2 ANGOSTUBA. 



Dutch, under the command of Captain Adrian Janson, in 

 1579. The second, founded by Antonio de Berrio in 1591, 

 near twelve leagues east of the mouth of the Carony, made 

 a courageous resistance to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom the 

 Spanish writers of the conquest know only by the name of 

 the pirate Reali. The third town, now the capital of the 

 province, is fifty leagues west of the confluence of the 

 Carony. It was begun in 1764, under the Governor Don 

 Joacquin Moreno de Mendoza, and is distinguished in the 

 public documents from the second town, vulgarly called the 

 fortress (el castillo, las fortalezas). or Old Guayaiia (Vieja 

 Guayana), by the name of Santo Thome de la Nueva 

 Guayana. This name being very long, that of Angostura* 

 (the strait) has been commonly substituted for it. 



Angostura, the longitude and latitude of which I have 

 already indicated from astronomical observations, stands at 

 the foot of a hill of amphibolic schist t bare of vegetation. 

 The streets are regular, and for the most part parallel with 

 the course of the river. Several of the houses are built on 

 the bare rock; and here, as at Carichana, and in many 

 other parts of the missions, the action of black and strong 

 strata, when strongly heated by the rays of the sun upon 

 the atmosphere, is considered injurious to health. I think 

 the small pools of stagnant water (lagunas y anegadizos), 

 which extend behind the town in the direction of south-east, 

 are more to be feared. The houses of Angostura are lofty 

 and convenient ; they are for the most part built of stone ; 

 which proves that the inhabitants have but little dread of 

 earthquakes. But unhappily this security is not founded 

 on induction from any precise data. It is true, that the 

 shore of Nueva Andalusia sometimes undergoes very violent 

 shocks, without the commotion being propagated across the 

 Llanos. The fatal catastrophe of Cumana, on the 4th of 

 February, 1797, was not felt at Angostura ; but in the great 

 earthquake of 1766, which destroyed the same city, the 



" Europe has learnt the existence of the town of Angostura by the trade 

 carried on by the Catalonians in the Carony bark, which is the beneficial 

 bark of the Bonplanda trifoliata. This bark, coming from Nueva 

 Guiana, was called corteita or cascarilla del Angostura (Cortex 

 Angostura), Botanists so little guessed the origin of this geographical 

 denomination that they began by writing Auyustura, and then Augusta. 



f Hornblendschiefer. 





