MANIQUAREZ. 65 



ass, able to carry a heavy load of plantains to the land- 

 ing-place, was the consummation of all his wishes. 



After a long discourse- on the emptiness of human 

 greatness, he drew from a leathern pouch a few very 

 small opaque pearls, which he forced Humboldt to ac- 

 cept, enjoining him at the same time to note on his 

 tablets that a poor shoemaker of Araya, but a white 

 man, and of noble Castilian race, had been enabled to 

 give him something which, on the other side of the sea, 

 was sought for as very precious. 



In the morning the son of their Indian host conducted 

 them to the village of Maniquarez. On their way they 

 examined the ruins of Santiago, the structure of which 

 was remarkable for its extreme solidity. The walls of 

 freestone, five feet thick, had been blown up by mines ; 

 but they still found masses of seven or eight hundred 

 feet square, which had scarcely a crack in them. Their 

 guide showed them a cistern, thirty feet deep, which, 

 though much damaged, furnished water to the inhabit- 

 ants of the peninsula of Araya. 



After having examined the environs of Maniquarez, 

 they embarked at night in a fishing-boat for Cumana. 

 The small crazy boats employed by the natives here, 

 bore testimony to the extreme calmness of the sea in 

 these regions. The boat of the travellers, though the 

 best they could procure, was so leaky, that the pilot's 

 son was constantly employed in baling out the water 

 with a calabash shell. 



Their first visit to the peninsula of Araya was soon 

 succeeded by an excursion to the mountains of the mis- 

 sions of the Chayma Indians. 



On the 4th of September, at five in the morning, they 



