Volume I Part 19 (2/2)

MORRO OF NUEVA BARCELONA.

CAPE CODERA.

ROAD FROM LA GUAYRA TO CARACAS.

On the 16th of November, at eight in the evening, we were under sail to proceed along the coast from c.u.mana to the port of La Guayra, whence the inhabitants of the province of Venezuela export the greater part of their produce. The pa.s.sage is only a distance of sixty leagues, and it usually occupies from thirty-six to forty hours. The little coasting vessels are favoured at once by the wind and by the currents, which run with more or less force from east to west, along the coasts of Terra Firma, particularly from cape Paria to the cape of Chichibacoa. The road by land from c.u.mana to New Barcelona, and thence to Caracas, is nearly in the same state as that in which it was before the discovery of America. The traveller has to contend with the obstacles presented by a miry soil, large scattered rocks, and strong vegetation. He must sleep in the open air, pa.s.s through the valleys of the Unare, the Tuy, and the Capaya, and cross torrents which swell rapidly on account of the proximity of the mountains. To these obstacles must be added the dangers arising from the extreme insalubrity of the country. The very low lands, between the sea-sh.o.r.e and the chain of hills nearest the coast, from the bay of Mochima as far as Coro, are extremely unhealthy. But the last-mentioned town, which is surrounded by an immense wood of th.o.r.n.y cactuses, owes its great salubrity, like c.u.mana, to its barren soil and the absence of rain.

In returning from Caracas to c.u.mana, the road by land is sometimes preferred to the pa.s.sage by sea, to avoid the adverse current. The postman from Caracas is nine days in performing this journey. We often saw persons, who had followed him, arrive at c.u.mana ill of nervous and miasmatic fevers. The tree of which the bark* furnishes a salutary remedy for those fevers (* Cortex Angosturae of our pharmacopaeias, the bark of the Bonplandia trifoliata.), grows in the same valleys, and upon the edge of the same forests which send forth the pernicious exhalations. M. Bonpland recognised the cuspare in the vegetation of the gulf of Santa Fe, situated between the ports of c.u.mana and Barcelona. The sickly traveller may perchance repose in a cottage, the inhabitants of which are ignorant of the febrifuge qualities of the trees that shade the surrounding valleys.

Having proceeded by sea from c.u.mana to La Guayra, we intended to take up our abode in the town of Caracas, till the end of the rainy season. From Caracas we proposed to direct our course across the great plains or llanos, to the Missions of the Orinoco; to go up that vast river, to the south of the cataracts, as far as the Rio Negro and the frontiers of Brazil; and thence to return to c.u.mana by the capital of Spanish Guiana, commonly called, on account of its situation, Angostura, or the Strait. We could not determine the time we might require to accomplish a tour of seven hundred leagues, more than two-thirds of that distance having to be traversed in boats. The only parts of the Orinoco known on the coasts are those near its mouth. No commercial intercourse is kept up with the Missions. The whole of the country beyond the llanos is unknown to the inhabitants of c.u.mana and Caracas. Some think that the plains of Calabozo, covered with turf, stretch eight hundred leagues southward, communicating with the Steppes or Pampas of Buenos Ayres; others, recalling to mind the great mortality which prevailed among the troops of Iturriaga and Solano, during their expedition to the Orinoco, consider the whole country, south of the cataracts of Atures, as extremely pernicious to health. In a region where travelling is so uncommon, people seem to feel a pleasure in exaggerating to strangers the difficulties arising from the climate, the wild animals, and the Indians. Nevertheless we persisted in the project we had formed. We could rely upon the interest and solicitude of the governor of c.u.mana, Don Vicente Emparan, as well as on the recommendations of the Franciscan monks, who are in reality masters of the sh.o.r.es of the Orinoco.

Fortunately for us, one of those monks, Juan Gonzales, was at that time in c.u.mana. This young monk, who was only a lay-brother, was highly intelligent, and full of spirit and courage. He had the misfortune shortly after his arrival on the coast to displease his superiors, upon the election of a new director of the Missions of Piritu, which is a period of great agitation in the convent of New Barcelona. The triumphant party exercised a general retaliation, from which the lay-brother could not escape. He was sent to Esmeralda, the last Mission of the Upper Orinoco, famous for the vast quant.i.ty of noxious insects with which the air is continually filled. Fray Juan Gonzales was thoroughly acquainted with the forests which extend from the cataracts towards the sources of the Orinoco. Another revolution in the republican government of the monks had some years before brought him to the coast, where he enjoyed (and most justly) the esteem of his superiors. He confirmed us in our desire of examining the much-disputed bifurcation of the Orinoco. He gave us useful advice for the preservation of our health, in climates where he had himself suffered long from intermitting fevers. We had the satisfaction of finding Fray Juan Gonzales at New Barcelona, on our return from the Rio Negro.

Intending to go from the Havannah to Cadiz, he obligingly offered to take charge of part of our herbals, and our insects of the Orinoco; but these collections were unfortunately lost with himself at sea. This excellent young man, who was much attached to us, and whose zeal and courage might have rendered him very serviceable to the missions of his order, perished in a storm on the coast of Africa, in 1801.

The boat which conveyed us from c.u.mana to La Guayra, was one of those employed in trading between the coasts and the West India Islands. They are thirty feet long, and not more than three feet high at the gunwale; they have no decks, and their burthen is generally from two hundred to two hundred and fifty quintals.

Although the sea is extremely rough from Cape Codera to La Guayra, and although the boats have an enormous triangular sail, somewhat dangerous in those gusts which issue from the mountain-pa.s.ses, no instance has occurred during thirty years, of one of these boats being lost in the pa.s.sage from c.u.mana to the coast of Caracas. The skill of the Guaiqueria pilots is so great, that accidents are very rare, even in the frequent trips they make from c.u.mana to Guadaloupe, or the Danish islands, which are surrounded with breakers. These voyages of 120 or 150 leagues, in an open sea, out of sight of land, are performed in boats without decks, like those of the ancients, without observations of the meridian alt.i.tude of the sun, without charts, and generally without a compa.s.s. The Indian pilot directs his course at night by the pole-star, and in the daytime by the sun and the wind. I have seen Guaiqueries and pilots of the Zambo caste, who could find the pole-star by the direction of the pointers alpha and beta of the Great Bear, and they seemed to me to steer less from the view of the pole-star itself, than from the line drawn through these stars. It is surprising, that at the first sight of land, they can find the island of Guadaloupe, Santa Cruz, or Porto Rico; but the compensation of the errors of their course is not always equally fortunate. The boats, if they fall to leeward in making land, beat up with great difficulty to the eastward, against the wind and the current.

We descended rapidly the little river Manzanares, the windings of which are marked by cocoa-trees, as the rivers of Europe are sometimes bordered by poplars and old willows. On the adjacent arid land, the th.o.r.n.y bushes, on which by day nothing is visible but dust, glitter during the night with thousands of luminous sparks.

The number of phosph.o.r.escent insects augments in the stormy season.

The traveller in the equinoctial regions is never weary of admiring the effect of those reddish and moveable fires, which, being reflected by limpid water, blend their radiance with that of the starry vault of heaven.

We quitted the sh.o.r.e of c.u.mana as if it had long been our home.

This was the first land we had trodden in a zone, towards which my thoughts had been directed from earliest youth. There is a powerful charm in the impression produced by the scenery and climate of these regions; and after an abode of a few months we seemed to have lived there during a long succession of years. In Europe, the inhabitant of the north feels an almost similar emotion, when he quits even after a short abode the sh.o.r.es of the Bay of Naples, the delicious country between Tivoli and the lake of Nemi, or the wild and majestic scenery of the Upper Alps and the Pyrenees. Yet everywhere in the temperate zone, the effects of vegetable physiognomy afford little contrast. The firs and the oaks which crown the mountains of Sweden have a certain family air in common with those which adorn Greece and Italy. Between the tropics, on the contrary, in the lower regions of both Indies, everything in nature appears new and marvellous. In the open plains and amid the gloom of forests, almost all the remembrances of Europe are effaced; for it is vegetation that determines the character of a landscape, and acts upon the imagination by its ma.s.s, the contrast of its forms, and the glow of its colours. In proportion as impressions are powerful and new, they weaken antecedent impressions, and their force imparts to them the character of duration. I appeal to those who, more sensible to the beauties of nature than to the charms of society, have long resided in the torrid zone. How dear, how memorable during life, is the land on which they first disembarked! A vague desire to revisit that spot remains rooted in their minds to the most advanced age. c.u.mana and its dusty soil are still more frequently present to my imagination, than all the wonders of the Cordilleras. Beneath the bright sky of the south, the light, and the magic of the aerial hues, embellish a land almost dest.i.tute of vegetation. The sun does not merely enlighten, it colours the objects, and wraps them in a thin vapour, which, without changing the transparency of the air, renders its tints more harmonious, softens the effects of the light, and diffuses over nature a placid calm, which is reflected in our souls. To explain this vivid impression which the aspect of the scenery in the two Indies produces, even on coasts but thinly wooded, it is sufficient to recollect that the beauty of the sky augments from Naples to the equator, almost as much as from Provence to the south of Italy.

We pa.s.sed at high water the bar formed at the mouth of the little river Manzanares. The evening breeze gently swelled the waves in the gulf of Cariaco. The moon had not risen, but that part of the milky way which extends from the feet of the Centaur towards the constellation of Sagittarius, seemed to pour a silvery light over the surface of the ocean. The white rock, crowned by the castle of San Antonio, appeared from time to time between the high tops of the cocoa-trees which border the sh.o.r.e; and we soon recognized the coasts only by the scattered lights of the Guaiqueria fishermen.

We sailed at first to north-north-west, approaching the peninsula of Araya; we then ran thirty miles to west and west-south-west. As we advanced towards the shoal that surrounds Cape Arenas and stretches as far as the petroleum springs of Maniquarez, we enjoyed one of those varied sights which the great phosph.o.r.escence of the sea so often displays in those climates. Bands of porpoises followed our bark. Fifteen or sixteen of these animals swam at equal distances from each other. When turning on their backs, they struck the surface of the water with their broad tails; they diffused a brilliant light, which seemed like flames issuing from the depth of the ocean.* (* See Views of Nature Bohn's edition page 246.) Each band of porpoises, ploughing the surface of the waters, left behind it a track of light, the more striking as the rest of the sea was not phosph.o.r.escent. As the motion of an oar, and the track of the bark, produced on that night but feeble sparks, it is natural to suppose that the vivid phosph.o.r.escence caused by the porpoises was owing not only to the stroke of their tails, but also to the gelatinous matter that envelopes their bodies, and is detached by the shock of the waves.

We found ourselves at midnight between some barren and rocky islands, which uprise like bastions in the middle of the sea, and form the group of the Caracas and Chimanas.* (* There are three of the Caracas islands and eight of the Chimanas.) The moon was above the horizon, and lighted up these cleft rocks which are bare of vegetation and of fantastic aspect. The sea here forms a sort of bay, a slight inward curve of the land between c.u.mana and Cape Codera. The islets of Picua, Picuita, Caracas, and Boracha, appear like fragments of the ancient coast, which stretches from Bordones in the same direction east and west. The gulfs of Mochima and Santa Fe, which will no doubt one day become frequented ports, lie behind those little islands. The rents in the land, the fracture and dip of the strata, all here denote the effects of a great revolution: possibly that which clove asunder the chain of the primitive mountains, and separated the mica-schist of Araya and the island of Margareta from the gneiss of Cape Codera. Several of the islands are visible at c.u.mana, from the terraces of the houses, and they produce, according to the superposition of layers of air more or less heated, the most singular effects of suspension and mirage.

The height of the rocks does not probably exceed one hundred and fifty toises; but at night, when lighted by the moon, they seem to be of a very considerable elevation.

It may appear extraordinary, to find the Caracas Islands so distant from the city of that name, opposite the coast of the c.u.managotos; but the denomination of Caracas denoted at the beginning of the Conquest, not a particular spot, but a tribe of Indians, neighbours of the Tecs, the Taramaynas, and the Chagaragates. As we came very near this group of mountainous islands, we were becalmed; and at sunrise, small currents drifted us toward Boracha, the largest of them. As the rocks rise nearly perpendicular, the sh.o.r.e is abrupt; and in a subsequent voyage I saw frigates at anchor almost touching the land. The temperature of the atmosphere became sensibly higher whilst we were sailing among the islands of this little archipelago. The rocks, heated during the day, throw out at night, by radiation, a part of the heat absorbed. As the sun arose on the horizon, the rugged mountains projected their vast shadows on the surface of the ocean. The flamingoes began to fish in places where they found in a creek calcareous rocks bordered by a narrow beach.

All these islands are now entirely uninhabited; but upon one of the Caracas are found wild goats of large size, brown, and extremely swift. Our Indian pilot a.s.sured us that their flesh has an excellent flavour. Thirty years ago a family of whites settled on this island, where they cultivated maize and ca.s.sava. The father alone survived his children. As his wealth increased, he purchased two black slaves; and by these slaves he was murdered. The goats became wild, but the cultivated plants perished. Maize in America, like wheat in Europe, connected with man since his first migrations, appears to be preserved only by his care. We sometimes see these nutritive gramina disseminate themselves; but when left to nature the birds prevent their reproduction by destroying the seeds.

We anch.o.r.ed for some hours in the road of New Barcelona, at the mouth of the river Neveri, of which the Indian (c.u.managoto) name is Enipiricuar. This river is full of crocodiles, which sometimes extend their excursions into the open sea, especially in calm weather. They are of the species common in the Orinoco, and bear so much resemblance to the crocodile of Egypt, that they have long been confounded together. It may easily be conceived that an animal, the body of which is surrounded with a kind of armour, must be nearly indifferent to the saltness of the water. Pigafetta relates in his journal recently published at Milan that he saw, on the sh.o.r.es of the island of Borneo, crocodiles which inhabit alike land and sea. These facts must be interesting to geologists, since attention has been fixed on the fresh-water formations, and the curious mixture of marine and fluviatile petrifactions sometimes observed in certain very recent rocks.

The port of Barcelona has maintained a very active commerce since 1795. From Barcelona is exported most of the produce of those vast steppes which extend from the south side of the chain of the coast as far as the Orinoco, and in which cattle of every kind are almost as abundant as in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The commercial industry of these countries depends on the demand in the West India Islands for salted provision, oxen, mules, and horses. The coasts of Terra Firma being opposite to the island of Cuba, at a distance of fifteen or eighteen days' sail, the merchants of the Havannah prefer, especially in time of peace, obtaining their provision from the port of Barcelona, to the risk of a long voyage in another hemisphere to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The situation of Barcelona is singularly advantageous for the trade in cattle. The animals have only three days' journey from the llanos to the port, while it requires eight or nine days to reach c.u.mana, on account of the chain of mountains of the Brigantine and the Imposible.

Having landed on the right bank of the Neveri, we ascended to a little fort called El Morro de Barcelona, situated at the elevation of sixty or seventy toises above the level of the sea. The Morro is a calcareous rock which has been lately fortified.

The view from the summit of the Morro is not without beauty. The rocky island of Boracha lies on the east, the lofty promontory of Unare is on the west, and below are seen the mouth of the river Neveri, and the arid sh.o.r.es on which the crocodiles come to sleep in the sun. Notwithstanding the extreme heat of the air, for the thermometer, exposed to the reflection of the white calcareous rock, rose to 38 degrees, we traversed the whole of the eminence. A fortunate chance led us to observe some very curious geological phenomena, which we again met with in the Cordilleras of Mexico.

The limestone of Barcelona has a dull, even, or conchoidal fracture, with very flat cavities. It is divided into very thin strata, and exhibits less a.n.a.logy with the limestone of c.u.manacoa, than with that of Caripe, forming the cavern of the Guacharo. It is traversed by banks of schistose jasper,* (Kieselschiefer of Werner.

)* black, with a conchoidal fracture, and breaking into fragments of a parallelopipedal figure. This fossil does not exhibit those little streaks of quartz so common in the Lydian stone. It is found decomposed at its surface into a yellowish grey crust, and it does not act upon the magnet. Its edges, a little translucid, give it some resemblance to the hornstone, so common in secondary limestones.* (* In Switzerland, the hornstone pa.s.sing into common jasper is found in kidney-stones, and in layers both in the Alpine and Jura limestone, especially in the former.) It is remarkable that we find the schistose jasper which in Europe characterizes the transition rocks,* (The transition-limestone and schist.) in a limestone having great a.n.a.logy with that of Jura. In the study of formations, which is the great end of geognosy, the knowledge acquired in the old and new worlds should be made to furnish reciprocal aid to each other. It appears that these black strata are found also in the calcareous mountains of the island of Boracha.* (* We saw some of it as ballast, in a fis.h.i.+ng boat at Punta Araya. Its fragments might have been mistaken for basalt.) Another jasper, that known by the name of the Egyptian pebble, was found by M. Bonpland near the Indian village of Curacatiche or Curacaguitiche, fifteen leagues south of the Morro of Barcelona, when, on our return from the Orinoco, we crossed the llanos, and approached the mountains on the coast. This stone presented yellowish concentric lines and bands, on a reddish brown ground. It appeared to me that the round pieces of Egyptian jasper belonged also to the Barcelona limestone. Yet, according to M. Cordier, the fine pebbles of Suez owe their origin to a breccia formation, or siliceous agglomerate.

At the moment of our setting sail, on the 19th of November, at noon, I took some alt.i.tudes of the moon, to determine the longitude of the Morro. The difference of meridian between c.u.mana and the town of Barcelona, where I made a great number of astronomical observations in 1800, is 34 minutes 48 seconds. I found the dip of the needle 42.20 degrees: the intensity of the forces was equal to 224 oscillations.

From the Morro of Barcelona to Cape Codera, the land becomes low, as it recedes southward; and the soundings extend to the distance of three miles. Beyond this we find the bottom at forty-five or fifty fathoms. The temperature of the sea at its surface was 25.9 degrees; but when we were pa.s.sing through the narrow channel which separates the two Piritu Islands, in three fathoms water, the thermometer was only 24.5 degrees. The difference would perhaps be greater, if the current, which runs rapidly westward, stirred up deeper water; and if, in a pa.s.s of such small width, the land did not contribute to raise the temperature of the sea. The Piritu Islands resemble those shoals which become visible when the tide falls. They do not rise more than eight or nine inches above the mean height of the sea. Their surface is smooth, and covered with gra.s.s. We might have thought we were gazing on some of our own northern meadows. The disk of the setting sun appeared like a globe of fire suspended over the savannah; and its last rays, as they swept the earth, illumined the gra.s.s, which was at the same time agitated by the evening breeze. In the low and humid parts of the equinoctial zone, even when the gramineous plants and reeds present the aspect of a meadow, a rich accessory of the picture is usually wanting; I allude to that variety of wild flowers, which, scarcely rising above the gra.s.s, seem as it were, to lie upon a smooth bed of verdure. Within the tropics, the strength and luxury of vegetation give such a development to plants, that the smallest of the dicotyledonous family become shrubs. It would seem as if the liliaceous plants, mingling with the gramina, a.s.sumed the place of the flowers of our meadows. Their form is indeed striking; they dazzle by the variety and splendour of their colours; but being too high above the soil, they disturb that harmonious proportion which characterizes the plants of our European meadows. Nature has in every zone stamped on the landscape the peculiar type of beauty proper to the locality.

We must not be surprised that fertile islands, so near Terra Firma, are not now inhabited. It was only at the early period of the discovery, and whilst the Caribbees, Chaymas, and c.u.managotos were still masters of the coast, that the Spaniards formed settlements at Cubagua and Margareta. When the natives were subdued, or driven southward in the direction of the savannahs, the preference was given to settlements on the continent, where there was a choice of land, and where there were Indians, who might be treated like beasts of burden. Had the little islands of Tortuga, Blanquilla, and Orchilla been situated in the group of the Antilles, they would not have remained without traces of cultivation.

<script>