RETREAT OF THTT WATEE. 7 



Cocuyza to those of Torito and Nirgua, and from La Sierra 

 de Mariara to the chain of Guigue, of Guacimo, and La 

 Palma, was filled with water. Everywhere the form of the 

 promontories, and their steep declivities, seem to indicate 

 the shore of an alpine lake, similar to those of Stvria and 

 Tyrol. The same little helicites, the same valvataB, which now 

 live in the lake of Valencia, are found in layers of three or 

 four feet thick as far inland as Turmero and La Concesion 

 near La Victoria. These facts undoubtedly iirove a retreat 

 of the waters ; but nothing indicates that this retreat has 

 continued from a very remote period to our days. The 

 valleys of Aragua are among the portions of Venezuela most 

 anciently peopled; and yet there is no mention in Oviedo, 

 or any other old chronicler, of a sensible diminution of the 

 lake. Must we suppose, that this phenomenon escaped 

 their observation, at a time when the Indians far exceeded 

 the white population, and when the banks of the lake were 

 *ess inhabited? Within half a century, and particularly 

 within these thirty years, the natural desiccation of this 

 great basin has excited general attention. We find vast 

 tracts of land which were formerly inundated, now dry, and 

 already cultivated with plantains, sugar-canes, or cotton. 

 Wherever a hut is erected on the bank of the lake, we see 

 the shore receding from year to year. We discover islands, 

 which, in consequence of the retreat of the waters, are just 

 beginning to be joined to the continent, as for instance the 

 rocky island of Culebra, in the direction of Guigue ; other 

 islands already form promontories, as the Morro, between 

 Guigue and Nueva Valencia, and La Cabrera, south-east of 

 Mariara ; others again are now rising in the islands them- 

 selves like scattered hills. Among these last, so easily 

 recognized at a distance, some are only a quarter of a mile, 

 others a league from the present shore. I may cite as the 

 most remarkable three granite islands, thirty or forty toises 

 high, on the road from the Hacienda de Cura to Aguas 

 Calientes; and at the western extremity of the lake, the 

 Serrito de Don Pedro, Islote, and Caratapona. On visiting 

 two islands* entirely surrounded by water, we found in the 



* Isla de Cura and Cabo Blanco. The promontory of Cabrera has 

 been connected with the shore ever since the year 1750 or 1760 by a little 

 f alley, which bears the name of PorUclmelo. 



