2 FEOM LA GUAIKA TO CARACAS. 



day and a favorable breeze to carry iis into port. The 

 wind, as is nsual here in the early morning, blew but 

 feebly, so that we entered with some difficulty. At 

 length we gained the haven, and dropped anchor about 

 three hundred yards from shore. Directly before us, 

 rising abruptly out of the sea, looms up Silla, the highest 

 peak of the northern Cordillera of the Andes. Its rocky 

 and precipitous side, rising to the height of nearly nine 

 thousand feet, looks as if one of those convulsions of 

 Nature, which so often shake this unstable land, Avould 

 overthrow the towering heights and bury forever in its 

 ruins the town La Guaira, which lies closely nestled at 

 its base. Clinging to its rugged slope, far up its side, is 

 a scanty, scrubby growth of bushes, with here and there, 

 in some ravine, a clump approaching somewhat to the 

 magnitude of trees. Interspersed throughout this undei-- 

 growth, and towering above it, are cactuses, some attain- 

 ing the height of thirty feet, and resembling at a distance 

 leafless and nearly branchless trees. Higher iip the 

 mountain-side we see only Alpine grass, and this in turn 

 gives place to ban-en rocks which crown the lofty summit. 

 To heighten still more the grandeur of the scene, the 

 morning is clear and beautiful, and the sun, as it rises from 

 its ocean-bed, gilds the few fleecy clouds which float over 

 the crest and along the flank of Silla, presenting a scene 

 not often witnessed at this season, when clouds and 

 storms prevail in the tropics. One of the first things 

 which will attract the attention of the traveller, if he has 

 never before visited the equatorial regions, will be the 

 palms scattered along the coast, and which by their tall, 

 straight trunks, thirty and forty feet in height, topped 

 with a cluster of gigantic and elegantly-formed leaA^es, 

 will impress him at once with the strangeness as well as 

 beauty of vegetation within the tropics. 



The port, or, rather, roadstead of La Guaira, opens 



