264 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



America, with a climate like that of Mexico ; and although it has 

 been visited by Jacquin, the interior of the country is still one 

 of the least known portions of the globe. Besides the charm of 

 being surrounded by nature in a new aspect (for since yesterday 

 we have not met with a single specimen of a plant or animal 

 common to Europe), we have been mainly influenced in our 

 determination to remain at Cumana, two days' sail from Caracas, 

 by the news that just now English ships of war are cruising 

 in the neighbourhood. It is a voyage of eight or ten days 

 to Havana, and as all European convoys touch here, to say 

 nothing. of private merchantmen, we shall not lack opportu- 

 nities of visiting Cuba. We hear too, that the heat there is 

 at its worst just in September and October. We shall spend 

 these months, therefore, in the cooler and healthier atmo- 

 sphere of this place ; it is quite possible, even at this tempera- 

 ture, to sleep out at nights in the open air. 



6 An old commissary of the navy, who has lived many years 

 in Paris, St. Domingo, and the Philippines, is keeping house 

 here, with help of two negroes and a negress. We have hired 

 a very nice new house for twenty piastres a month, and obtained 

 the services of two negresses, one as a cook. There is no lack 

 of food here, but unfortunately there is nothing to be had in 

 the shape of flour, bread, or biscuit. The town is still half 

 buried in ruins; for the great earthquake of 1797, by which 

 Quito was destroyed, overthrew a considerable part of Cumana. 

 This town lies in a bay as beautiful as that of Toulon, and is 

 situated at the foot of a range of thickly wooded mountains, 

 that rise in the form of an amphitheatre to a height of from 

 5,000 to 8,000 feet. All the houses are built of white cinchona 

 and 'satin-wood. Along the banks of the small river (Bio de 

 Cumana), reminding one of the Saale at Jena, stand seven 

 monasteries surrounded by plantations which have all the 

 appearance of English gardens. Outside the town live the 

 copper-coloured Indians, of whom the men nearly all go naked ; 

 their huts are made of bamboo cane covered with the leaves of 

 the cocoa-nut palm. On entering one of them, I found the 

 mother and children employing as seats the stems of coral that 

 had been washed up on the shore ; they had each a cocoa-nut 

 shell before them, to serve the purpose of a plate, from which 



