454 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



therto remained unknown in Eu- 

 rope.* The guacharoes alone 

 would have been sufficient, to 

 render it celebrated. These noc- 

 turnal birds have been no where 

 yet discovered, except in the 

 mountains of Caripe and Cuma- 

 nacoa. 



The mildness of the Spanish 

 legislation compared with the 

 Black Code of the greater part 

 of other nations that have pos- 

 sessions in either India, cannot 

 be denied. But such is the state 

 of the negroes, dispersed in places 

 scarcely begun to be cultivated, 

 that justice, far from efficaciously 

 protecting them during their 

 lives, cannot even punish acts of 

 barbarity, tliat have caused their 

 death. If an inquirybe attempted, 

 the death of the slave is attributed 

 to the bad state of his health, to 

 the influence of a warm and 

 humid climate, to the wounds 

 which he has received, but which, 

 it is asserted, were neither deep 

 nor dangerous. The civil autho- 

 rity is powerless with respect to 

 whatever constitutes domestic 

 slavery; and nothing is more 

 illusory than the effect so much 

 vaunted of those laws, which pre- 

 scribe the form of the whip, and 

 the number of lashes which it is 

 permitted to give at a time. 



* We have reason to be surprised, 

 that Father Gili, author of the Saggio 

 di Storia Americana (Tom. 4, p. 414), 

 did not mention it, though he had in 

 his possession a manuscript com- 

 posed in 1780 at the convent of Ca- 

 ripe. I gave the first information 

 respecting the Cueva del Guacharo in 

 1800, in my letters to Messrs. De- 

 lambre and Delam^therie, published 

 in the Journal de Physique. See 

 also my Geog. des Plantes, p. 84. 



Persons who have not lived in the 

 colonies, or have inhabited only 

 the West India islands, believe in 

 general, that the interest of the 

 master in the preservation of his 

 slaves must render their condition 

 so much the milder as their 

 number is less considerable. 

 Nevertheless, even at Cariaco, a 

 few weeks before my arrival in 

 the province, a planter, who had 

 only eight negroes, killed six by 

 beating them in the most bar- 

 barous manner. He thus volun- 

 tarily destroyed the greater part 

 of his fortune. Two of his slaves 

 expired on the spot. He embarked 

 with four, who seemed more ro- 

 bust, for the port of Cumana, but 

 they died on the passage. This 

 act of cruelty had been preceded 

 in the same year by another, the 

 circumstances of which are equally 

 horrible. Such great crimes re- 

 main almost always unpunished; 

 the spirit, that dictated the laws, 

 is not that which presides over 

 their execution. The governor 

 of Cumana was a just and humane 

 man ; but the judiciary forms are 

 prescribed, and the power of the 

 governor does not extend to a 

 reform of abuses, which are 

 almost inherent in every system 

 of European colonization. 



I shall begin by the nation of 

 the Caymas, of whom more than 

 fifteen thousand inhabit the 

 Missions that have just been 

 described. This nation, little 

 warlike, which father Francisco 

 of Pamplona* began to reduce 



* The name of this monk, cele- 

 brated for his active intrepidity, is 

 still revered in the province. He 

 sowed the first seeds of civilization 

 among these mouutains. He had 



Ions: 



