114 THE LACUNA CHICA. 



is recollected that farther eastward, near Cariaco, the hot 

 and submarine waters are sufficiently abundant to change 

 the temperature of the gulf at its surface, we cannot doubt 

 that the petroleum is the effect of distillation at an im- 

 mense depth, issuing rom those primitive rocks, beneath 

 which lies the focus of all volcanic commotion. 



The Laguna Chica is a cove surrounded by perpendicular 

 mountains, and connected with the gulf of Cariaco only 

 by a narrow channel twenty-five fathoms deep. It seems, 

 like the fine port of Acapulco, to owe its existence to the 

 eifect of an earthquake. A beach shows that the sea is 

 here receding from the land, as on the opposite coast of 

 Cumana. The peninsula of Araya, which narrows between 

 Cape Mero and Cape las Minas to one thousand four 

 hundred toises, is little more than four thousand toises 

 in breadth near the Laguna Chica, reckoning from one 

 sea to the other. "We had to cross this distance in order 

 to find the native alum, and to reach the cape called 

 the Punta de Chuparuparu. The road is difficult only be- 

 cause no path is traced; and between precipices of some 

 depth we were obliged to step over ridges of bare rock, 

 the strata of which are much inclined. The principal point 

 is nearly two hundred and twenty toises high ; but the 

 mountains, as it often happens in a rocky isthmus, display 

 very singular forms. The Paps (tetas) of Chacopata and 

 Cariaco, midway between the Laguna Chica and the town 

 of Cariaco, are peaks, which appear isolated when viewed 

 from the platform of the castle of Cumana. The vegetablw 

 earth in this country is only thirty toises above sea- 

 level. Sometimes there is no rain for the space of fifteen 

 months ; if, however, a few drops fall immediately after the 

 flowering of the melons and gourds, they yield fruit weigh- 

 ing from sixty to seventy pounds, notwithstanding the ap- 

 parent dryness of the air. I say apparent dryness, for my 

 hygrometric observations prove that the atmosphere of Cu- 

 mana and Araya contains nearly nine-tenths of the quantity 

 of watery vapour necessary to its perfect saturation. It 

 is this air, at once hot and humid, that nourishes those ve- 

 getable reservoirs, the cucurbitaceous plants, the agaves and 

 melocactuses half-buried in the sand. When we visited the 

 peninsula the preceding year, there was a great scarcity 



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