152 NEW- VALENCIA. 



travelling by night. Near the hamlet of Punta Za- 

 muro, at the foot of the lofty mountains of Las 

 Viruelas, the road was bordered by large mimosas, 

 sixty feet in height, and with horizontal branches 

 meeting at a distance of more than fifty yards, so as 

 to form a most beautiful canopy of verdure. The 

 night was gloomy, and the Rincon del Diablo with 

 its serrated cliffs appeared from time to time illu- 

 minated by the burning of the savannas. At a place 

 where the wood was thickest their horses were 

 frightened by the yelling of a large jaguar, which 

 seemed to follow them closely, and which they were 

 informed had roamed among these mountains for 

 three years, having escaped the pursuit of the most 

 intrepid hunters. 



They spent the 22d in the house of the Marquis de 

 Foro, at the village of Guacara, a large Indian com- 

 munity ; and on the 23d, after visiting Mocundo, an 

 extensive sugar-plantation near it, they continued 

 their journey to New-Valencia. They passed a 

 little wood of palms, of the genus Corypha^ the 

 withered foliage of which, together with the camels 

 feeding in the plain, and the undulating motion of 

 the vapours on the arid soil, gave the landscape quite 

 an African character. The sterility of the land in- 

 creased as they advanced towards the city, which 

 is said to have been founded in 1555, by Alonzo 

 Diaz Moreno, and contains a population of six or 

 seven thousand individuals. The streets are broad ; 

 and as the houses are low, they occupied a large ex- 

 tent of ground. Here the termites, or white ants, 

 were so numerous, that their excavations resembled 

 subterranean canals, which, being filled with water 

 in rainy weather, became extremely dangerous to 

 the buildings. 



On the 26th they set out for the farm of Barbula, 

 to examine anew road that was making from the 

 city to Porto Cabello ; and on the 27th visited the 

 hot springs of La Trinchera, three leagues from Va- 



