PUERTO CABELLO. 57 



and irrigation is necessary to preserve verdure and pro- 

 mote fertility. 



At the expiration of a week spent uj^on this burning 

 and pestilential plain, we took up our abode in Puerto 

 Cabello, the j^ort of entry to Valencia. Affording good 

 commercial facilities, it has become a town of considera- 

 ble importance, containing a population of ten thousand, 

 among which are many foreigners, in whose hands is 

 much of the business of the place. We see here more in- 

 dications of thrift and enterprise than we have observed 

 elsewhere in the country. The trade is chiefly in exports, 

 of which coffee, cacao, cotton, hides, and indigo, form the 

 greater part. The harbor, unlike the roadstead of La 

 Guaira, is well sheltered, there being but a narrow en- 

 trance upon the west, which is also jjrotected by islands, 

 and by the natural curvature of the main-land ; so that 

 vessels can ride at anchor within, secure from tlie sea 

 which breaks so heavily upon the outer coast. The bay 

 swarms with voracious sharks, so that only at the peril of 

 life can the water be entered ; while at La Guaira these 

 cetaceous monsters are harmless creatures, and there the 

 sea is continually filled with bathers, and with natives en- 

 gaged in transferring freight from shipboard to land. 

 The defences of the town are a battery, which guards the 

 entrance to the harbor; another that stands to the east of 

 the city ; with a castle which crowns a rocky eminence five 

 hundred feet high, overlooking the place. There is, how- 

 ever, but little danger to be apprehended from foreign 

 invasion, the security of the city being threatened only by 

 the political convulsions to which this country is sub- 

 ject. 



Our stay at Puerto Cabello, Avhich was necessarily 

 short, now drew to a close, and with it terminated our 

 rambles in Nortliern Venezuela. 



