United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
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. It may therefore be said that between Cape Codera and Cariaco the inland chain itself forms the coast.
In this country, so little frequented, the power of vegetation is such at the period of the great rains, that a man on horseback can with difficulty make his way through narrow paths, covered with lianas and intertwining branches. To our great annoyance, the missionary of Catuaro insisted on conducting us to Cariaco; and we could not decline the proposal.
They are carefully collected and sent to the sick at Cariaco, and other places of the low regions, where fevers are prevalent. . . . 'The natives connect mystic ideas with this cave, inhabited by nocturnal birds; they believe that the souls of their ancestors sojourn in the deep recesses of the cavern. To go and join the Guacharos is to rejoin their fathers, is to die.
In leisurely fashion and under easy canvas we coasted along the shore, taking a look into the Cariaco Gulf without finding anything worth picking up, and thence across to Cape Codera, off which the wind came out from the westward, compelling us to make a stretch off the land. This occurred about midnight.
After having ended the labours of the week, the slaves, on festival days, prefer to listless sleep the recreations of music and dancing. The bark in which we passed the gulf of Cariaco was very spacious. Large skins of the jaguar, or American tiger, were spread for our repose during the night.
The slow retreat of the waters has turned into dry ground this extensive plain, in which rises a group of small hills, composed of gypsum and calcareous breccias of very recent formation. The city of Cumana is backed by this group, which was formerly an island of the gulf of Cariaco.
Near Cariaco the country is but thinly wooded. Can it be supposed that the mould, fresh stirred and moistened by rains, alters and vitiates the atmosphere more than the thick wood of plants which covers an uncultivated soil? To local causes are joined other causes less problematic. The neighbouring shores of the sea are covered with mangroves, avicennias, and other shrubs with astringent bark.
Farther to the south, the vast gulf Cariaco stretches away, like a longitudinal valley formed by the irruption of the sea, between the two small chains of Araya and the Cocollar, between the mica-slate and the Alpine limestone. We shall soon see that the direction of the strata, very regular in the first of these rocks, is not quite parallel with the general direction of the gulf.
The openings in the forest appeared like vast funnels, in which we could distinguish by their elegant forms and pinnated leaves, the Praga and Irasse palms. But what renders this spot eminently picturesque, is the aspect of the Sierra del Guacharo. Its northern slope, in the direction of the gulf of Cariaco, is abrupt.
Word Of The Day