270 ALEXANDER VON HUMEOLDT. 



only he would have been obliged to provide himself with larger 

 and better instruments than any I possess. 



' Do not be surprised if my letters are full of repetitions, 

 for it is calculated that in this out-of-the-way region, of every 

 four letters despatched to Europe, three will be lost ; therefore 

 if one wishes to apprise one's friends of any particular fact it is 

 necessary to repeat it frequently.' 



1 Cumana : November 17, 1799. 



c I have re-opened my letter, for I did not venture to trust it 

 to the brigantine from Cadiz when I found that a Spanish 

 mail was expected. We have been looking for it in vain for 

 the last two months, but it has at length arrived, and I hasten 

 to give you some additional intelligence. I have just returned 

 from an expedition into the interior of Paria ; it was a very 

 arduous undertaking, but one in every point of view fraught 

 with the highest interest. We visited the high Cordilleras of 

 Tumiriquiri, Cocollar, and Gruanaguana, which are inhabited by 

 the Chaymas and Gruaraunos Indians. We spent some glorious 

 days very happily at the Capuchin monastery at Caripe, the 

 central mission station. We also visited the celebrated cave of 

 Guacharo, which is the resort of thousands of nocturnal birds 

 a new species of Caprimulgus, goat-sucker. Nothing can 

 equal the majestic entrance to this cave, shadowed by palms, 

 pothos, ipomcea, &c. 



6 During our stay in this province we have dried more than 

 1,600 plants and described about 600 new varieties, including 

 some unknown cryptogamia ; we have also collected the most 

 beautiful shell-fish and insects. I have made more than 60 

 drawings of plants, besides illustrating the comparative anatomy 

 of various shell-fish. We took Berthoud's chronometer and 

 Eamsden's and Troughton's sextants with us, across the 

 Gruarapichi. I determined the latitude and longitude of more 

 than fifteen places observations which may be of use at some 

 future time in affording fixed points for the construction of a 

 map of the interior. By means of the barometer, I measured 

 the height of the Cordilleras. The loftiest peak is limestone, 

 and does not exceed in elevation 6,405 feet. Farther west, 

 towards Avila, there are mountains nearly 10,500 feet in 



