gulf of Cariaco) a great accumulation of secondary and
+tertiary calcareous rocks. From the point where the littoral
+Cordillera is linked with the Andes of New Grenada (longitude 71 1/2
+degrees) we observe first the granitic mountains of Aroa and San
+Felipe, between the rivers Yaracui and Tocuyo; these granitic
+formations extend on the east of the two coasts of the basin of the
+Valleys of Aragua, in the northern chain, as far as Cape Codera; and
+in the southern as far as the mountains (altas savanas) of Ocumare.
+After the remarkable interruption of the littoral Cordillera in the
+province of Barcelona, granitic rocks begin to appear in the island of
+Marguerita and in the isthmus of Araya, and continue, perhaps, towards
+the Boca del Drago; but on the east of the meridian of Cape Codera the
+northern chain only is granitic (of micaceous slate); the southern
+chain is entirely composed of secondary limestone and sandstone.
+
+If, in the granitic series, where a very complex formation, we would
+distinguish mineralogically between the rocks of granite, gneiss, and
+mica-slate, it must be borne in mind that coarse-grained granite, not
+passing to gneiss, is very rare in this country. It belongs peculiarly
+to the mountains that bound the basin of the lake of Valencia towards
+the north; for in the islands of that lake, in the mountains near the
+Villa de Cura, and in the whole northern chain, between the meridian
+of Vittoria and Cape Codera, gneiss predominates, sometimes
+alternating with granite, or passing to mica-slate. Mica-slate is the
+most frequent rock in the peninsula of Araya and the group of Macanao,
+which forms the western part of the island of Marguerita. On the west
+of Maniquarez the mica-slate of the peninsula of Araya loses by
+degrees its semi-metallic lustre; it is charged with carbon, and
+becomes a clay-slate (thonschiefer) even an ampelite (alaunschiefer).
+Beds of granular limestone are most common in the primitive northern
+chain; and it is somewhat remarkable that they are found in gneiss,
+and not in mica-slate.
+
+We find at the back of this granitic, or rather mica-slate-gneiss soil
+of the southern chain, on the south of the Villa de Cura, a transition
+stratum, composed of greenstone, amphibolic serpentine, micaceous
+limestone, and green and carburetted slate. The most southern limit of
+this district is marked by volcanic rocks. Between Parapara, Ortiz and
+the Cerro de Flores (latitude 9 degrees 28 minutes to 9 degrees 34
+minutes; longitude 70 degrees 2 minutes to 70 degrees 15 minutes)
+phonolites and amygdaloids are found on the very border of the basin
+of the Llanos, that vast inland sea which once filled the whole space
+between the Cordilleras of Venezuela and Parime. According to the
+observations of Major Long and Dr. James, trap-formations (bulleuses
+dolerites and amygdaloids with pyroxene) also border the plains or
+basin of the Mississippi, towards the west, at the declivity of the
+Rocky Mountains. The ancient pyrogenic rocks which I found near
+Parapara where they rise in mounds with rounded summits, are the more
+remarkable as no others have hitherto been discovered in the whole
+eastern part of South America. The close connection observed in the
+strata of Parapara, between greenstone, amphibolic serpentine, and
+amygdaloids containing crystals of pyroxene; the form of the Morros of
+San Juan, which rise like cylinders above the table-land; the granular
+texture of their limestone, surrounded by trap rocks, are objects
+worthy the attention of the geologist who has studied in the southern
+Tyrol the effects produced by the contact of poroxenic porphyries.* (*
+Leopold von Buch. Tableau geologique du Tyrol page 17. M. Boussingault
+states that these singular Morros de San Juan, which furnish a
+limestone with crystalline grains, and thermal springs, are hollow,
+and contain immense grottos filled with stalactites, which appear to
+have been anciently inhabited by the natives.)
+
+The calcareous soil of the littoral Cordillera prevails most on the
+east of Cape Unare, in the southern chain; it extends to the gulf of
+Paria, opposite the island of Trinidad, where we find gypsum of Guire,
+containing sulphur. I have been informed that in the northern chain
+also, in the Montana de Paria, and near Carupana, secondary calcareous
+formations are found, and that they only begin to show themselves on
+the east of the ridge of rock called the Cerro de Meapire, which joins
+the calcareous group of Guacharo to the mica-slate group of the
+peninsula of Araya; but I have not had an opportunity of ascertaining
+the accuracy of this information. The calcareous stratum of the
+southern chain is composed of two formations which appear to be very
+distinct the one from the other: namely limestone of Cumanacoa and
+that of Caripe. When I was on the spot the former appeared to me to
+have some analogy with zechstein, or Alpine limestone; the latter with
+Jura limestone; I even thought that the granular gypsum of Guire might
+be that which belongs in Europe to zechstein, or is placed between
+zechstein and variegated sandstone. Strata of quartzose sandstone,
+alternating with slaty clay, cover the limestone of Cumanacoa, Cerro
+del Imposible, Turimiquiri, Guarda de San Agustin, and the Jura
+limestone in the province of Barcelona (Aguas Calientes). According to
+their position these sandstones may be considered as belonging to the
+formation of green sandstone, or sandstone with lignites below chalk.
+But if, as I thought I observed at Cocollar, sandstone forms strata in
+the Alpine limestone before it is superposed, it appears doubtful
+whether the sandstone of the Imposible, and of Aguas Calientes,
+constitute one series. Muriatiferous clay (with petroleum and lamellar
+gypsum) covers the western part of the peninsula of Araya, opposite to
+the town of Cumana, and in the centre of the island of Marguerita.
+This clay appears to lie immediately over the mica-slate, and under
+the calcareous breccia of the tertiary strata. I cannot decide whether
+Araya, which is rich in disseminated muriate of soda, belongs to the
+sandstone formation of the Imposible, which from its position may be
+compared to variegated sandstone (red marl).
+
+There is no doubt that fragments of tertiary strata surround the
+castle and town of Cumana (Castillo de San Antonio) and they also
+appear at the south-western extremity of the peninsula of Araya (Cerro
+de la Vela et del Barigon); at the ridge of the Cerro de Meapire, near
+Cariaco; at Cabo Blanco, on the west of La Guayra, and on the shore of
+Porto Cabello; they are consequently found at the foot of the two
+slopes of the northern chain of the Cordillera of Venezuela. This
+tertiary stratum is composed of alternate beds of calcareous
+conglomerate, compact limestone, marl, and clay, containing selenite
+and lamellar gypsum. The whole system (of very recent beds) appears to
+me to constitute but one formation, which is found at the Cerro de la
+Popa, near Carthagena, and in the islands of Guadaloupe and Martinico.
+
+Such is the geological distribution of strata in the mountainous part
+of Venezuela, in the group of the Parime and in the littoral
+Cordillera. We have now to characterize the formations of the Llanos
+(or of the basin of the Lower Orinoco and the Apure); but it is not
+easy to determine the order of their superposition, because in this
+region ravines or beds of torrents and deep wells dug by the hands of
+man are entirely wanting. The formations of the Llanos are, first, a
+sandstone or conglomerate, with rounded fragments of quartz, Lydian
+stone, and kieselschiefer, united by a ferruginous clayey cement,
+extremely tenacious, olive-brown, sometimes of a vivid red; second, a
+compact limestone (between Tisnao and Calabozo) which, by its smooth
+fracture and lithographic aspect, approaches the Jura limestone:
+third, alternate strata of marl and lamellar gypsum (Mesa de San
+Diego, Ortiz, Cachipo). These three formations appeared to me to
+succeed each other in the order I have just described, the sandstone
+inclining in a concave position, northward, on the transition-slates
+of Malpasso, and southward, on the gneiss-granite of Parime. As the
+gypsum often immediately covers the sandstone of Calabozo, which
+appeared to me, on the spot, to be identical with our red sandstone, I
+am uncertain of the age of its formation. The secondary rocks of the
+Llanos of Cumana, Barcelona and Caracas occupy a space of more than
+5000 square leagues. Their continuity is the more remarkable, as they
+appear to have no existence, at least on the east of the meridian of
+Porto Cabello (70 degrees 37 minutes) in the whole basin of the Amazon
+not covered by granitic sands. The causes which have favoured the
+accumulation of calcareous matter in the eastern region of the coast
+chain, in the Llanos of Venezuela (from 10 1/2 to 8 degrees north),
+cannot have operated nearer the equator, in the group of the mountains
+of the Parime and in the plains of the Rio Negro and the Amazon
+(latitude 1 degree north to 1 degree south). The latter plains,
+however, furnish some ledges of fragmentary rocks on the south-west of
+San Fernando de Atabapo, as well as on the south-east, in the lower
+part of the Rio Negro and the Rio Branco. I saw in the plains of Jaen
+de Bracamoros a sandstone which alternates with ledges of sand and
+conglomerate nodules of porphyry and Lydian stone. MM. Spix and
+Martius affirm that the banks of the Rio Negro on the south of the
+equator are composed of variegated sandstone; those of the Rio Branco,
+Jupura and Apoporis of quadersandstein; and those of the Amazon, on
+several points, of ferruginous sandstone.* (* Braunes eisenschussiges
+Sandstein-Conglomerat (Iron-sand of the English geologists, between
+the Jura limestone and green sandstone.) MM. Spix and Martius found on
+rocks of quadersandstein, between the Apoporis and the Japura, the
+same sculptures which we have pointed out from the Essequibo to the
+plains of Cassiquiare, and which seem to prove the migrations of a
+people more advanced in civilization than the Indians who now inhabit
+those countries.) It remains to examine if (as I am inclined to
+suppose) the limestone and gypsum formations of the eastern part of
+the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela differ entirely from those of the
+Llanos, and to what series belongs that rocky wall* named the Galera,
+which bounds the steppes of Calabozo towards the north? (* Is this
+wall a succession of rocks of dolomite or a dyke of quadersandstein,
+like the Devil's Wall (Teufelsmauer), at the foot of the Hartz?
+Calcareous shelves (coral banks), either ledges of sandstone (effects
+of the revulsion of the waves) or volcanic eruptions, are commonly
+found on the borders of great plains, that is, on the shores of
+ancient inland seas. The Llanos of Venezuela furnish examples of such
+eruptions near Para(?) like Harudje (Mons Ater, Plin.) on the northern
+boundary of the African desert (the Sahara). Hills of sandstone rising
+like towers, walls and fortified castles and offering great analogy to
+quadersandstein, bound the American desert towards the west, on the
+south of Arkansas.) The basin of the steppes is itself the bottom of a
+sea destitute of islands; it is only on the south of the Apure,
+between that river and the Meta, near the western bank of the Sierra,
+that a few hills appear, as Monte Parure, la Galera de Sinaruco and
+the Cerritos de San Vicente. With the exception of the fragments of
+tertiary strata above mentioned there is, from the equator to the
+parallel of 10 degrees north (between the meridian of Sierra Nevada de
+Merida and the coast of Guiana), if not an absence, at least a
+scarcity of those petrifactions, which strikes an observer recently
+arrived from Europe.
+
+The maxima of the height of the different formations diminish
+regularly in the country we are describing with their relative ages.
+These maxima, for gneiss-granite (Peak of Duida in the group of
+Parime, Silla de Caracas in the coast chain) are from 1300 to 1350
+toises; for the limestone of Cumanacoa (summit or Cucurucho of
+Turimiquiri), 1050 toises; for the limestone of Caripe (mountains
+surrounding the table-land of the Guarda de San Augustin), 750 toises;
+for the sandstone alternating with the limestone of Cumanacoa
+(Cuchilla de Guanaguana), 550 toises; for the tertiary strata (Punta
+Araya), 200 toises.
+
+The tract of country of which I am here describing the geological
+constitution is distinguished by the astonishing regularity observed
+in the direction of the strata of which the rocks of different eras
+are composed. I have already often pointed the attention of my readers
+to a geognostic law, one of the few that can be verified by precise
+measurements. Occupied since the year 1792 by the parallelism, or
+rather the loxodromism of the strata, examining the direction and
+inclination of the primitive and transition beds, from the coast of
+Genoa across the chain of the Bochetta, the plains of Lombardy, the
+Alps of Saint Gothard, the table-land of Swabia, the mountains of
+Bareuth, and the plains of Northern Germany, I was struck with the
+extreme frequency, if not the uniformity, of the horary directions 3
+and 4 of the compass of Freiberg (direction from south-west to
+north-east). This research, which I thought might lead to important
+discoveries relating to the structure of the globe, had then such
+attractions for me that it was one of the most powerful incentives of
+my voyage to the equator. My own observations, together with those of
+many able geologists, convince me that there exists in no hemisphere a
+general and absolute uniformity of direction; but that in regions of
+very considerable extent, sometimes over several thousand square
+leagues, we observe that the direction and (though more rarely) the
+inclination have been determined by a system of particular forces. We
+discover at great distances a parallelism (loxodromism) of the strata,
+a direction of which the type is manifest amidst partial perturbations
+and which often remains the same in primitive and transition strata. A
+fact which must have struck Palasson and Saussure is that in general
+the direction of the strata, even in those which are far distant from
+the principal ridges, is identical with the direction of mountain
+chains; that is to say, with their longitudinal axis.
+
+Venezuela is one of the countries in which the parallelism of the
+strata of gneiss-granite, mica-slate and clay-slate, is most strongly
+marked. The general direction of these strata is north 50 degrees
+east, and the general inclination from 60 to 70 degrees north-west.
+Thus I observed them on a length of more than a hundred leagues, in
+the littoral chain of Venezuela; in the stratified granite of Las
+Trincheras at Porto Cabello; in the gneiss of the islands of the lake
+of Valencia, and in the vicinity of the Villa de Cura; in the
+transition-slate and greenstone on the north of Parapara; in the road
+from La Guayra to the town of Caracas, and through all the Sierra de
+Avila in Cape Codera; and in the mica-slate and clay-slate of the
+peninsula of Araya. The same direction from north-east to south-west,
+and this inclination to north-west, are also manifest, although less
+decidedly, in the limestones of Cumanacoa at Cuchivano and between
+Guanaguana and Caripe. The exceptions to this general law are
+extremely rare in the gneiss-granite of the littoral Cordillera; it
+may even be affirmed that the inverse direction (from south-east to
+north-west) often bears with it the inclination towards south-west.
+
+As that part of the group of the Sierra Parime over which I passed
+contains much more granite* than gneiss (* Only the granite of the
+Baragon is stratified, as well as crossed by veins of granite: the
+direction of the beds is north 20 degrees west), and other rocks
+distinctly stratified, the direction of the layers could be observed
+in this group only on a small number of points; but I was often struck
+in this region with the continuity of the phenomenon of loxodromism.
+The amphibolic slates of Angostura run north 45 degrees east, like the
+gneiss of Guapasoso which forms the bed of the Atabapo, and like the
+mica-slate of the peninsula of Araya, though there is a distance of
+160 leagues between the limits of those rocks.
+
+The direction of the strata, of which we have just noticed the
+wonderful uniformity, is not entirely parallel with the longitudinal
+axes of the two coast chains, and the chain of Parime. The strata
+generally cut the former of those chains at an angle of 35 degrees,
+and their inclination towards the north-west becomes one of the most
+powerful causes of the aridity which prevails on the southern
+declivity* of the mountains of the coast. (* This southern declivity
+is however less rapid than the northern.) May we conclude that the
+direction of the eastern Cordillera of New Grenada, which is nearly
+north 45 degrees east from Santa Fe de Bogota, to beyond the Sierra
+Nevada de Merida, and of which the littoral chain is but a
+continuation, has had an influence on the direction (hor. 3 to 4) of
+the strata in Venezuela? That region presents a very remarkable
+loxodromism with the strata of mica-slate, grauwacke, and the
+orthoceratite limestone of the Alleghenies, and that vast extent of
+country (latitude 56 to 68 degrees) lately visited by Captain
+Franklin. The direction north-east to south-west prevails in every
+part of North America, as in Europe in the Fitchtelgebirge of
+Franconia, in Taunus, Westerwald, and Eifel; in the Ardennes, the
+Vosges, in Cotentin, in Scotland and in the Tarentaise at the
+south-west extremity of the Alps. If the strata of rocks in Venezuela
+do not exactly follow the direction of the nearest Cordillera, that of
+the shore, the parallelism between the axis of one chain, and the
+strata of the formations that compose it, are manifest in the Brazil
+group.* (* The strata of the primitive and intermediary rocks of
+Brazil run very regularly, like the Cordillera of Villarica (Serra do
+Espinhaco) hor. 1.4 or hor. 2 of the compass of Freiberg (north 28
+degrees east.))
+
+SECTION 3.
+
+NATURE OF THE ROCKS.
+RELATIVE AGE AND SUPERPOSITION OF THE FORMATIONS.
+PRIMITIVE, TRANSITION, SECONDARY, TERTIARY, AND VOLCANIC STRATA.
+
+The preceding section has developed the geographical limits of the
+formations, the extent of the direction of the zones of
+gneiss-granite, mica-slate-gneiss, clay-slate, sandstone and
+intermediary limestone, which come successively to light. We will now
+indicate succinctly the nature and relative age of these formations.
+To avoid confounding facts with geologic opinions I shall describe
+these formations, without dividing them, according to the method
+generally followed, into five groups--primitive, transition,
+secondary, tertiary and volcanic rocks. I was fortunate enough to
+discover the types of each group in a region where, before I visited
+it, no rock had been named. The great inconvenience of the old
+classification is that of obliging the geologist to establish fixed
+demarcations, while he is in doubt, if not respecting the spot or the
+immediate superposition, at least respecting the number of the
+formations which are not developed. How can we in many circumstances
+determine the analogy existing between a limestone with but few
+petrifactions and an intermediary limestone and zechstein, or between
+a sandstone superposed on a primitive rock and a variegated sandstone
+and quadersandstein, or finally, between muriatiferous clay and the
+red marl of England, or the gem-salt of the tertiary strata of Italy?
+When we reflect on the immense progress made within twenty-five years
+in the knowledge of the superposition of rocks, it will not appear
+surprising that my present opinion on the relative age of the
+formations of Equinoctial America is not identically the same with
+what I advanced in 1800. To boast of a stability of opinion in geology
+is to boast of an extreme indolence of mind; it is to remain
+stationary amidst those who go forward. What we observe in any one
+part of the earth on the composition of rocks, their subordinate
+strata and the order of their position are facts immutably true, and
+independent of the progress of positive geology in other countries;
+while the systematic names applied to any particular formation of
+America are founded only on the supposed analogies between the
+formations of America and those of Europe. Now those names cannot
+remain the same if, after further examination, the objects of
+comparison have not retained the same place in the geologic series; if
+the most able geologists now take for transition-limestone and green
+sandstone, what they took formerly for zechstein and variegated
+sandstone. I believe the surest means by which geologic descriptions
+may be made to survive the change which the science undergoes in
+proportion to its progress, will be to substitute provisionally in the
+description of formations, for the systematic names of red sandstone,
+variegated sandstone, zechstein and Jura limestone, names derived from
+American localities, as sandstone of the Llanos, limestone of
+Cumanacoa and Caripe, and to separate the enumeration of facts
+relative to the superposition of soils, from the discussion on the
+analogy of those soils with those of the Old World.*
+
+(* Positive geography being nothing but a question of the series or
+succession (either simple or periodical) of certain terms represented
+by the formations, it may be necessary, in order to understand the
+discussions contained in the third section of this memoir, to
+enumerate succinctly the table of formations considered in the most
+general point of view.
+
+1. Strata commonly called Primitive; granite, gneiss and mica-slate
+(or gneiss oscillating between granite and mica-slate); very little
+primitive clay-slate; weisstein with serpentine; granite with
+disseminated amphibole; amphibolic slate; veins and small layers of
+greenstone.
+
+2. Transition strata, composed of fragmentary rocks (grauwacke),
+calcareous slate and greenstone, earliest remains of organized
+existence: bamboos, madrepores, producta, trilobites, orthoceratites,
+evamphalites). Complex and parallel formations; (a) Alternate beds of
+grey and stratified limestone, anthracitic mica-slate, anhydrous
+gypsum and grauwacke; (b) clay-slate, black limestone, grauwacke with
+greenstone, syenite, transition-granite and porphyries with a base of
+compact felspar; (c) Euphotides, sometimes pure and covered with
+jasper, sometimes mixed with amphibole, hyperstein and grey limestone;
+(d) Pyroxenic porphyries with amygdaloides and zirconian syenites.
+
+3. Secondary strata, presenting a much smaller number of
+monocotyledonous plants; (a) Co-ordinate and almost contemporary
+formations with red sandstone (rothe todtes liegende), quartz-porphyry
+and fern-coal. These strata are less connected by alternation than by
+opposition. The porphyries issue (like the trachytes of the Andes) in
+domes from the bosom of intermediary rocks. Porphyritic breccias which
+envelope the quartzose porphyries. (b) Zechstein or Alpine limestone
+with marly, bituminous slate, fetid limestone and variegated gypsum
+(Productus aculeatus). (c) Variegated sandstone (bunter sandstein)
+with frequent beds of limestone; false oolites; the upper beds are of
+variegated marl, often muriatiferous (red marl, salzthon) with
+hydrated gypsum and fetid limestone. The gem-salt oscillates from
+zechstein to muschelkalk. (d) Limestone of Gottingen or muschelkalk
+alternating towards the top with white sandstone or brittle sandstein.
+(Ammonitis nodosus, encrinites, Mytilus socialis): clayey marl is
+found at the two extremities of muschelkalk. (e) White sandstone,
+brittle sandstein, alternating with lias, or limestone with graphites;
+a quantity of dicotyledonous mixed with monocotyledonous plants. (f)
+Jura limestone of complex formation; a quantity of sandy intercalated
+marl. We most frequently observe, counting from below upwards; lias
+(marly limestone with gryphites), oolites, limestone with polypi,
+slaty limestone with fish, crustacea, and globules of oxide of iron
+(Amonites planulatus, Gryphaea arcuata). (g) Secondary sandstone with
+lignites; iron sand; Wealden clay; greensand or green sandstone; (h)
+Chlorite; tufted and white chalk; (planerkalk, limestone of Verona.)
+
+4. Tertiary strata, showing a much smaller number of dicotyledonous
+plants. (a) Clay and tertiary sandstone with lignites; plastic clay;
+mollasse and nagelfluhe, sometimes alternating where chalk is wanting,
+with the last beds of Jura limestone; amber. (b) Limestone of Paris or
+coarse limestone, limestone with circles, limestone of Bolca,
+limestone of London, sandy limestone of Bognor; lignites. (c)
+Silicious limestone and gypsum with fossil bones alternating with
+marl. (d) Sandstone of Fontainebleau. (e) Lacustrine soil with porous
+millstone grit. (e) Alluvial deposits.)
+
+1. CO-ORDINATE FORMATIONS OF GRANITE, GNEISS AND MICA-SLATE.
+
+There are countries (in France, the vicinity of Lyons; in Germany,
+Freiberg, Naundorf) where the formations of granite and gneiss are
+extremely distinct; there are others, on the contrary, where the
+geologic limits between those formations are slightly marked, and
+where granite, gneiss and mica-slate appear to alternate by layers or
+pass often from one to the other. These alternations and transitions
+appeared to me less common in the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela
+than in the Sierra Parime. We recognise successively, in the former of
+these two systems of mountains, above all in the chain nearest the
+coast, as predominating rocks from west to east, granite (longitude 70
+to 71 degrees), gneiss (longitude 68 1/2 to 70 degrees), and
+mica-slate (longitude 65 3/4 to 66 1/2 degrees); but considering
+altogether the geologic constitution of the coast and the Sierra
+Parime, we prefer to treat of granite, gneiss and mica-slate, if not
+as one formation, at least as three co-ordinate formations closely
+linked together. The primitive clay-slate (urthonschiefer) is
+subordinate to mica-slate, of which it is only a modification. It no
+more forms an independent stratum in the New Continent, than in the
+Pyrenees and the Alps.
+
+(a) GRANITE which does not pass to gneiss is most common in the
+western part of the coast-chain between Turmero, Valencia and Porto
+Cabello, as well as in the circle of the Sierra Parime, near the
+Encaramada, and at the Peak of Duida. At the Rincon del Diablo,
+between Mariara and Hacienda de Cura, and at Chuao, it is
+coarse-grained, and contains fine crystals of felspar, 1 1/2 inches
+long. It is divided in prisms by perpendicular vents, or stratified
+regularly like secondary limestone, at Las Trincheras, the strait of
+Baraguan in the valley of the Orinoco, and near Guapasoso, on the
+banks of the Atabapo. The stratified granite of Las Trincheras, giving
+birth to very hot springs (from 90.5 degrees centigrade), appears from
+the inclination of its layers to be superposed on gneiss which is seen
+further southward in the islands of the lake of Valencia; but
+conjectures of superposition founded only on the hypothesis of an
+indefinite prolongation of the strata are doubtful; and possibly the
+granite masses which form a small particular zone in the northern
+range of the littoral Cordillera, between 70 degrees 3 minutes and 70
+degrees 50 minutes longitude, were upheaved in piercing the gneiss.
+The latter rock is prevalent, both in descending from the Rincon del
+Diablo southward to the hot-springs of Mariara, and towards the banks
+of the lake of Valencia, and in advancing on the east towards the
+group of Buenavista, the Silla of Caracas and Cape Codera. In the
+region of the littoral chain of Venezuela, where granite seems to
+constitute an independent formation from 15 to 16 leagues in length, I
+saw no foreign or subordinate layers of gneiss, mica-slate or
+primitive limestone.* (* Primitive limestone, everywhere so common in
+mica-slate and gneiss, is found in the granite of the Pyrenees, at
+Port d'Oo, and in the mountains of Labourd.)
+
+The Sierra Parime is one of the most extensive granitic strata
+existing on the globe;* but the granite, which is seen alike bare on
+the flanks of the mountains and in the plains by which they are
+joined, often passes into gneiss. (* To prove the extent of the
+continuity of this granitic stratum, it will suffice to observe that
+M. Leschenault de la Tour collected in the bars of the river Mana, in
+French Guiana, the same gneiss-granites (with a little amphibole)
+which I observed three hundred leagues more to the west, near the
+confluence of the Orinoco and the Guaviare.) Granite is most commonly
+found in its granular composition and independent formation, near
+Encaramada, at the strait of Baraguan, and in the vicinity of the
+mission of the Esmeralda. It often contains, like the granites of the
+Rocky Mountains (latitude 38 to 40 degrees), the Pyrenees and Southern
+Tyrol, amphibolic crystals,* disseminated in the mass, but without
+passing to syenite. (* I did not observe this mixture of amphibole in
+the granite of the littoral chain of Venezuela except at the summit of
+the Silla of Caracas.) Those modifications are observed on the banks
+of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, the Atabapo, and the Tuamini. The
+blocks heaped together, which are found in Europe on the ridge of
+granitic mountains (the Riesengebirge in Silesia, the Ochsenkopf in
+Franconia), are especially remarkable in the north-west part of the
+Sierra Parime, between Caycara, the Encaramada and Uruana, in the
+cataracts of the Maypures and at the mouth of the Rio Vichada. It is
+doubtful whether these masses, which are of cylindrical form,
+parallelopipedons rounded on the edge, or balls of 40 to 50 feet in
+diameter, are the effect of a slow decomposition, or of a violent and
+instantaneous upheaving. The granite of the south-eastern part of
+Sierra Parime sometimes passes to pegmatite,* composed of laminary
+felspar, enclosed in curved masses of crystalline quartz. (*
+Schrift-granit. It is a simple modification of the composition and
+texture of granite, and not a subordinate layer. It must not be
+confounded with the real pegmatite, generally destitute of mica, or
+with the geographic stones (piedras mapajas) of the Orinoco, which
+contain streaks of dark green mica irregularly disposed.) I saw gneiss
+only in subordinate layers;* (* The magnetic sands of the rivers that
+furrow the granitic chain of the Encaramada seem to denote the
+proximity of amphibolic or chloritic slate (hornblende or
+chloritschiefer), either in layers in the granite, or superposed on
+that rock.); but, between Javita, San Carlos del Rio Negro, and the
+Peak of Duida, the granite is traversed by numerous veins of different
+ages, abounding with rock-crystal, black tourmalin and pyrites. It
+appears that these open veins become more common on the east of the
+Peak of Duida, in the Sierra Pacaraina, especially between Xurumu and
+Rupunuri (tributaries of the Rio Branco and the Essequibo), where
+Hortsmann discovered, instead of diamonds* and emeralds, a mine (four)
+of rock-crystal. (* These legends of diamonds are very ancient on the
+coast of Paria. Petrus Martyr relates that, at the beginning of the
+sixteenth century, a Spaniard named Andres Morales bought of a young
+Indian of the coast of Paria admantem mire pretiosum, duos infantis
+digiti articulos longum, magni autem pollicis articulum aequantem
+crassitudine, acutum utrobique et costis octo pulchre formatis
+constantem. [A diamond of marvellous value, as long as two joints of
+an infant's finger, and as thick as one of the joints of its thumb,
+sharp on both sides, and of a beautiful octagonal shape.] This
+pretended adamas juvenis pariensis resisted the action of lime. Petrus
+Martyr distinguishes it from topaz by adding offenderunt et topazios
+in littore, [they pay no heed to topazes on the coast] that is of
+Paria, Saint Marta and Veragua. See Oceanica Dec. 3 lib. 4 page 53.)
+
+(b) GNEISS predominates along the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela,
+with the appearance of an independent formation, in the northern chain
+from Cerro del Chuao, and the meridian of Choroni, as far as Cape
+Codera; and in the southern chain, from the meridian of Guigne to the
+mouth of the Rio Tuy. Cape Codera, the great mass of the Silla of
+Galipano, and the land between Guayra and Caracas, the table-land of
+Buenavista, the islands of the lake of Valencia, the mountains between
+Guigne, Maria Magdalena and the Cerro do Chacao are composed of
+gneiss;* (* I have been assured that the islands Orchila and Los
+Frailes are also composed of gneiss; Curacao and Bonaire are
+calcareous. Is the island of Oruba (in which nuggets of native gold of
+considerable size have been found) primitive?); yet amidst this soil
+of gneiss, inclosed mica-slate re-appears, often talcous in the Valle
+de Caurimare, and in the ancient Provincia de Los Mariches; at Cabo
+Blanco, west of La Guayra; near Caracas and Antimano, and above all,
+between the tableland of Buenavista and the valleys of Aragua, in the
+Montana de las Cocuyzas, and at Hacienda del Tuy. Between the limits
+here assigned to gneiss, as a predominant rock (longitude 68 1/2 to 70
+1/2 degrees), gneiss passes sometimes to mica-slate, while the
+appearance of a transition to granite is only found on the summit of
+the Silla of Caracas.* (* The Silla is a mountain of gneiss like Adams
+Peak in the island of Ceylon, and of nearly the same height.) It would
+require a more careful examination than I was able to devote to the
+subject, to ascertain whether the granite of the peak of St. Gothard,
+and of the Silla of Caracas, really lies over mica-slate and gneiss,
+or if it has merely pierced those rocks, rising in the form of needles
+or domes. The gneiss of the littoral Cordillera, in the province of
+Caracas, contains almost exclusively garnets, rutile titanite and
+graphite, disseminated in the whole mass of the rock, shelves of
+granular limestone, and some metalliferous veins. I shall not decide
+whether the granitiferous serpentine of the table-land of Buenavista
+is inclosed in gneiss, or whether, superposed upon that rock, it does
+not rather belong to a formation of weisstein (heptinite) similar to
+that of Penig and Mittweyde in Saxony.
+
+In that part of the Sierra Parime which M. Bonpland and myself
+visited, gneiss forms a less marked zone, and oscillates more
+frequently towards granite than mica-slate. I found no garnets in the
+gneiss of Parime. There is no doubt that the gneiss-granite of the
+Orinoco is slightly auriferous on some points.
+
+(c) MICA-SLATE, with clay-slate (thonschiefer), forms a continuous
+stratum in the northern chain of the littoral Cordillera, from the
+point of Araya, beyond the meridian of Cariaco, as well as in the
+island of Marguerita. It contains, in the peninsula of Araya, garnets
+disseminated in the mass, cyanite and, when it passes to clayey-slate,
+small layers of native alum. Mica-slate constituting an independent
+formation must be distinguished from mica-slate subordinate to a
+stratum of gneiss, on the east of Cape Codera. The mica-slate
+subordinate to gneiss presents, in the valley of Tuy, shelves of
+primitive limestone and small strata of graphic ampelite
+(zeicheschiefer); between Cabo Blanco and Catia layers of chloritic,
+granitiferous slate, and slaty amphibole; and between Caracas and
+Antimano, the more remarkable phenomenon of veins of gneiss inclosing
+balls of granitiferous diorite (grunstein).
+
+In the Sierra Parime, mica-slate predominates only in the most eastern
+part, where its lustre has led to strange errors.
+
+The amphibolic slate of Angostura, and masses of diorite in balls,
+with concentric layers, near Muitaco, appear to be superposed, not on
+mica-slate, but immediately on gneiss-granite. I could not, however,
+distinctly ascertain whether a part of this pyritous diorite was not
+enclosed on the banks of the Orinoco, as it is at the bottom of the
+sea near Cabo Blanco, and at the Montana de Avila, in the rock which
+it covers. Very large veins, with an irregular direction, often assume
+the aspect of short layers; and the balls of diorite heaped together
+in hillocks may, like many cones of basalt, issue from the crevices.
+
+Mica-slate, chloritic slate and the rocks of slaty amphibole contain
+magnetic sand in the tropical regions of Venezuela, as in the most
+northern regions of Europe. The gannets are there almost equally
+disseminated in the gneiss (Caracas), the mica-slate (peninsula of
+Araya), the serpentine (Buenavista), the chloritic slate (Cabo
+Blanco), and the diorite or greenstone (Antimano). These garnets
+re-appear in the trachytic porphyries that crown the celebrated
+metalliferous mountain of Potosi, and in the black and pyroxenic
+masses of the small volcano of Yana-Urca, at the back of Chimborazo.
+
+Petroleum (and this phenomenon is well worthy of attention) issues
+from a soil of mica-slate in the gulf of Cariaco. Further east, on the
+banks of the Arco, and near Cariaco, it seems to gush from secondary
+limestone formations, but probably that happens only because those
+formations repose on mica-slate. The hot springs of Venezuela have
+also their origin in, or rather below, the primitive rocks. They issue
+from granite (Las Trincheras), gneiss (Mariara and Onoto) and the
+calcareous and arenaceous rocks that cover the primitive rocks (Morros
+de San Juan, Bergantin, Cariaco). The earthquakes and subterraneous
+detonations of which the seat has been erroneously sought in the
+calcareous mountains of Cumana have been felt with most violence in
+the granitic soils of Caracas and the Orinoco. Igneous phenomena (if
+their existence be really well certified) are attributed by the people
+to the granitic peaks of Duida and Guaraco, and also to the calcareous
+mountain of Cuchivano.
+
+From these observations it results that gneiss-granite predominates in
+the immense group of the mountains of the Parime, as mica-slate-gneiss
+prevails in the Cordillera of the coast; that in the two systems the
+granitic soil, unmixed with gneiss and mica-slate, occupies but a very
+small extent of country; and that in the coast-chain the formations of
+clayey slate (thonschiefer), mica-slate, gneiss and granite succeed
+each other in such a manner on the same line from east to west
+(presenting a very uniform and regular inclination of their strata
+towards the north-west), that, according to the hypothesis of a
+subterraneous prolongation of the strata, the granite of Las
+Trincheras and the Rincon del Diablo may be superposed on the gneiss
+of the Villa de Cura, of Buenavista and Caracas; and the gneiss
+superposed in its turn on the mica-slate and clay-slate of Maniquarez
+and Chuparuparu in the peninsula of Araya. This hypothesis of a
+prolongation of every rock, in some sort indefinite, founded on the
+angle of inclination presented by the strata appearing at the surface,
+is not admissible; and according to similar equally vague reasoning we
+should be forced to consider the primitive rocks of the Alps of
+Switzerland as superposed on the formation of the compact limestone of
+Achsenberg, and that [transition, or identical with zechstein?] in
+turn, as being superposed on the molassus of the tertiary strata.
+
+2. FORMATION OF THE CLAY-SLATE (THONSCHIEFER) OF MALPASSO.
+
+If, in the sketch of the formations of Venezuela, I had followed the
+received division into primitive, intermediary, secondary and tertiary
+strata, I might be doubtful what place the last stratum of mica-slate
+in the peninsula of Araya should occupy. This stratum, in the ravine
+(aroyo) of Robalo, passes insensibly in a carburetted and shining
+slate, into a real ampelite. The direction and inclination of the
+stratum remain the same, and the thonschiefer, which takes the look of
+a transition-rock, is but a modification of the primitive mica-slate
+of Maniquarez, containing garnets, cyanite, and rutile titanite. These
+insensible passages from primitive to transition strata by clay-slate,
+which becomes carburetted at the same time that it presents a
+concordant position with mica-slate and gneiss, have also been
+observed several times in Europe by celebrated geologists. The
+existence of an independent formation of primitive slate
+(urthonschiefer) may even be doubted, that is, of a formation which is
+not joined below by strata containing some vestiges of monocotyledonous
+plants.
+
+The small thonschiefer bed of Malpasso (in the southern chain of the
+littoral Cordillera) is separated from mica-slate-gneiss by a
+co-ordinate formation of serpentine and diorite. It is divided into
+two shelves, of which the upper presents green steatitous slate mixed
+with amphibole, and the lower, dark-blue slate, extremely fissile, and
+traversed by numerous veins of quartz. I could discover no fragmentary
+stratum (grauwacke) nor kieselschiefer nor chiastolite. The
+kieselschiefer belongs in those countries to a limestone formation. I
+have seen fine specimens of the chiastolite (macle) which the Indians
+wore as amulets and which came from the Sierra Nevada de Merida. This
+substance is probably found in transition-slate, for MM. Rivero and
+Boussingault observed rocks of clay-slate at the height of 2120
+toises, in the Paramo of Mucuchies, on going from Truxillo to Merida.*
+(* In Galicia, in Spain, I saw the thonschiefer containing
+chiastholite alternate with grauwacke; but the chiastolite
+unquestionably belongs also to rocks which all geologists have
+hitherto called primitive rocks, to mica-schists intercalated like
+layers in granite, and to an independent stratum of mica-slate.)
+
+3. FORMATION OF SERPENTINE AND DIORITE (GREEN-STONE OF JUNCALITO.)
+
+We have indicated above a layer of granitiferous serpentine inclosed
+in the gneiss of Buenavista, or perhaps superposed on that rock; we
+here find a real stratum of serpentine alternating with diorite, and
+extending from the ravine of Tucutunemo as far as Juncalito. Diorite
+forms the great mass of this stratum; it is of a dark green colour,
+granular, with small grains, and destitute of quartz; its mass is
+formed of small crystals of felspar intermixed with crystals of
+amphibole. This rock of diorite is covered at its surface, by the
+effect of decomposition, with a yellowish crust, like that of basalts
+and dolerites. Serpentine, of a dull olive-green and smooth fracture,
+mixed with bluish steatite and amphibole, presents, like almost all
+the co-ordinate formations of diorite and serpentine (in Silesia, at
+Fichtelgebirge, in the valley of Baigorry, in the Pyrenees, in the
+island of Cyprus and in the Copper Mountains of circumpolar America),*
+traces of copper. (* Franklin's Journey to the Polar Sea page 529.)
+Where the diorite, partly globular, approaches the green slate of
+Malpasso, real beds of green slate are found inclosed in diorite. The
+fine saussurite which we saw in the Upper Orinoco in the hands of the
+Indians, seems to indicate the existence of a soil of euphotide,
+superposed on gneiss-granite, or amphibolic slate, in the eastern part
+of the Sierra Parime.
+
+4. GRANULAR AND MICACEOUS LIMESTONE OF THE MORROS OF SAN JUAN.
+
+The Morros of San Juan rise like ruinous towers in a soil of diorite.
+They are formed of a cavernous greyish green limestone of crystalline
+texture, mixed with some spangles of mica, and are destitute of
+shells. We see in them masses of hardened clay, black, fissile,
+charged with iron, and covered with a crust, yellow from
+decomposition, like basalts and amphiboles. A compact limestone
+containing vestiges of shells adjoins this granular limestone of the
+Morros of San Juan which is hollow within. Probably on a further
+examination of the extraordinary strata between Villa de Cura and
+Ortiz, of which I had time only to collect some few specimens, many
+phenomena may be discovered analogous to those which Leopold von Buch
+has lately described in South Tyrol. M. Boussingault, in a memoir
+which he has recently addressed to me, calls the rock of the Morros a
+problematic calcariferous gneiss. This expression seems to prove that
+the plates of mica take in some parts a uniform direction, as in the
+greenish dolomite of Val Toccia.
+
+5. FELSPATHIC SANDSTONE OF THE ORINOCO.
+
+The gneiss-granite of the Sierra Parime is covered in some few places
+(between the Encaramada and the strait of Baraguan and in the island
+of Guachaco) in its western part with an olive-brown sandstone,
+containing grains of quartz and fragments of felspar, joined by an
+extremely compact clayey cement. This cement, where it abounds, has a
+conchoidal fracture and passes to jasper. It is crossed by small veins
+of brown iron-ore, which separate into very thin plates or scales. The
+presence of felspar seems to indicate that this small formation of
+sandstone (the sole secondary formation hitherto known in the Sierra
+Parime) belongs to red sandstone or coal.* (* Broken and intact
+crystals of feldspar are found in the todte liegende coal-sandstone of
+Thuringia. I observed in Mexico a very singular agglomerated felspar
+formation superposed upon (perhaps inclosed in) red sandstone, near
+Guanaxuato.) I hesitate to class it with the sandstone of the Llanos,
+the relative antiquity of which appears to me to be less
+satisfactorily verified.
+
+6. FORMATION OF THE SANDSTONE OF THE LLANOS OF CALABOZO.
+
+I arrange the various formations in the order which I fancied I could
+discern on the spot. The carburetted slate (thonschiefer) of the
+peninsula of Araya connects the primitive rocks of gneiss-granite and
+mica-slate-gneiss with the transition strata (blue and green slate,
+diorite, serpentine mixed with amphibole and granular greenish-grey
+limestone) of Malpasso, Tucutunemo and San Juan. On the south the
+sandstone of the Llanos rests on this transition strata; it is
+destitute of shells and composed, like the savannahs of Calabozo, of
+rounded fragments of quartz,* kieselschiefer and Lydian stone,
+cemented by a ferruginous olive-brown clay. (* In Germany sandstones
+which belong unquestionably to red sandstone contain also (near
+Weiderstadt, in Thuringia) nodules, and rounded fragments. I shall not
+cite the pudding-stone subordinate to the red sandstone of the
+Pyrenees because the age of that sandstone destitute of coal may be
+disputed. Layers of very large rounded nodules of quartz are inclosed
+in the coal sandstone of Thuringia, and in Upper Silesia.) We there
+find fragments of wood, in great part monocotyledonous, and masses of
+brown iron-ore. Some strata, as in the Mesa de Paja, present grains of
+very fine quartz; I saw no fragments of porphyry or limestone. Those
+immense beds of sandstone that cover the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco
+and the Amazon well deserve the attention of travellers. In appearance
+they approximate to the pudding-stones of the molassus stratum, in
+which calcareous vestiges are also often wanting, as at Schottwyl and
+Diesbach in Switzerland; but they appeared to me by their position to
+have more relation to red sandstone. Nowhere can they be confounded
+with the grauwackes (fragmentary transition-rocks) which MM.
+Boussingault and Rivero found along the Cordilleras of New Grenada,
+bordering the steppes on the west. Does the want of fragments of
+granite, gneiss and porphyry, and the frequency of petrified wood,* (*
+The people of the country attribute those woods to the Alcornoco,
+Bowdichia virgilioides (See Nova Gen. et Spec. Plant. volume 3 page
+377), and to the Chaparro bovo, Rhopala complicata. It is believed in
+Venezuela as in Egypt that petrified wood is formed in our times. I
+found this dicotyledonous petrified wood only at the surface of the
+soil and not inclosed in the sandstone of the Llanos. M. Caillaud made
+the same observation on going to the Oasis of Siwa. The trunks of
+trees, ninety feet long, inclosed in the red sandstone of Kifhauser
+(in Saxony), are, according to the recent researches of Von Buch,
+divided into joints, and are certainly monocotyledonous.) sometimes
+dicotyledonous, indicate that those sandstones belong to the more
+recent formations which fill the plains between the Cordillera of the
+Parime and the coast Cordillera, as the molassus of Switzerland fills
+the space between the Jura and the Alps? It is not easy, when several
+formations are not perfectly developed, to determine the age of
+arenaceous rocks. The most able geologists do not concur in opinion
+respecting the sandstone of the Black Forest and of the whole country
+south-west of the Thuringer Waldgebirge. M. Boussingault, who passed
+through a part of the steppes of Venezuela long after me, is of
+opinion that the sandstone of the Llanos of San Carlos, that of the
+valley of San Antonio de Cucuta and the table-lands of Barquisimeto,
+Tocuyo, Merida and Truxillo belong to a formation of old red sandstone
+or coal. There is in fact real coal near Carache, south-west of the
+Paramo de las Rosas.
+
+Before a part of the immense plains of America was geologically
+examined, it might have been supposed that their uniform and continued
+horizontality was caused by alluvial soils, or at least by arenaceous
+tertiary strata. The sands which in the Baltic provinces and in all
+the north of Germany, cover coarse limestone and chalk, seem to
+justify these systematic ideas, which have been extended to the Sahara
+and the steppes of Asia. But the observations which we have been able
+to collect sufficiently prove that both in the Old and the New World,
+both plains, steppes, and deserts contain numerous formations of
+different eras, and that these formations often appear without being
+covered by alluvial deposits. Jura limestone, gem-salt (plains of the
+Meta and Patagonia) and coal-sandstone are found in the Llanos of
+South America; quadersandstein,* (* The forms of these rocks in walls
+and pyramids, or divided in rhomboid blocks, seems no doubt to
+indicate quadersandstein; but the sandstone of the eastern declivity
+of the Rocky Mountains in which the learned traveller Mr. James found
+salt-springs (licks), strata of gypsum and no coal, appear rather to
+belong to variegated sandstone (buntersandstein).) a saliferous soil,
+beds of coal,* (* This coal immediately covers, as in Belgium, the
+grauwacke, or transition-sandstone.) and limestone with trilobites,*
+(* In the plains of the Upper Missouri the limestone is immediately
+covered by a secondary limestone with turritulites, believed to be
+Jurassic, while a limestone with grypheae, rich in lead-ore and which
+I should have believed to be still more ancient than oolitic
+limestone, and analogous to lias, is described by Mr. James as lying
+above the most recent formation of sandstone. Has this superposition
+been well ascertained?) fill the vast plains of Louisiana and Canada.
+In examining the specimens collected by the indefatigable Caillaud in
+the Lybian desert and the Oasis of Siwa, we recognize sandstone
+similar to that of Thebes; fragments of petrified dicotyledonous wood
+(from thirty to forty feet long), with rudiments of branches and
+medullary concentric layers, coming perhaps from tertiary sandstone
+with lignites;* (* Formation of molassus.); chalk with spatangi and
+anachytes, Jura limestone with nummulites partly agatized; another
+fine-grained limestone* employed in the construction of the temple of
+Jupiter Ammon (Omm-Beydah) (* M. von Buch very reasonably inquires
+whether this statuary limestone, which resembles Parian marble, and
+limestone become granular by contact with the systematic granite of
+Predazzo, is a modification of the limestone with nummulites, of Siwa.
+The primitive rocks from which the fine-grained marble was believed to
+be extracted, if there be no deception in its granular appearance, are
+far distant from the Oasis of Siwa.); and gem-salt with sulphur and
+bitumen. These examples sufficiently prove that the plains (llanos),
+steppes and deserts have not that uniform tertiary formation which has
+been too generally supposed. Do the fine pieces of riband-jasper, or
+Egyptian pebbles, which M. Bonpland picked up in the savannahs of
+Barcelona (near Curataquiche), belong to the sandstone of the Llanos
+of Calabozo or to a stratum superposed on that sandstone? The former
+of these suppositions would approach, according to the analogy of the
+observations made by M. Roziere in Egypt, the sandstone of Calabozo,
+or tertiary nagelfluhe.
+
+7. FORMATION OF THE COMPACT LIMESTONE OF CUMANACOA.
+
+A bluish-grey compact limestone, almost destitute of petrifactions,
+and frequently intersected by small veins of carburetted lime, forms
+mountains with very abrupt ridges. These layers have the same
+direction and the same inclination as the mica-slate of Araya. Where
+the flank of the limestone mountains of New Andalusia is very steep we
+observe, as at Achsenberg, near Altdorf in Switzerland, layers that
+are singularly arched or turned. The tints of the limestone of
+Cumanacoa vary from darkish grey to bluish white and sometimes pass
+from compact to granular. It contains, as substances accidentally
+disseminated in the mass, brown iron-ore, spathic iron, even
+rock-crystal. As subordinate layers it contains (1) numerous strata of
+carburetted and slaty marl with pyrites; (2) quartzose sandstone,
+alternating with very thin strata of clayey slate; (3) gypsum with
+sulphur near Guire in the Golfo Triste on the coast of Paria. As I did
+not examine on the spot the position of this yellowish-white
+fine-grained gypsum I cannot determine with any certainty its relative
+age.
+
+([Footnote not indicated:] This sandstone contains springs. In general
+it only covers the limestone of Cumanacoa, but it appeared to me to be
+sometimes enclosed.)
+
+The only petrifactions of shells which I found in this limestone
+formation consist of a heap of turbinites and trochites, on the flank
+of Turimiquiri, at more than 680 toises high, and an ammonite seven
+inches in diameter, in the Montana de Santa Maria, north-north-west of
+Caripe. I nowhere saw the limestone of Cumanacoa (of which I treat
+specially in this article) resting on the sandstone of the Llanos; if
+there be any such superposition it must be found on descending the
+table-land of Cocollar towards the Mesa de Amana. On the southern
+coast of the gulf of Cariaco the limestone formation probably covers,
+without the interposition of another rock, a mica-slate which passes
+to carburetted clay-slate. In the northern part of the gulf I
+distinctly saw this clayey formation at the depth of two or three
+fathoms in the sea. The submarine hot springs appeared to me to gush
+from mica-slate like the petroleum of Maniquarez. If any doubts remain
+as to the rock on which the limestone of Cumanacoa is immediately
+superposed, there is none respecting the rocks which cover it, such as
+(1) the tertiary limestone of Cumana near Punta Delgada and at Cerro
+de Meapire; (2) the sandstone of Quetepe and Turimiquiri, which,
+forming layers also in the limestone of Cumanacoa, belongs properly to
+the latter soil; the limestone of Caripe which we have often
+identified in the course of this work with Jura limestone, and of
+which we shall speak in the following article.
+
+8. FORMATION OF THE COMPACT LIMESTONE OF CARIPE.
+
+Descending the Cuchillo de Guanaguana towards the convent of Caripe,
+we find another more recent formation, white, with a smooth or
+slightly conchoidal fracture, and divided in very thin layers, which
+succeeds to the bluish grey limestone formation of Cumanacoa. I call
+this in the first instance the limestone formation of Caripe, on
+account of the cavern of that name, inhabited by thousands of
+nocturnal birds. This limestone appeared to me identical (1) with the
+limestone of the Morro de Barcelona and the Chimanas Islands, which
+contains small layers of black kieselschiefer (slaty jasper) without
+veins of quartz, and breaking into fragments of parallelopiped form;
+(2) with the whitish grey limestone with smooth fracture of Tisnao,
+which seems to cover the sandstone of the Llanos. We find the
+formation of Caripe in the island of Cuba (between the Havannah and
+Batabano and between the port of Trinidad and Rio Guaurabo), as well
+in the small Cayman Islands.
+
+I have hitherto described the secondary limestone formations of the
+littoral chain without giving them the systematic names which may
+connect them with the formations of Europe. During my stay in America
+I took the limestone of Cumanacoa for zechstein or Alpine limestone,
+and that of Caripe for Jura limestone. The carburetted and slightly
+bituminous marl of Cumanacoa, analogous to the strata of bituminous
+slate, which are very numerous* in the Alps of southern Bavaria (* I
+found them also in the Peruvian Andes near Montau, at the height of
+1600 toises.), appeared to me to characterize the former of these
+formations; while the dazzling whiteness of the cavernous stratum of
+Caripe, and the form of those shelves of rocks rising in walls and
+cornices, forcibly reminded me of the Jura limestone of Streitberg in
+Franconia, or of Oitzow and Krzessowic in Upper Silesia. There is in
+Venezuela a suppression of the different strata which, in the old
+continent, separate zechstein from Jura limestone. The sandstone of
+Cocollar, which sometimes covers the limestone of Cumanacoa, may be
+considered as variegated sandstone; but it is more probable that in
+alternating by layers with the limestone of Cumanacoa, it is sometimes
+thrown to the upper limit of the formation to which it belongs. The
+zechstein of Europe also contains a very quartzose sandstone. The two
+limestone strata of Cumanacoa and Caripe succeed immediately each
+other, like Alpine and Jura limestone, on the western declivity of the
+Mexican table-land, between Sopilote, Mescala and Tehuilotepec. These
+formations, perhaps, pass from one to the other, so that the latter
+may be only an upper shelf of zechstein. This immediate covering, this
+suppression of interposed soils, this simplicity of structure and
+absence of oolitic strata, have been equally observed in Upper Silesia
+and in the Pyrenees. On the other hand the immediate superposition of
+the limestone of Cumanacoa on mica-slate and transition
+clay-slate--the rarity of the petrifactions which have not yet been
+sufficiently examined--the strata of silex passing to Lydian stone,
+may lead to the belief that the soils of Cumanacoa and Caripe are of
+much more ancient formation than the secondary rocks. We must not be
+surprised that the doubts which arise in the mind of the geologist
+when endeavouring to decide on the relative age of the limestone of
+the high mountains in the Pyrenees, the Apennines (south of the lake
+of Perugia) and in the Swiss Alps, should extend to the limestone
+strata of the high mountains of New Andalusia, and everywhere in
+America where the presence of red sandstone is not distinctly
+recognized.
+
+9. SANDSTONE OF THE BERGANTIN.
+
+Between Nueva Barcelona and the Cerro del Bergantin a quartzose
+sandstone covers the Jura limestone of Cumanacoa. Is it an arenaceous
+rock analogous to green sandstone, or does it belong to the sandstone
+of Cocollar? In the latter case its presence seems to prove still more
+clearly that the limestones of Cumanacoa and Caripe are only two parts
+of the same system, alternating with sandstone, sometimes quartzose,
+sometimes slaty.
+
+10. GYPSUM OF THE LLANOS OF VENEZUELA.
+
+Deposits of lamellar gypsum, containing numerous strata of marl, are
+found in patches on the steppes of Caracas and Barcelona; for
+instance, in the table-land of San Diego, between Ortiz and the Mesa
+de Paja; and near the mission of Cachipo. They appeared to me to cover
+the Jura limestone of Tisnao, which is analogous to that of Caripe,
+where we find it mixed with masses of fibrous gypsum. I have not given
+the name formation either to the sandstone of the Orinoco, of
+Cocollar, of Bergantin or to the gypsum of the Llanos, because nothing
+as yet proves the independence of those arenaceous and gypsous soils.
+I think it will one day be ascertained that the gypsum of the Llanos
+covers not only the Jura limestone of the Llanos, but that it is
+sometimes enclosed in it like the gypsum of the Golfo Triste on the
+east of the Alpine limestone of Cumanacoa. The great masses of sulphur
+found in the layers, almost entirely clayey, of the steppes (at
+Guayuta, valley of San Bonifacio, Buen Pastor, confluence of the Rio
+Pao with the Orinoco) may possibly belong to the marl of the gypsum of
+Ortiz. These clayey beds are more worthy of attention since the
+interesting observations of Von Buch and several other celebrated
+geologists respecting the cavernosity of gypsum, the irregularity of
+the inclination of its strata and its parallel position with the two
+declivities of the Hartz and the upheaved chain of the Alps; while the
+simultaneous presence of sulphur, oligist iron and the sulphurous acid
+vapours which precede the formation of sulphuric acid, seem to
+manifest the action of forces placed at a great depth in the interior
+of the globe.
+
+11. FORMATION OF MURIATIFEROUS CLAY (WITH BITUMEN AND LAMELLAR GYPSUM)
+OF THE PENINSULA OF
+ARAYA.
+
+This soil presents a striking analogy with salzthon or leberstein
+(muriatiferous clay) which I have found accompanying gem-salt in every
+zone. In the salt-pits of Araya (Haraia) it attracted the attention of
+Peter Martyr d'Anghiera at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It
+probably facilitated the rupture of the earth and the formation of the
+gulf of Cariaco. This clay is of a smoky colour, impregnated with
+petroleum, mingled with lamellar and lenticular gypsum and sometimes
+traversed by small veins of fibrous gypsum. It incloses angular and
+less friable masses of dark brown clay with a slaty and sometimes
+conchoidal fracture. Muriate of soda is found in particles invisible
+to the naked eye. The relations of position or superposition between
+this soil and the tertiary rocks does not appear sufficiently clear to
+enable me to pronounce with certainty on this element, the most
+important of positive geology. The co-ordinate layers of gem-salt,
+muriatiferous clay and gypsum present the same difficulties in both
+hemispheres; these masses, the forms of which are very irregular,
+everywhere exhibit traces of great commotions. They are scarcely ever
+covered by independent formations; and after having been long
+believed, in Europe, that gem-salt was exclusively peculiar to Alpine
+and transition limestone, it is now still more generally admitted,
+either from reasoning founded on analogy or from suppositions on the
+prolongation of the strata, that the true location of gem-salt is
+found in variegated sandstone (buntersandstein). Sometimes gem-salt
+appears to oscillate between variegated sandstone and muschelkalk.
+
+I made two excursions on the peninsula of Araya. In the first I was
+inclined to consider the muriatiferous clay as subordinate to the
+conglomerate (evidently of tertiary formation) of the Barigon and of
+the mountain of the castle of Cumana, because a little to the north of
+that castle I had found shelves of hardened clay containing lamellar
+gypsum inclosed in the tertiary strata. I believed that the
+muriatiferous clay might alternate with the calcareous conglomerate of
+Barigon; and near the fishermen's huts situated opposite Macanao,
+conglomerate rocks appeared to me to pierce through the strata of
+clay. During a second excursion to Maniquarez and the aluminiferous
+slates of Chaparuparu, the connexion between tertiary strata and
+bituminous clay seemed to me somewhat problematical. I examined more
+particularly the Penas Negras near the Cerro de la Vela,
+east-south-east of the ruined castle of Araya. The limestone of the
+Penas is compact, bluish grey and almost destitute of petrifactions.
+It appeared to me to be much more ancient than the tertiary
+conglomerate of Barigon, and I saw it covering, in concordant
+position, a slaty clay, somewhat analogous to muriatiferous clay. I
+was greatly interested in comparing this latter formation with the
+strata of carburetted marl contained in the Alpine limestone of
+Cumanacoa. According to the opinions now most generally received, the
+rock of the Penas Negras may be considered as representing muschelkalk
+(limestone of Gottingen); and the saliferous and bituminous clay of
+Araya, as representing variegated sandstone; but these problems can
+only be solved when the mines of those countries are worked. Those
+geologists who are of opinion that the gem-salt of Italy penetrates
+into a stratum above the Jura limestone, and even the chalk, may be
+led to mistake the limestone of the Penas Negras for one of the strata
+of compact limestone without grains of quartz and petrifactions, which
+are frequently found amidst the tertiary conglomerate of Barigon and
+of the Castillo de Cumana; the saliferous clay of Araya would appear
+to them analogous to the plastic clay of Paris,* (* Tertiary sandstone
+with lignites, or molassus of Argovia.) or to the clayey shelves (dief
+et tourtia) of secondary sandstone with lignites, containing
+salt-springs, in Belgium and Westphalia. However difficult it may be
+to distinguish separately the strata of marl and clay belonging to
+variegated sandstone, muschelkalk, quadersandstein, Jura limestone,
+secondary sandstone with lignites (green and iron sand) and the
+tertiary strata lying above chalk, I believe that the bitumen which
+everywhere accompanies gem-salt, and most frequently salt-springs,
+characterizes the muriatiferous clay of the peninsula of Araya and the
+island of Marguerita, as linked with formations lying below the
+tertiary strata. I do not say that they are anterior to that
+formation, for since the publication of M. von Buch's observations on
+the Tyrol, we must no longer consider what is below, in space, as
+necessarily anterior, relatively to the epoch of its formation.
+
+Bitumen and petroleum still issue from the mica-slate; these
+substances are ejected whenever the soil is shaken by a subterranean
+force (between Cumana, Cariaco and the Golfo Triste). Now, in the
+peninsula of Araya, and in the island of Marguerita, saliferous clay
+impregnated with bitumen is met with in connexion with this early
+formation, nearly as gem-salt appears in Calabria in flakes, in basins
+inclosed in strata of granite and gneiss. Do these circumstances serve
+to support that ingenious system, according to which all the
+co-ordinate formations of gypsum, sulphur, bitumen and gem-salt
+(constantly anhydrous) result from floods passing across the crevices
+which have traversed the oxidated crust of our planet, and penetrating
+to the seat of volcanic action. The enormous masses of muriate of soda
+recently thrown up by Vesuvius,* (* The ejected masses in 1822 were so
+considerable that the inhabitants of some villages round Vesuvius
+collected them for domestic purposes.) the small veins of that salt
+which I have often seen traverse the most recently ejected lavas, and
+of which the origin (by sublimation) appears similar to that of
+oligist iron deposited in the same vents,* (* Gay-Lussac on the action
+of volcanoes in the Annales de Chimie volume 22 page 418.) the layers
+of gem-salt and saliferous clay of the trachytic soil in the plains of
+Peru and around the volcano of the Andes of Quito are well worthy the
+attention of geologists who would discuss the origin of formations. In
+the present sketch I confine myself to the mere enumeration of the
+phenomena of position, indicating, at the same time, some theoretic
+views, by which observers in more advantageous circumstances than I
+was myself may direct their researches.
+
+12. AGGLOMERATE LIMESTONE OF THE BARIGON, OF THE CASTLE OF CUMANA, AND
+OF THE VICINITY OF PORTO CABELLO.
+
+This is a very complex formation, presenting that mixture and that
+periodical return of compact limestone, quartzose sandstone and
+conglomerates (limestone breccia) which in every zone peculiarly
+characterises the tertiary strata. It forms the mountain of the castle
+of San Antonio near the town of Cumana, the south-west extremity of
+the peninsula of Araya, the Cerro Meapire, south of Caraco and the
+vicinity of Porto Cabello. It contains (1) a compact limestone,
+generally of a whitish grey, or yellowish white (Cerro del Barigon),
+some very thin layers of which are entirely destitute of
+petrifactions, while others are filled with cardites, ostracites,
+pectens and vestiges of lithophyte polypi: (2) a breccia in which an
+innumerable number of pelagic shells are found mixed with grains of
+quartz agglutinated by a cement of carbonate of lime: (3) a calcareous
+sandstone with very fine rounded grains of quartz (Punta Arenas, west
+of the village of Maniquarez) and containing masses of brown iron ore:
+(4) banks of marl and slaty clay, containing no spangles of mica, but
+enclosing selenite and lamellar gypsum. These banks of clay appeared
+to me constantly to form the lower strata. There also belongs to this
+tertiary stratum the limestone tufa (fresh-water formation) of the
+valleys of Aragua near Vittoria, and the fragmentary rock of Cabo
+Blanco, westward of the port of La Guayra. I must not designate the
+latter by the name of nagelfluhe, because that term indicates rounded
+fragments, while the fragments of Cabo Blanco are generally angular,
+and composed of gneiss, hyaline quartz and chloritic slate, joined by
+a limestone cement. This cement contains magnetic sand,* (* This
+magnetic sand no doubt owes its origin to chloritous slate, which, in
+these latitudes, forms the bed of the sea.) madrepores, and vestiges
+of bivalve sea shells. The different fragments of tertiary strata
+which I found in the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela, on the two
+slopes of the northern chain, seem to be superposed near Cumana
+(between Bordones and Punta Delgada); in the Cerro of Meapire; on the
+[Alpine] limestone of Cumanacoa; between Porto Cabello and the Rio
+Guayguaza; as well as in the valleys of Aragua; on granite; on the
+western declivity of the hill formed by Cabo Blanco, on gneiss; and in
+the peninsula of Araya, on saliferous clay. But this is perhaps merely
+the effect of apposition.* (* An-nicht Auflagerung, according to the
+precise language of the geologists of my country.) If we would range
+the different members of the tertiary series according to the age of
+their formation we ought, I believe, to regard the breccia of Cabo
+Blanco with fragments of primitive rocks as the most ancient, and make
+it be succeeded by the arenaceous limestone of the castle of Cumana,
+without horned silex, yet somewhat analogous to the coarse limestone
+of Paris, and the fresh-water soil of Victoria. The clayey gypsum,
+mixed with calcareous breccia with madrepores, cardites and oysters,
+which I found between Carthagena and the Cerro de la Popa, and the
+equally recent limestones of Guadalope and Barbadoes (limestones
+filled with seashells resembling those now existing in the Caribbean
+Sea) prove that the latest deposited strata of the tertiary formation
+extend far towards the west and north.
+
+These recent formations, so rich in vestiges of organized bodies,
+furnish a vast field of observation to those who are familiar with the
+zoological character of rocks. To examine these vestiges in strata
+superposed as by steps, one above another, is to study the Fauna of
+different ages and to compare them together. The geography of animals
+marks out limits in space, according to the diversity of climates,
+which determine the actual state of vegetation on our planet. The
+geology of organized bodies, on the contrary, is a fragment of the
+history of nature, taking the word history in its proper acceptation:
+it describes the inhabitants of the earth according to succession of
+time. We may study genera and species in museums, but the Fauna of
+different ages, the predominance of certain shells, the numerical
+relations which characterize the animal kingdom and the vegetation of
+a place or of a period, should be studied in sight of those
+formations. It has long appeared to me that in the tropics as well as
+in the temperate zone the species of univalve shells are much more
+numerous than bivalves. From this superiority in number the organic
+fossil world furnishes, in every latitude, a further analogy with the
+intertropical shells that now live at the bottom of the ocean. In
+fact, M. Defrance, in a work* full of new and ingenious ideas, not
+only recognizes this preponderance of the univalves in the number of
+the species, but also observes that out of 5500 fossil univalve,
+bivalve and multivalve shells, contained in his rich collections,
+there are 3066 univalve, 2108 bivalve, and 326 multivalve; the
+univalve fossils are therefore to the bivalve as three to two. (*
+Table of Organized Fossil Bodies, 1824.)
+
+13. FORMATION OF PYROXENIC AMYGDALOID AND PHONOLITE, BETWEEN ORTIZ AND
+CERRO DE FLORES.
+
+I place pyroxenic amygdaloid and phonolite (porphyrschiefer) at the
+end of the formations of Venezuela, not as being the only rocks which
+I consider as pyrogenous, but as those of which the volcanic origin is
+probably posterior to the tertiary strata. This conclusion is not
+deduced from the observations I made at the southern declivity of the
+littoral Cordillera, between the Morros of San Juan, Parapara and the
+Llanos of Calabozo. In that region local circumstances would possibly
+lead us to regard the amygdaloids of Ortiz as linked to a system of
+transition rocks (amphibolic serpentine, diorite, and carburetted
+slate of Malpasso); but the eruption of the trachytes across rocks
+posterior to the chalk (in the Euganean Mountains and other parts of
+Europe) joined to the phenomenon of total absence of fragments of
+pyroxenic porphyry, trachyte, basalt and phonolite (The fragments of
+these rocks appear only in tufas or conglomerates which belong
+essentially to basaltic formations or surround the most recent
+volcanoes. Every volcanic formation is enveloped in breccia, which is
+the effect of the eruption itself.), in the conglomerates or
+fragmentary rocks anterior to the recent tertiary strata, renders it
+probable that the appearance of trap rocks at the surface of the earth
+is the effect of one of the last revolutions of our planet, even where
+the eruption has taken place by crevices (veins) which cross
+gneiss-granite, or the transition rocks not covered by secondary and
+tertiary formations.
+
+The small volcanic stratum of Ortiz (latitude 9 degrees 28 minutes to
+9 degrees 36 minutes) formed the ancient shore of the vast basin of
+the Llanos of Venezuela: it is composed on the points where I could
+examine it of only two kinds of rocks, namely, amygdaloid and
+phonolite. The greyish blue amygdaloid contains fendilated crystals of
+pyroxene and mesotype. It forms balls with concentric layers of which
+the flattened centre is nearly as hard as basalt. Neither olivine nor
+amphibole can be distinguished. Before it shows itself as a separate
+stratum, rising in small conic hills, the amygdaloid seems to
+alternate by layers with the diorite, which we have mentioned above as
+mixed with carburetted slate and amphibolic serpentine. These close
+relations of rocks so different in appearance and so likely to
+embarrass the observer give great interest to the vicinity of Ortiz.
+If the masses of diorite and amygdaloid, which appear to us to be
+layers, are very large veins, they may be supposed to have been formed
+and upheaved simultaneously. We are now acquainted with two formations
+of amygdaloid; one, the most common, is subordinate to the basalt: the
+other, much more rare,* (* We find examples of the latter in Norway
+(Vardekullen, near Skeen), in the mountains of the Thuringerwald; in
+South Tyrol; at Hefeld in the Hartz, at Bolanos in Mexico etc.)
+belongs to the pyroxenic porphyry.* (* Black porphyries of M. von
+Buch.) The amygdaloid of Ortiz approaches, by its oryctognostic
+characters, to the former of those formations, and we are almost
+surprised to find it joining, not basalt, but phonolite,* an eminently
+felspathic rock, in which we find some crystals of amphibole, but
+pyroxene very rarely, and never any olivine. (* There are phonolites
+of basaltic strata (the most anciently known) and phonolites of
+trachytic strata (Andes of Mexico). The former are generally above the
+basalts; and the extraordinary development of felspar in that union,
+and the want of pyroxene, have always appeared to me very remarkable
+phenomena.) The Cerro de Flores is a hill covered with tabulary blocks
+of greenish grey phonolite, enclosing long crystals (not fendillated)
+of vitreous felspar, altogether analogous to the phonolite of
+Mittelgebirge. It is surrounded by pyroxenic amygdaloid; it would no
+doubt be seen below, issuing immediately from gneiss-granite, like the
+phonolite of Biliner Stein, in Bohemia, which contains fragments of
+gneiss embedded in its mass.
+
+Does there exist in South America another group of rocks, which may be
+preferably designated by the name of volcanic rocks, and which are as
+distinct from the chain of the Andes, and advance as far towards the
+east as the group that bounds the steppes of Calabozo? Of this I
+doubt, at least in that part of the continent situated north of the
+Amazon. I have often directed attention to the absence of pyroxenic
+porphyry, trachyte, basalt and lavas (I range these formations
+according to their relative age) in the whole of America eastward of
+the Cordilleras. The existence even of trachyte has not yet been
+verified in the Sierra Nevada de Merida which links the Andes and the
+littoral chain of Venezuela. It would seem as if volcanic fire, after
+the formation of primitive rocks, could not pierce into eastern
+America. Possibly the scarcity of argentiferous veins observed in
+those countries may be owing to the absence of more recent volcanic
+phenomena. M. Eschwege saw at Brazil some layers (veins?) of diorite,
+but neither trachyte, basalt, dolerite, nor amygdaloid; and he was
+therefore much surprised to see, in the vicinity of Rio Janeiro, an
+insulated mass of phonolite, exactly similar to that of Bohemia,
+piercing through gneiss. I am inclined to believe that America, on the
+east of the Andes, would have burning volcanoes if, near the shore of
+Venezuela, Guiana and Brazil, the series of primitive rocks were
+broken by trachytes, for these, by their fendillation and open
+crevices, seem to establish that permanent communication between the
+surface of the soil and the interior of the globe, which is the
+indispensable condition of the existence of a volcano. If we direct
+our course from the coast of Paria by the gneiss-granite of the Silla
+of Caracas, the red sandstone of Barquisimeto and Tocuyo, the slaty
+mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Merida, and the eastern Cordillera
+of Cundinamarca to Popayan and Pasto, taking the direction of
+west-south-west, we find in the vicinity of those towns the first
+volcanic vents of the Andes still burning, those which are the most
+northerly of all South America; and it may be remarked that those
+craters are found where the Cordilleras begin to present trachytes, at
+a distance of eighteen or twenty-five leagues from the present coast
+of the Pacific Ocean.* (* I believe the first hypotheses respecting
+the relation between the burning of volcanoes and the proximity of the
+sea are contained in Aetna Dialogus, a very eloquent though
+little-known work by Cardinal Bembo.) Permanent communications, or at
+least communications frequently renewed, between the atmosphere and
+the interior of the globe, have been preserved only along that immense
+crevice on which the Cordilleras have been upheaved; but subterranean
+volcanic forces are not less active in eastern America, shaking the
+soil of the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela and of the Parime group.
+In describing the phenomena which accompanied the great earthquake of
+Caracas,* on the 26th March, 1812, I mentioned the detonations heard
+at different periods in the mountains (altogether granitic) of the
+Orinoco. (* I stated in another place the influence of that great
+catastrophe on the counter-revolution which the royalist party
+succeeded in bringing about at that time in Venezuela. It is
+impossible to conceive anything more curious than the negociation
+opened on the 5th of April, by the republican government, established
+at Valencia in the valleys of Aragua, with Archbishop Prat (Don
+Narciso Coll y Prat), to engage him to publish a pastoral letter
+calculated to tranquilize the people respecting the wrath of the
+deity. The Archbishop was permitted to say that this wrath was merited
+on account of the disorder of morals; but he was enjoined to declare
+positively that politics and systematic opinions on the new social
+order had nothing in common with it. Archbishop Prat lost his liberty
+after this singular correspondence.) The elastic forces which agitate
+the ground, the still-burning volcanoes, the hot sulphurous springs,
+sometimes containing fluoric acid, the presence of asphaltum and
+naphtha in primitive strata, all point to the interior of our planet,
+the high temperature of which is perceived even in mines of little
+depth, and which, from the times of Heraclitus of Ephesus, and
+Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, to the Plutonic theory of modern days, has
+been considered as the seat of all great disturbances of the globe.
+
+The sketch I have just traced contains all the formations known in
+that part of Europe which has served as the type of positive geology.
+It is the fruit of sixteen months' labour, often interrupted by other
+occupations. Formations of quartzose porphyry, pyroxenic porphyry and
+trachyte, of grauwacke, muschelkalk and quadersandstein, which are
+frequent towards the west, have not yet been seen in Venezuela; but it
+may be also observed that in the system of secondary rocks of the old
+continent muschelkalk and quadersandstein are not always clearly
+developed, and are often, by the frequency of their marls, confounded
+with the lower layers of Jura limestone. The muschelkalk is almost a
+lias with encrinites; and quadersandstein (for there are doubtless
+many above the lias or limestone with gryphites) seems to me to
+represent the arenaceous layers of the lower shelves of Jura
+limestone.
+
+I have thought it right to give at some length this geologic
+description of South America, not only on account of the novel
+interest which the study of the formations in the equinoctial regions
+is calculated to excite, but also on account of the honourable efforts
+which have recently been made in Europe to verify and extend the
+working of the mines in the Cordilleras of Columbia, Mexico, Chile and
+Buenos Ayres. Vast sums of money have been invested for the attainment
+of this useful end. In proportion as public confidence has enlarged
+and consolidated those enterprises, from which both continents may
+derive solid advantage, it becomes the duty of persons who have
+acquired a local knowledge of these countries to publish information
+calculated to create a just appreciation of the relative wealth and
+position of the mines in different parts of Spanish America. The
+success of a company for the working of mines, and that of works
+undertaken by the order of free governments, is far from depending
+solely on the improvement of the machines employed for draining off
+the water, and extracting the mineral, on the regular and economical
+distribution of the subterraneous works, or the improvements in
+preparation, amalgamation, and melting: success depends also on a
+thorough knowledge of the different superposed strata. The practice of
+the science of mining is closely linked with the progress of geology;
+and it would be easy to prove that many millions of piastres have been
+rashly expended in South America from complete ignorance of the nature
+of the formations, and the position of the rocks, in directing the
+preliminary researches. At the present time it is not precious metals
+solely which should fix the attention of new mining companies; the
+multiplication of steam-engines renders it indispensable, wherever
+wood is not abundant or easy of transport, to seek at the same time to
+discover coal and lignites. In this point of view the precise
+knowledge of the red sandstone, coal-sandstone, quadersandstein and
+molassus (tertiary formation of lignites), often covered with basalt
+and dolerite, is of great practical importance. It is difficult for a
+European miner, recently arrived, to judge of a country presenting so
+novel an aspect, and when the same formations cover an immense extent.
+I hope that the present work, as well as my Political Essay on New
+Spain, and my work on the Position of Rocks in the Two Hemispheres,
+will contribute to diminish those obstacles. They may be said to
+contain the earliest geologic information respecting places whose
+subterraneous wealth attracts the attention of commercial nations; and
+they will assist in the classification of the more precise notions
+which later researches may add to my labours.
+
+The republic of Colombia, in its present limits, furnishes a vast
+field for the enterprising spirit of the miner. Gold, platinum,
+silver, mercury, copper, gem-salt, sulphur and alum may become objects
+of important workings. The production of gold alone amounted, before
+the outbreak of the political dissensions, on the average, to 4700
+kilogrammes (20,500 marks of Castile) per annum. This is nearly half
+the quantity furnished by all Spanish America, a quantity which has an
+influence the more powerful on the variable proportions between the
+value of gold and silver, as the extraction of the former metal has
+diminished at Brazil, for forty years past, with surprising rapidity.
+The quint (a tax which the government raises on gold-washings) which
+in the Capitania of Minas Geraes was, in 1756, 1761 and 1767, from
+118, 102 and 85 arobas of gold (of 14 3/5 kilogrammes), has fallen,
+during 1800, 1813 and 1818, to 30, 20 and 9 arobas; an arob of gold
+having, at Rio Janeiro, the value of 15,000 cruzados. According to
+these estimates the produce of gold in Brazil, making deductions for
+fraudulent exportation, was, in the middle of the eighteenth century,
+the years of the greatest prosperity of the gold-washings, 6600
+kilogrammes, and in our days, from 1817 to 1820, 600 kilogrammes less.
+In the province of San Paulo the extraction of gold has entirely
+ceased; in the province of Goyaz, it was 803 kilogrammes in 1793 and
+in 1819 scarcely 75. In the province of Mato Grosso it is almost
+nothing; and M. Eschwege is of opinion that the whole produce of gold
+in Brazil does not amount at present to more than 600,000 cruzados
+(scarcely 440 kilogrammes). I dwell on these particulars because, in
+confounding the different periods of the riches and poverty of the
+gold-washings of Brazil, it is still affirmed in works treating of the
+commerce of the precious metals, that a quantity of gold equivalent to
+four millions of piastres (5800 kilogrammes of gold*) flows into
+Europe annually from Portuguese America. (* This error is twofold: it
+is probable that Brazilian gold, paying the quint, has not, during the
+last forty years, risen to 5500 kilogrammes. I heretofore shared this
+error in common with writers on political economy, in admitting that
+the quint in 1810 was still (instead of 26 arrobas or 379 kilogrammes)
+51,200 Portuguese ounces, or 1433 kilogrammes; which supposed a
+product of 7165 kilogrammes. The very correct information afforded by
+two Portuguese manuscripts on the gold-washings of Minas Geraes, Minas
+Novas and Goyaz, in the Bullion Report for the House of Commons, 1810,
+acc. page 29, goes as far only as 1794, when the quinto do ouro of
+Brazil was 53 arrobas, which indicates a produce of more than 3900
+kilogrammes paying the quint. In Mr. Tooke's important work, On High
+and Low Prices part 2 page 2) this produce is still estimated (mean
+year 1810 to 1821) at 1,736,000 piastres; while, according to official
+documents in my possession, the average of the quint of those ten
+years amounted only to 15 arrobas, or a product quint of 1095
+kilogrammes, or 755,000 piastres. Mr. John Allen reminded the
+Committee of the Bullion Report, in his Critical Notes on the table of
+M. Brongniart, that the decrease of the produce of the gold-washings
+of Brazil had been extremely rapid since 1794; and the notions given
+by M. Auguste de Saint Hilaire indicate the same desertion of the
+gold-mines of Brazil. Those who were miners have become cultivators.
+The value of an arroba of gold is 15,000 Brazilian cruzados (each
+cruzado being 50 sous). According to M. Franzini the Portuguese onca
+is equal to 0.028 of a kilogramme, and 8 oncas make 1 mark; 2 marks
+make 1 arratel, and 32 arratels 1 arroba.) If, in commercial value,
+gold in grains prevails, in the republic of Columbia, over the value
+of other metals, the latter are not on that account less worthy to fix
+the attention of government and of individuals. The argentiferous
+mines of Santa Anna, Manta, Santo Christo de las Laxas, Pamplona, Sapo
+and La Vega de Sapia afford great hope. The facility of the
+communications between the coast of Columbia and that of Europe
+imparts the same interest to the copper-mines of Venezuela and New
+Grenada. Metals are a merchandize purchased at the price of labour and
+an advance of capital; thus forming in the countries where they are
+produced a portion of commercial wealth; while their extraction gives
+an impetus to industry in the most barren and mountainous districts.
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+Acephali.
+
+Action:
+electric, similarity of, in the electric eel and the voltaic battery.
+volcanic, centre of.
+connexion of.
+
+Acosta, travels of.
+
+Adansonia, or baobab of, Senegal.
+
+Acuvajos, country of the.
+
+Aerolites.
+
+Africa:
+travels in.
+deserts of.
+
+Aguas Calientes:
+ravine of.
+river of.
+
+Agriculture:
+tropical.
+early practice of.
+influence of on individuals.
+mean temperature required for the success of.
+geology applied to.
+in the island of Cuba.
+zone of, in Spanish America.
+
+Aguatire, the.
+
+Ajuntas.
+
+Alcaldes, or Indian magistrates.
+
+Alegranza, island of.
+
+Algodonal:
+crocodiles of.
+
+Aloe, see Maguey.
+
+Alligators.
+
+Almond-trees.
+
+Alphabet, application of the, in Indian languages.
+
+Alta Vista:
+plain of.
+natural ice-house of.
+Gracia.
+
+Alum:
+European.
+mines.
+
+Amalivaca.
+
+Amasonia, arborea.
+
+Amazon river:
+falls of the.
+valley of the.
+navigation of.
+tributary streams of.
+bridges over the.
+course of the.
+basin of the.
+plains of the.
+stones.
+locality of.
+
+Amazons, traditions of the.
+
+Amygdaloide.
+
+America:
+discovery of.
+rapidity of vegetation in.
+Savannahs of.
+geological structure of.
+early colonists of.
+traditons of.
+ancient name of.
+supposed identity of, with Asia.
+east of the Andes.
+English.
+population of.
+Portuguese.
+population of.
+South.
+plants of.
+forests of.
+missions of.
+natives of.
+waters of.
+pampas of.
+geography of.
+geognostic description of.
+configuration of.
+mountains of.
+extent of.
+plains of Ibib, boundaries of.
+
+America, Spanish:
+inhabitants of.
+civil wars of.
+state of society in.
+productions of.
+boundaries of.
+frontier posts of.
+population of.
+extent of.
+republics of.
+commerce of.
+agriculture of.
+political position of.
+
+Amerigo, Vespucci.
+
+Andalusia, New:
+coasts of.
+mountains of.
+capital of.
+inhabitants of.
+earthquakes in.
+extent of.
+
+Andes:
+ascent of the.
+branches of the.
+structure of.
+elevation of.
+etymology of the name.
+importance of the.
+of Chili.
+
+Angostura:
+commerce of.
+geology of.
+bark.
+
+Anil, see Indigo.
+
+Animals:
+effects of heat and cold upon.
+organization of.
+contemplations on the nature of.
+hemispherical distribution of.
+geography of.
+domestic.
+wild, herds of.
+
+Animals, painted representations of, by native Indians.
+
+Anthropophagy.
+
+Antidotes, to poisons.
+
+Antiles, the.
+
+Antimano.
+
+Ants:
+of the torrid zone.
+use of by the natives as food.
+
+Apes, different species of.
+
+Apparatus, electrical.
+
+Apples, American.
+
+Apure river:
+voyage on the.
+channel of.
+navigation of.
+junction of, with the Orinoco.
+fetid waters of.
+rise of the.
+
+Apurito, island of.
+
+Aquio, river.
+
+Aradores.
+
+Aragua:
+cotton plantations of.
+boundaries of.
+forests of.
+plains of.
+indigo grounds of.
+cacao plantations of.
+geology of.
+vultures of.
+
+Araguatos.
+
+Araya:
+salt works of.
+Peninsula of.
+castle of.
+pearls of.
+inhabitants of.
+scarcity of rain in.
+geology of.
+
+Archipelago:
+of St. Bernard.
+of Chonos.
+of Rosario.
+
+Arenas.
+
+Areverians, tribe of.
+
+Areo, river.
+
+Aroa:
+copper mines of.
+river of.
+
+Arowaks, tribe of the.
+
+Arrua, the.
+
+Artabrum, promontory of.
+
+Arvi, the.
+
+Asia, steppes of.
+
+Asphaltum, lake of.
+
+Assuay, mountains of.
+
+Astorga.
+
+Astronomy, study of.
+
+Atabapo, the:
+pure waters of the.
+banks of the.
+
+Ataripe, cavern of.
+
+Atlantic:
+temperature of the.
+currents in the.
+phenomena, in the.
+
+Atlantis.
+
+Atmosphere:
+rapid changes in the.
+serenity of the.
+greatest heat of the.
+observations on the.
+
+Atmospheric transparency, effects of, on mental and vegetable
+properties.
+
+Atrato.
+
+Aturajos, country of the.
+
+Atures:
+rapids of.
+mission of.
+prevalence of fevers at.
+vegetation of.
+church of.
+tribes of.
+language of.
+
+Arauca, river:
+birds of the.
+
+Avila, mountain of.
+
+Azores:
+new island of the.
+sea around the.
+
+Balsam-trees, groves of.
+
+Bamboos:
+furniture made from.
+region of.
+
+Banana-tree.
+
+Bandits of the plains.
+
+Baracoa, commerce of.
+
+Baragnan, passage of.
+
+Barba de Tigre.
+
+Barbarian, origin of the term.
+
+Barbarism, regions in which it most prevails.
+
+Barbula, cotton plantations of.
+
+Barcelona, New:
+native population of.
+languages of.
+port of.
+fort of.
+earthquakes at.
+plains of.
+town of.
+
+Barigon, limestones of the.
+
+Bark:
+medicinal.
+trees.
+
+Barometer:
+variations of, previous to earthquakes.
+horary variations of.
+
+Barquisimeto.
+
+Baru:
+peninsula of.
+island of.
+
+Basalt.
+
+Batabano:
+route to.
+gulf of.
+rocks of.
+
+Batavia, sugar cane of.
+
+Bathing, methods of, practised by the Indians.
+
+Bats.
+
+Baudin, Captain:
+expedition of to the South Seas.
+ascent of peak of Teneriffe, by.
+
+Baxo de la Cotua.
+
+Bears.
+
+Beauty, national ideas of.
+
+Bees:
+peculiar to the New World.
+European importation of.
+
+Beet-root sugar.
+
+Benedictus Alexander, physiological phenomenon related by.
+
+Beni, river.
+
+Benzoni Girolamo:
+voyage of.
+
+Berbice.
+
+Bergantin:
+excursion to.
+sandstone of the.
+
+Bermuda, islands of.
+
+Berrio, Antonio de:
+expedition of.
+
+Bertholletia excelsa, or Brazil nut tree.
+
+Bird island.
+
+Birds of South America:
+domestic.
+migrations of.
+fishing.
+granivorous.
+nocturnal, see Guacharo.
+
+Bishop's lake.
+
+Bitumen springs.
+
+Blow-tubes of the Indians.
+
+Boats of Cumana.
+
+Bobadilla Francisco, mission founded by.
+
+Boca de Arichuna:
+Chica.
+del Drago.
+Grande of Carthagena.
+de la Tortuga.
+
+Bochica, or Indacanzas, priests of.
+
+Body-painting:
+practice of.
+methods of.
+
+Bohemia, mountains of.
+
+Bombax.
+
+Bonpland, M.:
+intrepidity of.
+tree dedicated to (Bonplandia trifoliata).
+
+Boracha, island of.
+
+Borachita, island of.
+
+Botany:
+descriptive.
+of the Canary islands.
+of the Coral islands.
+
+Bougainville, dissemination of the sugar cane by.
+
+Bovadillo, expedition of.
+
+Branco river.
+
+Brazil:
+boundaries of.
+extent of.
+population of.
+mountains of.
+frontiers of.
+gold of.
+
+Brazil-nut trees (Bertholletia excelsa):
+nut, harvest of.
+
+Bread-fruit.
+
+Breschet, M.
+
+Bridges:
+over the Amazon.
+of Lianas.
+
+Brigantine:
+situation of the.
+conjunction of, with the Cocolla.
+descent of the.
+
+Bruyere, description of slaves by.
+
+Brownea, or mountain roses.
+
+Buen Pastor, mineral springs of.
+
+Buenos Ayres:
+exports of.
+extent of.
+population of.
+situation of.
+pampas of.
+
+Burro, isle of.
+
+Butterflies, American.
+
+Butter:
+tree.
+from birds.
+from palm-fruit.
+from the tortoise egg.
+
+Cabo Blanco:
+summit of.
+climate of.
+
+Cabrera, promontory of.
+
+Cabruta, town of.
+
+Cabullure, river.
+
+Cacao:
+port of.
+export of.
+adulteration of.
+harvest of.
+of Cumana.
+trees, propagation of.
+plants having the same properties.
+of Barcelona.
+wild.
+plantations.
+
+Cactus:
+American.
+forests of.
+varieties of.
+plantations of.
+
+Calabozo:
+departure from.
+plains of.
+
+Calabury river.
+
+Caldera, of Peak of Teneriffe.
+
+Caledonia, New.
+
+Camels:
+first introduction of, in America.
+of Forteventura.
+of Teneriffe.
+
+Campeachy.
+
+Campoma, lake of.
+
+Canada:
+basin of.
+lakes of.
+
+Cananivacari, rapids of.
+
+Canaries of Orotava:
+of Montana Clara.
+
+Canary Islands:
+birds of the.
+ancient historical notices of.
+geology of the.
+fruits and plants of.
+aborigines of.
+inhabitants of.
+government of the.
+hot springs of.
+
+Cannibal:
+origin of the term.
+chief.
+tribes.
+
+Cannibalism:
+tribes most addicted to.
+in Egypt.
+
+Cano de la Tigre.
+
+Canoes:
+Indian.
+modes of conveying them overland.
+of Norfolk Island.
+
+Caparro monkey.
+
+Capanaparo, lake of.
+
+Cape:
+Araya, salt-pits of.
+Baco.
+Barima.
+De la Brea.
+Cirial.
+Codera.
+Finistere.
+Guaratarito.
+Macanao.
+Matahambre.
+Negril.
+Portland.
+Manas.
+Sotto.
+St. Vincent.
+Three Points.
+Vela.
+
+Cape Verd Islands.
+
+Capitania, General of Caracas.
+government of.
+population of.
+exportation of hides from.
+annexation of with New Granada.
+
+Caps, of bark.
+
+Capuchin Hospital, near Cumana.
+
+Capuchins:
+missions of.
+indigo, manufactures of.
+government of.
+influence of.
+
+Caracas:
+city of.
+salt-works of.
+population of.
+valleys of.
+climate of.
+vegetable productions of.
+temperature of.
+state of society in.
+intelligence of the inhabitants.
+printing office in.
+mines of.
+earthquakes at.
+effects of the.
+departure from.
+flora of.
+Cacao, plantations of.
+commerce of.
+plains of.
+La Venta, or large Inn of.
+islands of.
+
+Carapa.
+
+Caratapona, granite islands of.
+
+Caravalleda, sugar plantations of.
+
+Caravanserai of San Fernando.
+
+Cari:
+missions of.
+inhabitants of.
+
+Cariaco:
+town of.
+valley of.
+climate of.
+population of.
+
+Cariaco, gulf of.
+
+Caribbean Sea:
+basins of the.
+
+Caribbees, see Caribs.
+
+Caribs:
+language of the.
+tribes of.
+native white race of.
+migrations of.
+ferocity.
+missions of.
+customs of.
+characteristics of.
+extermination of the.
+origin of the term.
+government of.
+laws of.
+
+Carib:
+chief.
+slave-dealers.
+women.
+language of the.
+
+Carichana:
+mission of.
+port of.
+
+Caripe:
+convent of.
+valley of.
+climate of.
+cavern of.
+oil harvest of.
+river of.
+geology of.
+
+Carizales, island of.
+
+Carlos:
+del Pino.
+Pozo.
+
+Carolinas.
+
+Carony, river:
+course of the.
+falls of.
+tributary streams of.
+
+Carthagena, port of.
+
+Cascabel, or rattlesnake.
+
+Cascades.
+
+Cascarilla-bark, see Cinchona.
+
+Cassime, or Zodiacal Light.
+
+Cassipagotos, tribe of.
+
+Cassiquiare:
+river banks of the.
+encampment on the.
+branch of the.
+fertility of the.
+general aspect of.
+temperature of.
+navigation of.
+
+Castanos, el Monte de.
+
+Castile, climate of.
+
+Castle of San Antonio:
+hospital of the.
+
+Cataracts:
+latitude of the.
+of Atures.
+of Cariven.
+of Cunuri.
+of Guaharibos.
+of Maypures.
+of the Orinoco.
+navigation of the.
+scenery of the.
+of Rio Caroni.
+of Quittuna.
+
+Catia.
+
+Cattle:
+of the plains.
+exportation of hides.
+European.
+
+Cavern:
+of Ataripe.
+of Caripe.
+of Dantoe.
+of the Guacharo.
+
+Caverns:
+origin of.
+geological formations of.
+of Derbyshire.
+of Franconia.
+
+Cayman, see Crocodile:
+islands.
+geology of.
+situation of.
+
+Caymanbrack.
+
+Cayo:
+Bonito.
+de Cristoval.
+Flamenco.
+Piedras.
+de Perez.
+
+Cecropia, the.
+
+Cedeno, river.
+
+Centurion, Don M., expedition of.
+
+Ceremonies, religious, of the Indians.
+
+Cerro de Flores.
+
+Cerros de Sipapo.
+
+Ceylon, pearl fisheries of.
+
+Chacaito, river of.
+
+Chamberg, island of.
+
+Charts:
+inaccuracies of.
+of Vespucci.
+
+Chaymas:
+missions of the.
+nation of.
+physiognomy of.
+habits of.
+physical conformation of.
+mental inaptitude of.
+language of.
+colour of.
+
+Chayma women.
+
+Chemistry, vegetable.
+
+Chiquires, or water hogs.
+
+Chile:
+mountains of.
+
+Chimanas, groups of.
+
+Chimborazo, chain of.
+
+Churches:
+of Cumana.
+of Caracas.
+
+Chocolate, preparation of.
+
+Cigars, exportation of, from Cuba.
+
+Cinchona, or Cascarilla bark.
+
+Cinnamon, or Canela tree.
+
+Civilization:
+causes which tend to retard the progress of.
+advance of, between the tropics.
+effects of, on the human countenance.
+physical evils attending.
+grades of.
+course of.
+humanizing influence of.
+promoted by river-intercourse.
+and slavery.
+
+Claystone (Thonschiefer):
+muriatiferous.
+
+Climate of America:
+causes of the variableness of, in corresponding latitudes.
+
+Cloquet, M., on physiognomy.
+
+Cocoa, see cacao.
+
+Cocollar:
+ascent of the.
+climate of.
+elevation of the.
+
+Cocuy, harem of.
+
+Cocuyza, peak of.
+
+Coffee trees:
+propagation of.
+cultivation of, at Caripe.
+at Caracas.
+plantations of.
+abundant produce of.
+berries.
+of the Havannah.
+
+Colonies:
+American society in the.
+Castilian.
+Dutch.
+English.
+French.
+Spanish.
+
+Colonists of America.
+
+Colorado river.
+
+Colonization, progress of.
+
+Colour:
+causes of the different shades of, in the human family.
+of the native Indians.
+aristocracy of.
+
+Columbia:
+republic of.
+mines of.
+
+Columbus, Christopher:
+early discoveries of.
+his estimation of gold.
+tomb of.
+journal of.
+
+Columbus, Ferdinand, description of the Indians by.
+
+Combustion, volcanic.
+
+Commerce, future advantages to.
+
+Concepcion de Urban.
+
+Concervo, island of.
+
+Congo river.
+
+Conorichite, river.
+
+Conquistadores.
+
+Consejo, see Mammon.
+
+Constellations of the torrid zone.
+
+Contagion:
+of fevers, facts relating to.
+of the plague.
+Dr. Bailey's opinion on the.
+
+Convent of Caripe.
+
+Conuco, or Farm of Bermudez.
+
+Coral:
+formation of.
+rocks.
+snake.
+
+Cordillera:
+of the Andes.
+of Baraguaro.
+near Cumana.
+native inhabitants of the.
+climate of.
+volcanic nature of the.
+of the coast.
+Real de Neve.
+
+Corn:
+European.
+cultivation of, in the equinoctial regions.
+limits of the growth of.
+
+Cortez, Hernan.
+
+Cortex Angosturae.
+
+Corunna:
+port of.
+mountains of.
+light house of.
+departure from.
+
+Cosmogony, theory of.
+
+Cotopaxi, mountain of.
+
+Cotton:
+native manufactures of.
+trees of America.
+cultivation of.
+plantations of.
+
+Courbrail, the.
+
+Cow-tree (Palo de Vaca).
+
+Cows in the torrid zone.
+
+Creole sugar cane, introduction of the, into West Indies.
+
+Creoles, nobility of the.
+
+Crocodiles:
+groups of.
+ferocity of.
+summer sleep of.
+instinct of.
+oil of, used medicinally.
+effect of heat and cold upon.
+food of.
+flesh of, sold for food.
+habits of.
+modes of destroying.
+of Algodonol.
+of the Havannah.
+of Latie Valencia.
+of Manzanares.
+of the Nile.
+of Rio Adeuas Calentes.
+of Rio Cabulare.
+of Rio Neveri.
+of the Orinoco.
+of Uritucu.
+
+Crystals:
+formation of.
+
+Cuba:
+coffee plantations of.
+agriculture of.
+extent of.
+population of.
+political importance of.
+inhabitants of.
+position of.
+geology of.
+minerals of.
+climate of.
+turtles of.
+voyage of Cortez to.
+ports of.
+shores of.
+temperature of.
+dioceses of.
+government of.
+colonization of.
+public institutions of.
+commerce of.
+tobacco plantations of.
+productions of.
+revenue of.
+
+Cuba and the slave trade.
+
+Cubagua:
+island of.
+pearls of.
+native deer of.
+
+Cuchivano:
+Risco or crevice of.
+tigers of the.
+forests of.
+gold mines of.
+caverns of.
+
+Culebra, island of.
+
+Culimacari, rock of.
+
+Cumana:
+city of.
+geology of.
+forests of.
+frequency of earthquakes in.
+population of.
+plains of.
+port of.
+climate of.
+ancient name of.
+slave market of.
+government of.
+mountains of.
+cacao of.
+languages of.
+trading boats of.
+departure from.
+return to.
+geology of.
+governor of.
+
+Cumanacoa:
+town of.
+tobacco plantations of.
+indigo plantations of.
+geology of.
+
+Cumanagoto:
+subdued tribes of.
+
+Cunavami, mountains of.
+
+Cuneva.
+
+Cunucunumo river.
+
+Cunuri, cataract of.
+
+Cura, the.
+
+Curare, or vegetable poison, see Poisons.
+
+Curacicanas, cotton manufactures of the.
+
+Currents:
+equinoctial, in the Atlantic.
+causes of.
+variations of the.
+seeds and fruits, deposited by.
+
+Currency.
+
+Cuspa, or Cinchona tree, medicinal properties of.
+
+Cuzco, city of.
+
+Dagysa notata, a mollusc, discovered by Sir J. Banks.
+
+Darien:
+coast of.
+gold of the.
+gulf of.
+
+Dairies of Andalusia.
+
+Dances of the Indians.
+
+Dapa, island of.
+
+Dapicho, or fossil India-rubber.
+preparation of.
+growth of.
+
+Daripe, San Miguel de.
+
+Decrement of heat, laws of the.
+
+Deer, American.
+
+Deformities, natural, total absence of, among the Indians.
+
+Deity, ideas of the, held by native Indians.
+
+Delpeche, printing office established by.
+
+Delta, the plains of the.
+
+Deluge, traditions of the.
+
+Demerara:
+settlement of.
+
+Depons, M., opinions of, on Lake of Valencia.
+
+Deserts of the New World:
+dangers of travelling in.
+
+Devil's Nook (Rincon del Diablo).
+
+Dialects, Indian:
+analogy of.
+affinity of.
+diversity of.
+
+Diamante:
+island of.
+sugar plantations of.
+
+Diamonds:
+cutting of, first invented.
+legends of.
+
+Diego de Losada, town founded by.
+
+Diego de Ordaz.
+
+Dirt-eating, a custom of the Ottomacs.
+
+Diseases most prevalent in America.
+
+Divinity, native ideas of.
+
+Dolphins:
+of the river Manzanares.
+of the Temi.
+
+Dornajito, spring of.
+
+Don Alexandro Mexia.
+
+Don Jose de Manterola.
+
+Don Nicolas Soto, travels with.
+
+Don Vincent Emparan, Governor of Cumana:
+intelligence and hospitality of.
+
+Dorado:
+district of.
+expeditions to.
+de la Parima.
+
+Doubts, geographical, respecting the junction of great rivers.
+
+Dragon-tree:
+height and antiquity of.
+juice of the.
+
+Dresses of the native Indians.
+
+Duida:
+volcano of.
+peak of the.
+
+Durasno, hill of, levelled by the Marquis de Nava.
+
+Dutch:
+settlements.
+Guiana.
+
+Earth:
+oscillation of the.
+undulations of.
+effects of, on men and animals.
+
+Earth-eating:
+practice of.
+effects of.
+in Asia.
+among animals.
+
+Earths, odoriferous.
+
+Earthquakes:
+causes of.
+connection of, with the atmosphere, preceding the shock.
+connection of, with volcanic eruptions.
+frequent shocks of, in towns distant from volcanoes.
+effects of, on the sea.
+on the shoals.
+annual indications of.
+atmospheric indications of.
+phenomena of.
+theories of.
+at Caracas.
+at Cumana.
+at Lima.
+in Mexico.
+at Morro Roxo.
+in Peru.
+at Riobamba.
+
+Eclipse:
+of the moon.
+of the sun, effects of.
+
+Eels:
+electric.
+varied species of.
+modes of fishing for.
+habits of the.
+dangers attending the shock from.
+medicinal properties of the.
+
+Eggs of the turtle:
+fisheries of, on the river Orinoco.
+harvest of.
+season for laying.
+method of depositing.
+immense numbers of.
+
+Egypt:
+crocodiles of.
+traditions of.
+
+El Castillo.
+
+El Castillito, rock of.
+
+El Cucurucho de Coco, mountain of.
+
+El Dorado:
+legends of.
+etymology of.
+traditions of.
+legendary city of.
+
+El Moro, or fort of Barcelona.
+
+El Penol de los Banos.
+
+El Roncador.
+
+Electricity:
+theory of.
+Indian knowledge of.
+effects of, on horses.
+transmission of the shock.
+dangerous effects of.
+atmospheric.
+
+Elevation of mountains, maxima of.
+
+Emancipation of slaves.
+
+Emeralds, supposed mines of.
+
+Encampments, Indian.
+
+Encaramada:
+port of.
+mountains of.
+natives of.
+legends of.
+
+Endava.
+
+Epidemics.
+
+Equator, crossing the.
+
+Equinox:
+autumnal.
+vernal.
+
+Errors, geographical.
+
+Eruptions, volcanic:
+connection of, with earthquakes.
+
+Erythrina, the.
+
+Esmeralda:
+mission of.
+origin of the colony.
+monkeys of.
+villa of.
+native tribes of.
+departure from.
+mosquitos of.
+longitude of.
+
+Essay, political, on the island of Cuba.
+
+Essequibo:
+English colony of.
+missionaries of.
+river.
+
+Estevan:
+river.
+acqueducts of.
+
+Esquimaux:
+countries of the.
+colour of the.
+
+Etna, eruptions, and lava of.
+
+Europe, departure of the author from.
+
+Europeans:
+dangers of a tropical climate to.
+influence of.
+on slavery.
+
+Evaporation:
+theory of.
+effects of, on the atmosphere.
+
+Exhalations, inflammable.
+
+Eye-stones, remarkable properties of the.
+
+Facts, pathological, relating to fevers.
+
+Falling-stars:
+observations on.
+
+Faxardo, Francisco:
+town founded by.
+island of.
+
+Features, mobility and immobility of, in men and animals.
+
+Females, Indian, condition of.
+
+Fernando, Cortez.
+
+Ferns:
+arborescent.
+geographical distribution of.
+
+Ferrol, port of.
+
+Fever:
+American typhus.
+propagation of.
+yellow, first appearance of the.
+limits and spread of.
+proximate cause of.
+prevalence of.
+treatment of.
+
+Fevers:
+prevalence of, in the islands of the Orinoco.
+remedies for.
+pathological facts relating to.
+epidemic, in the region of Cariaco.
+
+Fig tree.
+
+Fires:
+nocturnal, in the Llanos.
+subterranean.
+
+Fish:
+caribe or cannibal.
+electrical.
+action of.
+of the Nile.
+flying, formation of.
+flour.
+bread.
+
+Fishes, respiration of.
+
+Fishing, singular methods of.
+
+Florida:
+bees of.
+
+Flour:
+of the United States.
+stores of Caracas
+
+Forests:
+American.
+zone of.
+effects of the diminution of.
+on the Caribbean Sea.
+of Catuaro.
+of cedar.
+of mahogany.
+of palm trees.
+of Pimichin.
+of Punzera.
+of Venezuela.
+
+Formations:
+geologic.
+volcanic.
+
+Forteventura.
+
+Fortunate Islands.
+
+Fossil remains:
+discovery of.
+study of.
+
+Francisco, Lozano:
+remarkable physiological phenomenon of.
+of Pampeluna.
+
+Fray Ramon Bueno:
+residence of.
+remarks of, on the habits of the Ottomacs.
+
+Fruits:
+of Antimano.
+of Araya.
+of Caracas.
+of Macarao.
+
+Fucus, or sea-weed, banks of, in the Atlantic.
+
+Fuente de Sanchorquiz.
+
+Galicia:
+scenery of.
+mines.
+plants of.
+
+Galipano, mountain of.
+
+Gallitos, or rock manikin.
+
+Gardens, botanical, of Orotava.
+
+Garnets.
+
+Garzes, or white herons.
+
+Geognosy:
+of America.
+laws of.
+
+Geology:
+queries in.
+problem of.
+basis of the study of.
+of America.
+of Aragua.
+of the Canary Islands.
+of Cumana.
+applied to mining and agriculture.
+of Mariara.
+of Peak of Teneriffe.
+of volcanoes.
+
+Geophagy, details of.
+
+Geography:
+errors in.
+nature of.
+by M. Leschenault.
+of America.
+of plants.
+
+Girolamo, Benzoni:
+account of the slave trade by.
+voyage of.
+
+Glass, volcanic.
+
+Glorieta de Cocuy.
+
+Glue, natural.
+
+Gneiss.
+strata of.
+formation of.
+strata of.
+
+Goats, of Peak of Teneriffe.
+
+Gold.
+early use of, as a medium of exchange.
+of Brazil.
+districts.
+their legends.
+mines of Baruta.
+of Buria.
+of Cuba.
+of Paria.
+of Rincomada.
+of San Juan.
+of the valley of Tuy.
+ornaments, worn by native Indians.
+washings.
+of Brazil.
+produce of.
+
+Golfo:
+de las Damas.
+Yeguas.
+Triste.
+
+Gomara, history of the Parians by.
+
+Gomora, island of.
+
+Gonzales Pizarro.
+
+Govierno de Cumana:
+prevailing languages in the.
+
+Graciosa, island of.
+
+Grammars, American, collected by the author's brother.
+
+Granite:
+formations.
+varieties of.
+of Cape Finisterre.
+of Guiana.
+islands.
+mountains.
+rocks.
+
+Gravina, Admiral.
+
+Greenland:
+language of.
+inhabitants of.
+
+Greenstone, strata of.
+
+Grenada, New:
+connexion of, with foreign colonies.
+commerce of.
+extent of.
+population of.
+mountains of.
+
+Grenada, island of.
+
+Grotto:
+of Caripe.
+of Muggendorf.
+
+Grottoes:
+formation of.
+varied structure of, in both hemispheres.
+
+Guacara, Indians.
+
+Guachaco, island of.
+
+Guacharo, or nocturnal bird:
+cavern of the.
+description of the.
+oil or butter procured from.
+pyramid of.
+majestic peak of.
+
+Guadaloupe:
+hot springs of.
+volcano of.
+
+Guahaibos:
+natives of.
+cataract of.
+
+Guaineres, tribe of.
+
+Guamo Indians, tribe of.
+habits of the.
+
+Guanaguana:
+mission of.
+fertile valley of.
+mules of.
+geological formations of.
+
+Guanches.
+origin of the.
+extinction of the race.
+laws of.
+mummy caves of.
+language of.
+successors of the.
+
+Guantanamo.
+
+Guaraons:
+tribe of.
+character and habits of the.
+habitations of.
+
+Guarapiche, river.
+
+Guardia.
+
+Guatavita, sacred lake of.
+
+Guatimala, extent and population of.
+
+Guatiaos.
+
+Guaurabo, river.
+
+Guaviare:
+river of.
+plains of.
+
+Guaiana, Old:
+fort of.
+
+Guayanos, tribes of.
+
+Guayavo.
+
+Guayguaza, river:
+fords of the.
+
+Guaypunaves, warlike chief of.
+
+Guayqueria Indians:
+district of the.
+origin of.
+habits of.
+language of.
+
+Guayra, La:
+voyage to.
+fevers in.
+port of.
+climate of.
+valleys of.
+fortifications of.
+coasts of.
+earthquakes at.
+exports of.
+
+Guayra river:
+source of the.
+swells of the.
+
+Guayupes.
+
+Guainia river:
+frontier posts on the.
+
+Guiana:
+supposed mineral wealth of.
+natives of.
+missions of.
+population of.
+maps of.
+granites of.
+auriferous soil of.
+English.
+Spanish.
+capitals of.
+commerce of.
+
+Guigue:
+mountains of.
+village of.
+
+Guines:
+port of.
+canal of.
+
+Gulf Stream:
+temperature of the.
+breadth of the.
+course of the.
+
+Gulf:
+of Cariaco.
+traditions of the.
+hot springs of.
+cacao plantations of.
+coasts of.
+of Batabano.
+of Darien.
+of Maracaybo.
+of Mexico.
+of Mochima.
+of Panama.
+of Paria.
+of Santa Fe.
+of Santa Marta.
+of Uraba.
+
+Gulfs, subterranean.
+
+Gums.
+
+Gymnotus:
+experiments on the.
+influence of, on other fish.
+shocks from the.
+electrical apparatus of the.
+
+Gypsum:
+of Araya.
+of the LLanos.
+
+Hacienda de Cura.
+
+Hail-storms, phenomena of.
+
+Hanno, early travels of.
+
+Hateros, or farmers, wealth of the.
+
+Hato:
+de Alta Gracia.
+del Cayman, inhabitants of the.
+del Cocollar.
+
+Havannah, The:
+state of society in.
+fevers of.
+voyage to.
+arrival at.
+commerce of.
+town of.
+climate of.
+population of.
+slave population of.
+fortifications of.
+sugar plantations of.
+conquest of.
+coffee plantations of.
+port of.
+wealth of.
+revenue of.
+
+Havaneros.
+
+Haiti (Hayti):
+language of.
+copper of.
+population of.
+
+Hay tree.
+
+Heat:
+decrement of.
+atmospheric, parts of the New World most exposed to.
+
+Heaths:
+arborescent.
+of Teneriffe.
+existence of.
+zone of.
+
+Hercules, tower of, in Galicia.
+
+Hernan Cortez:
+discoveries of.
+shipwreck of.
+Perez de Quesada.
+
+Herons.
+
+Herrera, Alonzo de, expedition of.
+
+Hides, exportation of.
+
+Hieroglyphic rock-marks.
+
+Higuerote:
+bay of.
+departure from.
+mountains.
+vegetation on the.
+
+Himalaya mountains:
+height of the.
+
+History, natural, museum of, at Madrid.
+
+Hocco, or American pheasant.
+
+Homes of native Indians.
+
+Honda.
+
+Hondius:
+map of America, by.
+errors of.
+
+Honduras.
+
+Horizon, distant visibility of the.
+
+Horticulture.
+
+Hortsmann.
+
+Horses of the Llanos:
+contests of, with electric eels.
+
+Hospital at Caripe.
+
+Hot-springs.
+
+Huanta.
+
+Huarocheri.
+
+Huaytecas.
+
+Hudson's Bay.
+
+Hunger, physiology of.
+
+Huten, Felipe de, expedition of.
+
+Huts of the natives.
+
+Huttonian theory.
+
+Hyalites.
+
+Iceland, introduction of Christianity into.
+
+Ice-house, natural, of Peak of Teneriffe.
+
+Idapa, mouth of the.
+
+Idioms:
+American.
+grammatical system of.
+
+Iguana, nests of the.
+
+Imposible, mountain:
+geological conformation of the.
+
+Indians of the missions:
+compared with free tribes.
+great age attained by.
+language of.
+
+Indians:
+first meeting with.
+festivals of.
+settlement of, on the salt lakes.
+superstitions of.
+characteristic traits of.
+religious instruction of.
+religious principles of.
+rencontre with.
+manners of.
+food of.
+tribes of.
+apathy of.
+physiology of.
+colour of.
+system of navigation practised by.
+districts of the.
+hire of, as beasts of burden.
+languages of.
+intellectual development of.
+encampments of.
+intrepidity of.
+cannibalism of the.
+
+Indians:
+of Barcelona.
+copper coloured, districts of.
+of Cuba.
+dwarf, tribes of.
+fair, tribes of.
+country of.
+of the Guainia.
+of Maguiritares.
+of the Orinoco.
+distribution of the hordes.
+of Panapana.
+of Pararuma.
+of Rio Negro.
+
+Indigo, or Anil:
+culture and manufacture of.
+exportation of.
+early use of by the Mexicans.
+of Aragua.
+of Batabano.
+of Guainia.
+of Mijagual.
+
+Indios andantes, or wandering tribes of Indians.
+
+Infanticide, Indian practice of.
+
+Infierno, or Hell rock.
+
+Inheritance, laws of.
+
+Insect-food, used by the Indians.
+
+Insects:
+American.
+phosphorescent, of the Torrid Zone.
+plague of.
+
+Instruments, musical, of the Indians.
+
+Insurrections, Indian.
+
+Interment, Indian modes of.
+
+Interpreters.
+
+Inundations:
+causes of.
+
+Isla:
+Clara.
+de Uruana.
+vieja de la Manteca.
+
+Islands:
+origin of.
+of the South Sea.
+volcanic.
+
+Islote, granite island of.
+
+Italy, travels in.
+
+Java.
+
+Javanavo, island of.
+
+Jaguar tigers:
+size of.
+haunts of.
+rencontre with.
+intrepidity of.
+familiarity of.
+varieties of.
+
+Jamaica:
+coffee plantations of.
+slave trade of.
+sugar plantations of.
+
+James, Mr. Edwin, geology of the Mississippi by.
+
+Jardinillos:
+coral rocks of.
+flats of the.
+
+Javariveni:
+island of.
+rapids of.
+
+Javita:
+the Indian chief.
+San Antonio de, mission of.
+forests of.
+salt manufactures of.
+isthmus of.
+
+Jehemani.
+
+Jesuit Missions, destruction of the.
+
+Jesuits:
+suppression of.
+wars of the.
+
+Joval, tigers of the.
+
+Juagua, river.
+
+Juan Gonzales, intelligence and premature death of.
+
+Jarumo tree.
+
+Juliac, M., skilful treatment of the yellow fever by.
+
+Junction of rivers, doubts respecting the.
+
+Jupura, river.
+
+Juruario, river.
+
+Keri:
+valley of.
+rocks of.
+
+Keymis, Lawrence, travels of.
+
+Kings:
+of the Guanches.
+of Mexico.
+of the Manitivitanos.
+
+La Boca.
+
+La Cabrera, peninsula of.
+
+La Concepcion de Piritu.
+
+La Guayra, see Guayra.
+
+La Mina, ravine of.
+
+La Valle, medicated waters of.
+
+La Vega.
+
+La Venta of Caracas.
+
+La Vibora.
+
+La Victoria, road to.
+
+Lafayette, on the emancipation of slaves.
+
+Lagartero.
+
+Laguna:
+situation of.
+town of.
+climate of.
+Chica.
+Grande, port of.
+del Obispo.
+Parima.
+
+Lake:
+Amucu.
+of asphaltum.
+of Campoma.
+of Capanaparo.
+Cassipa.
+Erie.
+Manoa.
+Ontario.
+Parima.
+traditions of.
+first geographical notice of.
+Putacuao.
+Superior.
+Xarayes.
+
+Lancerota:
+volcanic region of.
+inhabitants of.
+capital of.
+
+Landmarks, natural.
+
+Language:
+influence of, on the diversity of nations.
+construction and mechanism of.
+Arabic.
+Biscayan.
+of the Caribbees.
+Chayma.
+its relation to the Tamanac.
+grammatical construction of.
+Coptic.
+of Greenland.
+Maypure.
+Tamanac.
+
+Languages:
+varieties of, in the New Continent.
+analogy of.
+affinity of.
+classification of.
+grammatical construction of.
+study of.
+difficulty of acquiring, experienced by the Indian.
+American.
+European.
+
+Laplanders.
+
+Las:
+Cocuyzas.
+Lagunetes.
+
+Lata.
+
+Latin, early knowledge of.
+
+Laurels, zone of.
+
+Lava:
+strata of.
+primitive rock in.
+
+Leap of the Toucan.
+
+Legends:
+of the deluge.
+of the gold districts.
+of headless men.
+of the Indians.
+of monkeys.
+of the salvaje.
+
+Leschenault, M., on geophagy.
+
+Lichens, zone of.
+
+Light:
+phosphoric.
+of the stars, intensity of.
+volcanic, cause of.
+zodiacal.
+variations of.
+
+Lima:
+state of society in.
+town of.
+
+Limestone:
+formations of.
+of Caripe.
+of Cumanacoa.
+secondary.
+of Penas Negras.
+
+Lines, isothermal.
+
+Lizards.
+
+Llaneros:
+characteristics of the.
+
+Llano del Retama.
+
+Llanos:
+latitude of the.
+basins of the.
+arid plains of.
+banks of the.
+landscape of.
+subdivisions of the.
+origin of the.
+reptiles of the.
+electric eels of the.
+geological construction of.
+hot winds of the.
+cattle of the.
+proportions of the.
+of New Barcelona.
+of Caracas.
+of Cumana.
+del Pao.
+of Rio de la Plata.
+of Venezuela.
+
+Lobelia.
+
+Lobos, island of.
+
+Lomas of St. Juan.
+
+Lopez de Aguirre.
+
+Los Aparecidos.
+
+Los Budares.
+
+Los Penones.
+
+Los Teques, mountains of.
+
+Los Vueltas.
+
+Maelstrom, doubted existence of the.
+
+Macarao, fruits of.
+
+Macaws.
+
+Machine, electrical, invented by a native.
+
+Maco Indians:
+habits of the.
+
+Macusis, tribe of.
+
+Magdalena, river:
+course of the.
+navigation of.
+serpents of the.
+
+Madrid, visit of the author to.
+
+Magellan, straits of.
+
+Maguey, or Aloe:
+cord from the fibres of the.
+
+Mahates, town of.
+
+Mahogany:
+forests of.
+of Cuba.
+of Pinos.
+
+Maiquetia, cocoa trees of.
+
+Mairan on zodiacal light.
+
+Maize.
+
+Malaria, supposed causes of.
+
+Malpasso, geology of.
+
+Malpays.
+
+Mammee tree.
+
+Mammon or Consejo:
+miraculous image of the Virgin at.
+
+Manimi, mountain of.
+
+Man:
+geographical distribution of the races of.
+difference of colour in.
+physical effects of civilization upon.
+different characteristics of.
+
+Manapiari river.
+
+Manco, Inca, flight of.
+
+Mandavaca, mission of.
+
+Mangroves.
+
+Manatee (Manati):
+of the river Apure.
+of the island of Cuba.
+
+Manitivitanos.
+
+Maniquarez:
+inhabitants of.
+village of.
+potteries of.
+petroleum, springs of.
+
+Manoa, expedition to.
+
+Manzanares, the:
+bar of the.
+banks of the.
+Indian custom of bathing in.
+
+Mapara, cataract of.
+
+Maps:
+of America.
+of Cuba.
+
+Mar Blanco.
+
+Maracay:
+inhabitants of.
+situation of.
+
+Maracaybo (Maracaibo), port of.
+
+Maravaca, or Sierra Mariguaca.
+
+Marepizanas, tribe of.
+
+Margareta (Margarita), island of.
+
+Marguerita, island of.
+
+Mariara:
+peaks of.
+geological construction of.
+hot springs of.
+medicinal waters of.
+
+Marl formations.
+
+Maroa, mission of.
+
+Maryland.
+
+Matacona, river.
+
+Matagorda.
+
+Mataveni, river.
+
+Matanzas.
+hamlet of.
+origin of the name.
+
+Matuna.
+
+Matunilla.
+
+Mauritia-palm, or sago-tree.
+
+Mauritius, sugar canes, first brought to the.
+
+Mavaca, river.
+
+Maxima of mountain elevation.
+
+Maypures:
+climate of.
+luxuriant vegetation of.
+village of.
+cataract of.
+inhabitants of.
+potteries of.
+birds of.
+animals of.
+language.
+
+Menagerie.
+
+Meat:
+consumption of.
+
+Mediterranean Sea:
+formation of the.
+basins of the.
+of the west.
+
+Medusas, or sea-nettles:
+phosphoric properties of.
+
+Memnon, statue of, probable cause of the sounds issuing from.
+
+Mendoza.
+
+Mesopotamia.
+
+Mestizoes.
+
+Meta, river:
+plains of the.
+
+Meteorology, main problem of.
+
+Meteors:
+connection of, with the undulations of the earth.
+falling.
+fiery, seen at Cumana.
+luminous.
+
+Mexico, or New Spain:
+connection of, with foreign colonies.
+native population of.
+state of society in.
+nobility of.
+wheat of.
+government of.
+agriculture of.
+extent of.
+
+Miasma, experiments on.
+
+Mica-slate, formations of.
+
+Middleberg.
+
+Migration:
+of nations.
+of insects.
+of plants.
+difficulties of the theory.
+
+Milk:
+distribution of animals yielding.
+vegetable.
+analysis of.
+tree.
+
+Minerals.
+
+Mines:
+of alum.
+of Aroa.
+of Buria.
+of Caracas.
+of Columbia.
+of copper.
+of emeralds.
+deserted.
+of gold.
+of Granada.
+of Guanaxuato.
+of Los Teques.
+of Santa Rosa.
+of silver.
+
+Mining, geology applied to.
+
+Mirage:
+effects of.
+phenomena of.
+
+Mission:
+of Atures.
+of Carichana.
+of the Capuchins.
+inhabitants of the.
+capital of.
+government of the.
+of Carony.
+of Catuaro.
+of the Chayma Indians.
+of Guanaguana.
+of Javita.
+of Maroa.
+of Pararuma.
+of Piritu.
+native tribes of the.
+of San Antonio.
+of San Balthasar, on the Orinoco.
+of San Borja, of Santa Cruz.
+of Uruana.
+
+Missionary:
+life of the.
+influence of.
+general character of the.
+
+Missions:
+first establishment of in America.
+etymology of the names.
+interpreters of the.
+of the Upper Orinoco.
+
+Mississippi:
+earthquakes in the valleys of the.
+basin of the.
+
+Mochima, gulf of.
+
+Mocundo, sugar plantations of.
+
+Monkeys:
+anatomical cause of the cry of.
+natural phenomena of.
+distance at which the cry may be heard.
+rare species of.
+legends of.
+Capuchin.
+of Valencia.
+of Vuelta Basilio.
+
+Monks:
+of the Cataracts.
+Catalonian.
+
+Mompox.
+
+Montana Clara.
+canary birds of.
+de Paria, strata of.
+
+Monte Verde.
+
+Montserrat.
+
+Moon:
+prismatic colours round the.
+total eclipse of the.
+names for the.
+
+Morro Roxo.
+
+Morros of San Juan.
+
+Mosquitos.
+plague of.
+various species.
+effects of the sting of.
+migration of.
+voracity of.
+sting of.
+scourge of.
+disappearance of.
+of Maypure.
+
+Mountain:
+scenery.
+chains.
+geological constitution of.
+chains, transverse.
+vegetation.
+ridges.
+
+Mountaineers, district of.
+
+Mountains:
+origin of.
+structure of.
+systems of.
+maxima of the heights of.
+of Andalusia.
+of Araya.
+of Avila.
+basaltic.
+of Brazil.
+of Buenavista.
+calcareous.
+conical, peculiarities of.
+of Cumana.
+of Cariaco.
+of Encaramada.
+of Guanaja.
+of Higuerote.
+of Meapera.
+of Parime.
+of Santa Maria.
+of Santa Marta.
+of Silla and Cordera.
+of Venezuela.
+volcanic, shape of.
+geology of.
+isolated position of.
+sinking of, during an earthquake.
+of Yumariquin.
+
+Mucuju river.
+
+Mulattoes:
+of Araya.
+of Guadaloupe.
+characteristics of.
+
+Mules, American.
+
+Mummies of Ataruipe.
+
+Mummy-caves of the Guanches.
+
+Music of the Indians.
+
+Mythology.
+
+Myths, ancient.
+
+Naga, peak of.
+
+Nao, lake of.
+
+Naphtha, natural springs of.
+
+Nations:
+of the New World, supposed origin of.
+causes of the shades of colour in the.
+Anthropophragitic.
+Indian.
+
+Native:
+boatmen.
+hordes, distribution of.
+Indians, subtlety of.
+varied colour of.
+manner of living.
+characteristics of.
+legends of the.
+rafts of the.
+infanticide encouraged by.
+polygamy of the.
+population.
+white race.
+worship, objects of.
+
+Nature:
+tranquillity of.
+immutable laws of.
+
+Navigation:
+new system of.
+Indian mode of.
+
+Needle, magnetic, variations in the.
+
+Negress.
+
+Negro population.
+
+Negroes:
+sale of.
+festivals of.
+municipality of.
+mortality of.
+moral condition of.
+emancipation of.
+importation of.
+
+Negroes of valley of Tuy.
+
+Negro, Rio, the:
+its source.
+tributaries of the.
+oscillations of.
+basin of the.
+
+Neiva, valley of.
+
+Nettles, see Medusas.
+
+Nueva:
+Barcelona, see Barcelona.
+Valencia, see Valencia.
+
+Neveri, river.
+
+New:
+Cadiz.
+Grenada, see Grenada.
+Spain, see Mexico.
+Toledo, see Toledo.
+
+Niger, sands of the.
+
+Night in the woods of America.
+
+Niguator, mountain of.
+
+Nile:
+crocodiles of the.
+periodical risings of the.
+
+Niopo, or Indian snuff.
+
+Nobility:
+of Spanish America.
+badge of.
+of complexion.
+
+Noon, in the tropics.
+
+Numbers, difficulty of acquiring a knowledge of.
+
+Oak, magnitude and antiquity of the.
+
+Observations:
+astronomical.
+meteorological.
+
+Obsidian:
+weapons made of.
+varieties of.
+origin of.
+
+Ocean:
+temperature of the.
+currents in the.
+phosphoresence of the, see Humboldt's Views of Nature.
+aerial.
+
+Ochsenberg, mountain of.
+
+Ocumare.
+
+Oil:
+obtained from the birds of Caripe.
+of the cocoa nut.
+of the crocodile, medicinal properties of the.
+of the manatee.
+of the turtle egg.
+sale of.
+
+Omaguas, province of the.
+
+Optical illusion.
+
+Orang-otang, the.
+
+Orange trees:
+of America.
+of Cuba.
+of Spain.
+
+Orchila:
+island of.
+geology of.
+
+Ordaz, expeditions of.
+
+Orinoco:
+course of the.
+waters of the.
+water levels of.
+navigation of.
+junctions of the.
+celebrated bifurcation of the.
+sinuosities of the.
+breadth of.
+temperature of.
+insalubrious winds of the.
+connection of, with the Amazon.
+source of.
+confluence of.
+periodical swellings of.
+current of.
+branches of the.
+origin of the name.
+ancient name of.
+tributary streams of.
+accident on the.
+aspect of the, from Uruana.
+coast scenery of the.
+district of the.
+great cataracts of the.
+islands of the.
+mountains of the.
+monkeys of the.
+vegetation on the banks of the.
+Lower, dangerous navigation of.
+basin of the.
+Upper, course of the.
+cataracts of.
+mountains of.
+valley of.
+
+Orotava:
+port of.
+town of.
+fruits of.
+society in.
+
+Ortiz, volcanic strata of.
+
+Otaheite, sugar canes of, first introduced into America.
+
+Otters.
+
+Ottomac Indians:
+customs of.
+physiological phenomena of.
+character and habits of.
+
+Ouavapavi monkey.
+
+Oviedo y Banos, the historiographer:
+description of Lake Valencia, by.
+
+Oxen.
+
+Pacimoni river.
+
+Padaviri river.
+
+Palm-trees:
+forests of.
+groves of.
+classification of.
+utility of the.
+of Cuba.
+of the Llanos.
+of Piritu.
+cordage.
+cabbage.
+oil.
+wine.
+
+Palo de Vaca, see Cow-tree.
+
+Pampas, or steppes:
+origin of the term.
+extent of.
+of Buenos Ayres.
+
+Panama, isthmus of.
+
+Panthers.
+
+Panumana, island of.
+
+Pao:
+town of.
+river of.
+
+Papaw-trees.
+
+Paper, substitutes for.
+
+Paraguay river.
+
+Pararuma, encampment of Indians at.
+
+Paria:
+promontory of.
+coast of.
+origin of the name.
+inhabitants of.
+
+Parians, history of the.
+
+Parima:
+district of.
+river.
+lake of.
+traditions of.
+
+Parkinsonia aculeata.
+
+Parnati river.
+
+Parroquets, flocks of.
+
+Pascua, valley of.
+
+Pasto, town of.
+
+Pasturage:
+region of.
+cultivation of the.
+
+Patagonia:
+mountains of.
+plains of.
+
+Patagonians, origin of.
+
+Pathology of fevers.
+
+Pays de Vaud, scenery of, compared with Valencia.
+
+Peak:
+of Ayadyrma, or Echerdo.
+of Calitamini.
+of Cocunza.
+of Cuptano.
+of Duida.
+of Guacharo.
+of the Silla, see Silla.
+of Teneriffe.
+ascent of.
+scenery of the.
+crater of.
+temperature of the.
+descent from.
+structure of.
+geology of.
+historical notice of.
+eruptions of.
+vegetation on the.
+of Teyde.
+Uriana.
+
+Pearls:
+early use of, by the Americans.
+revenue arising from the sale of.
+modes of procuring.
+
+Pearl coast:
+situation of the.
+fisheries of Cubagua.
+rapid diminution of.
+of Ceylon.
+of Margareta.
+of Panama.
+oyster, methods of taking the.
+destruction of.
+
+Pedro:
+Keys.
+shoals.
+
+Pennsylvania.
+
+Pericantral.
+
+Peru:
+summits of.
+nobility of.
+government of.
+extent of.
+population of.
+mountains of.
+frontiers of.
+
+Petare.
+
+Petrifactions.
+
+Petroleum:
+origin of.
+springs.
+of Maniquarez.
+
+Pheasant, American.
+
+Phenomena:
+atmospheric.
+of earthquakes.
+electric.
+geognostic.
+geological.
+of hailstones.
+magnetic.
+meteorological.
+natural.
+physiological.
+of vegetable sleep.
+
+Phenomenon:
+volcanic, series of.
+luminous.
+optical.
+physical.
+
+Phonolite.
+
+Phosphoresence of the sea.
+
+Physiognomy:
+causes of tribal features.
+shades of.
+
+Physiology:
+of man.
+of animals.
+
+Piedra:
+rapids of the.
+de la Paciencia, a rock in the middle of the Orinoco.
+Raton.
+del Tigre.
+
+Pigments:
+Indian.
+general use of.
+
+Pimichin, forests of.
+
+Pine-apples:
+of Baruto.
+wild.
+
+Pino del Dornajito:
+spring of.
+
+Pinos, island of.
+
+Pirijao palm.
+
+Piritu:
+islands of.
+palm trees of.
+
+Piton:
+of Teneriffe
+of the Teyde.
+
+Plain:
+of Charas.
+of Retama.
+
+Plains:
+culture and population of.
+continuity of.
+of the Amazon.
+of Caracas.
+of Europe.
+of Rio de la Plata.
+of the Tuy, of Venezuela.
+
+Plane-tree, antiquity of the.
+
+Plants:
+phenomena of the sleep of.
+experiments on the air from.
+distribution of.
+migration of.
+malaria of.
+cordage from.
+milk of.
+arborescent.
+aromatic.
+cruciform.
+of the island of Teneriffe.
+of the islands of Valencia.
+medicinal.
+of North America.
+parasitic.
+resinous.
+of South America.
+succulent.
+
+Plantains.
+
+Plata:
+Rio de la.
+plains of the.
+
+Poison:
+Curare, preparation of the.
+effects of, on the system.
+
+Poisons, vegetable, peculiar to the New World.
+
+Polygamy, Indian practice of.
+
+Popa, convent de la.
+
+Population, compared with territory.
+of Angostura.
+of Brazil.
+of Buenos Ayres.
+of Caracas.
+of Cariaco.
+of Chile.
+of the colonies.
+of Cuba.
+of Cumana.
+of Grenada.
+of Guatimala.
+of Guiana.
+of Mexico.
+native.
+of Peru.
+of Porto Rico.
+of Quito.
+of Spanish America.
+of the United States.
+of Upata.
+of Venezuela.
+
+Porpoises:
+phosphoresence caused by.
+of the river Apure.
+
+Portachuelo, promontory of.
+
+Portages on the rivers.
+
+Portland Rock.
+
+Porto Cabello:
+saltworks of.
+departure from.
+geology of.
+Rico, extent of.
+population of.
+
+Portuguese:
+settlements of.
+colonists.
+
+Portus Magnus.
+
+Potato, cultivation of the.
+
+Pottery, early manufacture of.
+
+Potteries, Indian.
+
+Powders, intoxicating, used by the Indians.
+
+Poya, or balls of earth, consumption of.
+
+Prairies.
+
+Priests of Tomo.
+
+Printing-office, of Caracas.
+
+Prognostications by the author of the great earthquake at Caracas.
+
+Prussic acid, discovery of.
+
+Puerto de Arriba.
+
+Pumice-stones.
+
+Punta:
+Zamuro.
+plantations of.
+Araya.
+
+Punzera:
+plains of.
+wild silk of.
+
+Python, the.
+
+Pyramid of Guacharo.
+
+Quaquas, warlike tribe of.
+
+Quartz, veins of.
+
+Quebrada, or ravines:
+de Aguas Calientes.
+del Oro.
+de Seca.
+de Tipe.
+
+Quebranta.
+
+Queries, geological.
+
+Quetepe:
+plain and spring of.
+view of.
+
+Quince-tree:
+fruit of the.
+
+Quindiu:
+mountains of.
+
+Quinsay.
+
+Quipos, or knotted cords, use of.
+
+Quirabuena, see Mandavaca.
+
+Quito:
+province of.
+summits of.
+volcanic nature of the kingdom.
+earthquakes in.
+town of.
+state of society in.
+civilization of.
+sheep of.
+extent of.
+population of.
+political position.
+
+Quittuna, cataract of.
+
+Races:
+antiquity of.
+differences of.
+proportion of.
+jealousies of.
+disappearance of.
+Anglo Saxon.
+mixed.
+native, affinity of.
+native, white.
+
+Rafts:
+Indian.
+natural, of the Orinoco.
+
+Rain:
+scarcity of, in Araya.
+frequency of, at Caracas.
+periodical seasons of.
+electrical.
+equatorial.
+prognostics of.
+tropical.
+causes of.
+
+Raleigh, Sir W.:
+voyages of.
+expeditions of.
+
+Rambleta, plain of.
+
+Ranges, volcanic.
+
+Rapids:
+navigation and causes of.
+of Atures.
+of Piedra.
+
+Raudal:
+of Cameji.
+of Canucari.
+of Cariven.
+of Garcita.
+of Javariveni.
+of Marimara.
+of Tobaje.
+
+Raudals, elevation of, see Cataracts.
+
+Raya, Indians.
+
+Reactions, volcanic.
+
+Redoute, M., work of, on Roses.
+
+Reeds.
+
+Region of perpetual snow.
+
+Religion of the Indians.
+
+Republics of Spanish America.
+
+Resins.
+
+Retama, plain of.
+
+Rhododendrons, zone of.
+
+Rialexo de Aboxo.
+
+Rinconada, gold mines of.
+
+Rincon del Diablo, see Devil's Nook.
+
+Rivers:
+junctions of.
+advantages of.
+changes in the courses of.
+causes of the swelling of.
+source of the five great streams.
+of Cuba.
+of hot water.
+
+The following rivers are referred to under their respective
+alphabetical entries:
+Rio Apure, Aguas Calientes, Amazon, Aquio, Areo, Aroa, Atabapo,
+Arauca, Beni, Cabullare, Calaburg, Chacaito, Congo, Carony, Esteven,
+Essequibo, Guiamo Guayre, Guaurapo, Jagua, Jupura, Juruario,
+Manzanares, Matacona, Mataveni, Negro, Neveri, Orinoco, Parima, Plata,
+Sinu, Sipapo, Sodomoni, Suapure, Tocuyo, Tomo.
+
+Roca:
+de Afuera.
+del Infierno.
+
+Rock-manikin.
+
+Rocks:
+strata of.
+classification of.
+geological arrangement of.
+incrustations of.
+nature of.
+subterranean fires in.
+caverns of.
+varieties of.
+worship of.
+antediluvian.
+auriferous.
+of Cabo Blanco.
+which compose the island of Teneriffe.
+of the plains.
+painted (Tepu-mereme).
+phonolitic.
+pyrogenic.
+sculptured.
+volcanic.
+
+Rum, manufacture of.
+
+Sabrina:
+island of.
+origin and destruction of.
+
+Sacrifices, human.
+
+Sago-trees, see Mauritia palm.
+
+Salive Indians.
+
+Salt:
+geognostical phenomena of.
+substitutes for.
+lake of Penon Blanco.
+marshes, of Cerro de la Vela.
+works of Araya.
+revenue yielded to the government by.
+of Caracas.
+of Porto Cabello.
+of San Antonio de Javita.
+
+Salvaje, or wild man of the woods.
+
+San:
+Antonio, castle of.
+geology of.
+Carlos.
+Domingo.
+coffee plantations of.
+sugar plantations of.
+Fernando.
+Fernando de Apure.
+temperature of, trade of.
+de Atabapo.
+political importance of.
+plantations of.
+Francisco, Solano.
+Josef, island of.
+Juan river.
+Juan de los Remedios.
+Juanillo, ravine of.
+Luis de Cura, see Villa Cura.
+del Encaramada.
+Mateo.
+Pedro, valley of.
+
+Sanchorquiz, spring of.
+
+Sandstone:
+formations.
+varieties of.
+of the Llanos.
+of the Orinoco.
+
+Sanscrit language.
+
+Santa Barbara.
+
+Santa Cruz:
+situation of.
+town of.
+Humboldt's departure from.
+Indian village of.
+de Cachipo.
+
+Santa Fe de Bogota:
+gulf of.
+
+Santiago:
+ruins of.
+present name of.
+
+Santos, Don Antonio.
+
+Sarsaparilla (Zarza):
+varieties of.
+
+Savages:
+countries of.
+character of.
+state of, in the torrid and temperate zones.
+mental inaptitude of.
+difference of colour in.
+encampment of.
+festivals of.
+food of.
+origin of.
+
+Savannahs:
+origin of.
+floods in.
+extent of.
+distribution of.
+of Atures.
+of Caripe.
+of Invernadero del Garzel.
+of Lagartero.
+of Louisiana.
+of Lower Orinoco.
+
+Schonbrunn, conservatories of.
+
+Scylax, travels of.
+
+Sea:
+vegetation in the.
+phosphorescence of the.
+volcanic shocks in the.
+temperature of, see Ocean.
+Caribbean.
+weeds.
+distinct banks of.
+remarkable specimen of.
+shores.
+
+Seasons:
+changes in the.
+of rain and storm.
+
+Seeds, tide-borne.
+
+Serpents:
+summer sleep of.
+
+Serritos.
+
+Sharks.
+
+Shells, petrifactions of.
+
+Ship-building, American.
+
+Shirt-trees.
+
+Shocks:
+electric.
+dangerous effects of.
+transmission of.
+theory of.
+of the gymnotus.
+
+Shrubs:
+mountain.
+aromatic.
+
+Siapa, see Idapa.
+
+Sienega of Batabano.
+
+Sierra:
+de Cochabamba.
+del Guacharo.
+Mariare.
+de Meapire, cacao plantations of.
+Nevada de Santa Maria.
+de la Parime.
+strata of the.
+
+Silk of the palm-tree.
+
+Silla of Caracas:
+ascent of the.
+peaks of the.
+summit of the.
+precipice of.
+descent from the.
+strata of.
+
+Sipapo, river:
+forests of.
+mountains of.
+
+Sinu, river.
+
+Skeletons, Indian.
+
+Slates:
+strata of.
+formations.
+
+Slaves:
+elevation of, to farmers and landowners.
+manumission of.
+importation of.
+rights of.
+punishment of.
+Sabbath of.
+of the Canary Islands.
+of Cumana.
+of Venezuela.
+of Victoria.
+fugitive, capture of.
+
+Slave dealers:
+routes of the.
+food.
+labour.
+price of.
+
+Slave laws:
+English.
+Spanish.
+
+Slave:
+market, at Cumana.
+trade.
+commercial establishments to facilitate the.
+causes which led to the abolition of.
+Benzoni, on the.
+Spanish.
+
+Slavery, statistics of.
+
+Snakes, antidote to the venom of.
+
+Soap-berry.
+
+Society:
+zones of.
+three ages of.
+effects of earthquakes upon.
+
+Sodomoni river.
+
+Soils, auriferous.
+
+Solano:
+expeditions of.
+residence of.
+
+Sombrero-palm.
+
+Sounds:
+analogy of.
+propagation of.
+rapid transmission of.
+resemblance of.
+nocturnal propagation of.
+subterranean.
+
+South Sea Islands.
+
+Spain:
+journey through.
+possessions of, in America.
+
+Spaniards:
+first settlement of.
+descendants of.
+
+Speier, George von.
+
+Springs:
+of Europe and America.
+temperature of.
+of warm water.
+origin of.
+of hot water.
+of bitumen.
+of Caracas.
+of Caripe.
+of Mariara.
+medicinal properties of.
+of mineral tar, see Petroleum.
+of Mount Imposible.
+of Quetepe.
+sulphureous.
+
+Stabroek.
+
+Stalactites.
+
+Stars:
+constellations of.
+radiance of.
+falling.
+magnitude of.
+
+States, American.
+
+Stone:
+of the eye.
+butter.
+
+Stones:
+Amazon.
+locality of.
+painted, locality of.
+worship of.
+
+St. Juan de la Rambla, malmsey wine of.
+
+St. Michael.
+
+St. Thomas de la Guiana.
+
+Strata:
+inclination of.
+maxima of.
+enumeration of.
+parallelism of.
+calcareous.
+primitive.
+of Sierra Parime.
+secondary.
+tertiary.
+transition.
+
+Stylites, sect of.
+
+Styptic, natural.
+
+Suapure river.
+
+Succession, laws of.
+
+Sugar:
+manufacture of.
+prices of.
+preparations from.
+refining of.
+profits of.
+machinery for.
+from beet-root.
+of Cuba.
+of St. Domingo.
+of slave colonies.
+of Trinidad.
+
+Sugar cane:
+plantations of.
+cultivation of the.
+first introduction of, to America.
+geographical distribution of the.
+Creole.
+
+Sulphur, beds of.
+
+Sun:
+effects of the, on plants.
+eclipse of the.
+Indian names for the.
+worship of the.
+temple of the.
+
+Surinam.
+
+Swallows, migration of.
+
+Swine, wild, herds of.
+
+Tacarigua:
+lake of.
+mountains of.
+
+Tacoronte, valley of.
+
+Tamanac:
+nation and language.
+historical tradition of the.
+
+Tarragona.
+
+Tayuchuc.
+
+Teguisa.
+
+Temanfaya, volcano of.
+
+Temi river:
+navigation of the.
+
+Teneriffe:
+peak of.
+camels of.
+island of.
+temperature of.
+botanical gardens of.
+geognosy of.
+fruits and plants of.
+aborigines of.
+feudal government of.
+
+Termites, ravages of the.
+
+Terra Firma:
+old and new routes to.
+situation of, in relation to the island of Cuba.
+insalubrity of.
+seven provinces of.
+seasons in.
+coast defences of.
+
+Tetas:
+de Managua.
+de Tolu.
+
+Teyde, peak of.
+
+Theatre of Caracas.
+
+Theocritus, translations from.
+
+Theories:
+of earthquakes.
+of electricity.
+of migration.
+
+Thermometer, use of, in navigation.
+
+Thonschiefer, see Clay-slate.
+
+Thunder, subterranean.
+
+Tibitibies.
+
+Tide-borne fruits.
+
+Tierra del Fuego:
+straits of.
+islands of.
+
+Tiger, ravine.
+
+Tigers, see Jaguar.
+black.
+
+Timber:
+luxuriance of.
+abundance of.
+
+Titis.
+
+Tivitivas, see Tibitibies.
+
+Tobacco:
+origin of the word.
+cultivation of, in Cumana and Mexico.
+plantations of, in Valencia.
+in Guiania.
+in Cumanacoa.
+in the island of Cuba.
+statistics of.
+
+Tobago:
+situation of.
+
+Tocuyo river.
+
+Tomatoes, cultivation of.
+
+Tombs, Indian.
+
+Tomo river.
+
+Torito.
+
+Torpedo, experiments on the.
+
+Torrid zone, see Zone.
+
+Toucan, natural history of the.
+
+Tovar, Count, generous treatment of slaves by.
+
+Tower of Hercules:
+lighthouse of the.
+
+Trade winds:
+latitudes of the.
+
+Traditions:
+Egyptian.
+
+Tree-frogs.
+
+Tree-inhabiting Indians.
+
+Trees:
+antiquity of.
+alimentary properties of.
+the following American trees are referred to under their respective
+alphabetical entries: the Aloe, Aguatire, Almond, Balsam, Barba de
+Tigre, Bombax, Bonplandia trifoliata, Brazil Nut, Cuspa, Cortex
+Angosturae, Cecropia, Cotton-tree, Canela or Cinnamon, Curacay,
+Courbaril, Cacao, Coffee, Cow-tree, Carolinea princeps,
+Dragon's-blood, Erythrina, Fig-tree, Guarumo or Jarumo, Hay-tree,
+Mammea, Mauritia, Mangrove, Palms, Palo de Vaca, Parkinsonia aculeata,
+Shirt-tree, Volador, and Zamang-tree.
+
+Tribes:
+various, of native Indians.
+migrations of.
+intelligence of.
+proportion of the different castes.
+aboriginal.
+hyperborean.
+
+Trincheras, Las, hot springs of.
+
+Trinidad:
+town of.
+commerce of.
+Humboldt's departure from.
+
+Tropics:
+atmosphere of the.
+noon in the.
+
+Tropical:
+climate, dangers of, to Europeans, from variable temperature.
+fever.
+fatal effects of.
+vegetation.
+
+Turmero:
+Indians of.
+militia of.
+
+Tuamini, isthmus of.
+
+Tunales, or cactus groves.
+
+Turimiquiri:
+mountain of.
+ascent of the.
+lofty peaks of.
+
+Turmero.
+
+Turner, Mr., on Sea Vegetation.
+
+Turtle fisheries.
+
+Turtles:
+different species of.
+instinct of.
+eggs of the.
+fisheries for.
+capture of.
+abundance of.
+
+Tuy, valley of the.
+
+Typhus fevers.
+
+Uaupes, see Guauapes.
+
+Ucucuamo, mountain of.
+
+Uita.
+
+Ulloa:
+observations on the native Indians by.
+statistics of the yellow fever, by.
+notices of monkeys, by.
+
+Uniana, peak of.
+
+United States:
+savages of the.
+newspapers of.
+district of the.
+population of.
+extent of the.
+slaves of the.
+slave trade of the.
+prairies of the.
+
+Unona xylopioides.
+
+Upper Orinoco:
+course of the.
+cataracts of the.
+mountains of.
+valley of.
+
+Uraba, gulf of.
+
+Urariapara, the.
+
+Urbana, La Concepcion de.
+
+Urijino, springs of.
+
+Uritucu river:
+cacao of.
+crocodiles of.
+
+Uruana:
+turtle fisheries of.
+mission of.
+inhabitants of.
+
+Vachaco, island of.
+
+Valencia:
+lake of.
+ancient extent of.
+retreat of the waters.
+supposed outlet of.
+temperature of.
+islands of.
+Neuva.
+promontory of.
+city of.
+history of.
+
+Valleys:
+general description of the.
+of Caracas.
+of Cariaco.
+of Guanaguana.
+of La Pascua, or Cortes.
+configuration of.
+of Tacoronte.
+of Rio Tuy.
+gold mines of the.
+
+Valparaiso.
+
+Vampire-bats.
+
+Vapours:
+phenomena of.
+explosions of.
+sulphureous.
+
+Varinas.
+
+Vases, or funeral urns.
+
+Vegetable:
+glue.
+milk.
+
+Vegetables, American.
+
+Vegetation:
+various zones of.
+total absence of.
+remarkable power of.
+of North and South America compared.
+on the Higuerote.
+on the mountains of Andalusia.
+in the seas.
+tropical.
+
+Venezuela:
+capital of.
+provinces of.
+coasts of.
+towns of.
+mines of.
+earthquake in.
+plains of.
+geology of.
+political state of.
+extent of.
+productions of.
+commerce of.
+political institutions of.
+mountains of.
+basin of.
+hot springs of.
+
+Ventuari river.
+
+Vera Cruz:
+port of.
+
+Verbs, inflexions of.
+
+Vespucci, charts of.
+
+Vesuvius.
+
+Vibora, La.
+
+Vichada, or Visita river.
+
+Victoria:
+corn of.
+town of.
+
+Vieja Guayana.
+
+Villa:
+de Cura.
+de Fernando de Apure.
+de Laguna.
+de Orotava.
+de Upata.
+
+Villages:
+of Missions.
+native, of South America.
+migratory character of.
+
+Vines:
+zone of.
+of Cuba.
+
+Vipers.
+
+Virginia.
+
+Viruelas mountains.
+
+Viudita, or Widow Monkey.
+
+Volador, the:
+geographical distribution of the species.
+
+Volcanic eruptions, see Eruptions.
+
+Volcano:
+of Cayamba.
+of Cotopaxi.
+of Guadaloupe.
+of Jorullo.
+of Lancerote.
+of Pasto.
+of St. Vincent.
+of Teneriffe.
+of Tungurahua.
+
+Volcanoes:
+effects of, on the earth.
+structure of.
+action of.
+isolated position of.
+submarine effects of.
+study of.
+
+Voyages:
+of Columbus.
+of Sir Walter Raleigh.
+
+Vuelta de Basilio.
+del Cochino Roto.
+del Joval.
+
+Vultures.
+
+Walls, Cyclopean.
+
+Wars, religious.
+
+Wasps, fatal effects of the sting.
+
+Water:
+search for, in the plains.
+varied colours of.
+causes of the.
+scarcity of, after earthquakes.
+varieties of, in the streams of the Orinoco.
+theory of the diminution of.
+properperties of, as a conductor of electricity.
+temperature of.
+hogs, see Chiguires.
+melons.
+spouts.
+snakes.
+
+Waters:
+medicinal.
+thermal.
+
+Weapons, American.
+
+Wells, affected by earthquakes.
+
+West India Islands:
+commerce of the.
+old and new route to.
+prevalence of fevers in.
+volcanoes of.
+epidemics of.
+primitive population of.
+sugars of the.
+slaves of.
+basin of the.
+
+West rock.
+
+Western continent, first indications of the.
+
+Wheat:
+cultivation of, in the Canary Islands.
+in Mexico.
+produce of.
+limits of the growth of.
+of the United States.
+
+White Sea:
+native tribes.
+
+Windward Channel.
+
+Winds:
+insalubrious, of Caracas and Italy.
+of sand.
+
+Wine:
+of the island of Cuba.
+Indian.
+from the palm-tree.
+
+Wild:
+beasts of America.
+man of the woods.
+
+Wood:
+varied colours of.
+petrifactions of.
+of fruits.
+
+Women:
+native Indian.
+language peculiar to.
+exclusion of, from religious services.
+predilections of.
+condition of.
+inequality in the rights of.
+Caribbean.
+Javanese.
+
+Words:
+identity of, in different languages.
+grammatical construction of.
+compounds of.
+analogy of.
+
+Xalapa:
+climate of.
+vegetation of.
+
+Xagua:
+bay of.
+fresh water springs in the.
+port of.
+
+Xarayes, lake of.
+
+Xeberos.
+
+Xezemani.
+
+Xurumu, the.
+
+Yaracuy:
+valleys of.
+timber of.
+
+Yaruro Indians.
+
+Yauli.
+
+Yellalas, or rapids.
+
+Yellow-fever, statistics of the.
+
+Ygenris:
+language of the.
+conquest of.
+
+Yeguas, gulf of.
+
+Yucatan, political position of.
+
+Yusma mountains.
+
+Zacatecas.
+
+Zama river.
+
+Zamang-tree.
+
+Zambo Caribs.
+Indian, dangerous rencontre with.
+
+Zamboes:
+hamlet of.
+republic of.
+characteristics of.
+banishment of the.
+
+Zamuro vultures.
+
+Zancudos.
+
+Zapote.
+village of.
+road to.
+
+Zarza, see Sarsaparilla.
+
+Zealand, settlement of.
+
+Zenu, gold of.
+
+Zerepe, Indian.
+
+Zipaquira, mines of.
+
+Zodiac:
+Egyptian.
+signs used in the.
+Mexican.
+
+Zone:
+of grasses and lichens.
+of heaths.
+of laurels.
+Temperate.
+vegetable physiognomy of.
+Torrid.
+temperature of.
+effects of, on the constitution.
+atmospherical purity of the.
+springs in the.
+organic richness of.
+scenery of.
+vegetable physiognomy of.
+rivers of the.
+insects of the.
+constellations of the.
+agriculture of.
+
+Zones, distinct demarcation of, Terra Firma.
+
+Zumpango.
+
+END OF VOLUME 3.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Equinoctial Regions of America, Volume
+3, by Alexander von Humboldt
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EQUINOCTIAL REGIONS OF AMERICA, V3 ***
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