26 PUWTA ZAMUBO. 



showed us his house, a little hut covered with palm-leaves, 

 situated in an enclosure at a small distance, on the bank 

 of a rivulet, communicating with the bath. He assured us 

 that we should there find all the conveniences of life ; nails 

 to suspend our hammocks, ox-leather to stretch over benches 

 made of reeds, earthern vases always filled with cool water, 

 and what, after the bath, would be most salutary of all, 

 those great lizards (iguanas), the flesh of which is known 

 to be a refreshing aliment. "We judged from his harangue, 

 that this good man took us for invalids, who had come to 

 stay near the spring. His counsels and offers of hospitality 

 were not altogether disinterested. He styled himself ' the 

 inspector of the waters, and the pulpero* of the place.' 

 Accordingly all his obliging attentions to us ceased as soon 

 as he heard that we had come merely to satisfy our curi- 

 osity; or as they express it in the Spanish colonies, those 

 lands of idleness, para ver, no mas, ' to see, and nothing 

 more.' The waters of Mariara are used with success in 

 rheumatic swellings, and affections of the skin. As the 

 waters are but very feebly impregnated with sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, it is necessary to bathe at the spot Where the 

 springs issue. Farther on, these same waters are employed 

 for the irrigation of fields of indigo. A wealthy landed 

 proprietor of Mariara, Don Domingo Tovar, had formed 

 the project of erecting a bathing-house, and an establish- 

 ment which would furnish visitors with better resources 

 than lizard's flesh for food, and leather stretched on a bench 

 for their repose. 



On the 21st of February, in the evening, we set out from 

 the beautiful Hacienda de Cura for Gruacara and Nueva 

 Valencia. We preferred travelling by night, on account 

 of the excessive heat of the day. We passed by the hamlet 

 of Punta Zamuro, at the foot of the high mountains of Las 

 Viruelas. The road is bordered with large zamang-trees, 

 or mimosas, the trunks of which rise to sixty feet high. 

 Their branches, nearly horizontal, meet at more than one 

 hundred and fifty feet distance. I have nowhere seen a 

 vault of verdure more beautiful and luxuriant. The night 

 was gloomy: the Eincon del Diablo with its denticulated 

 rocks appeared from time to time at a distance, illumined 

 Proprietor of a pulperia, or little shop where refreshments are sold. 



