19G BACK AT CUM ANA. 



dawn of day. At nine in the morning tliej reached the 

 gulf of Cariaco, which served as a roadstead to the town 

 of Cumana. The hill, crowned by the castle of San An- 

 tonio, stood out, prominent from -its whiteness, on the 

 dark curtain of the inland mountains. They gazed with 

 interest on the shore, where they first gathered plants in 

 America, and where, some months later, Bonpland had 

 been in such danger. Among the cactuses that rose in 

 columns twenty feet high appeared the Indian huts of 

 the Guayqucrias. Their friends at Cumana came out to 

 meet them : men of all castes, w^ith whom their frequent 

 herborizations had brought them in contact, expressed 

 the greater joy at sight of them, as a report that they 

 had perished on the banks of the Orinoco had been cur- 

 rent for several months. 



The travellers hastened to visit Don Yicente Em- 

 paran, whose recommendations and constant solicitude 

 had been so useful to them during the long journey they 

 had just terminated. He procured for them, in the centre 

 of the town, a house which was extremely useful for 

 their instruments. They enjoyed from its terraces a ma- 

 jestic view of the sea, of the isthmus of Araya, and the 

 archipelago of the islands of Caracas, Picuita, and Bor- 

 racha. The port of Cumana was every day more and 

 more blockaded, and the vain expectation of the arrival 

 of Spanish packets detained them two months and a half 

 longer. They were often nearly tempted to go to the 

 Danish islands, which enjoyed a happy neutrality ; but 

 they feared that, if they left the Spanish colonies, they 

 might find some obstacles to their return. They em- 

 ployed their time in completing the Flora of Cumana, 

 geologically examining the eastern part of the peninsula 



