CUMANA- AMERACAPANA. 109 



the plantations on the lower slopes south of the Cumana coast range. The 

 little port of Guiria in the hilly peninsula of Paria, although well sheltered, is 

 visited only by small coasters ; the neighbouring agricultural district is too limited 

 to feed a large traffic. 



Carupano, a little farther west, is more conveniently situated towards the 

 middle of the advanced coastline formed by the Paria and Araya peninsulas 

 projecting east and west from this point. South of the inlet easy communica- 

 tion is afforded through a gap in the coast range with the fertile inland valleys, 

 so that with a sufficiently developed railway system Carupano could not fail to 

 become the chief outlet for the cacao, tobacco, and coffee of all the surrounding 

 plantations ; the approach to the harbour, however, is obstructed by some 

 dangerous banks. Cariaco, still farther west, at the extremity of the Gulf of 

 like name, is little visited, despite its well- sheltered anchorage. The neigh- 

 bouring salines, especially those of the Araya peninsula, yield considerable 

 quantities of good salt. 



Cumana — Barcelona. 



Cumana, former capital of the old colonial province of New Andalusia, and till 

 recently the chief centre of population in the eastern districts of Venezuela, was 

 the first Spanish settlement on the mainland. Some vestiges may still be seen of 

 the fortress here founded by Diego Colon in 1520. JViiero Toledo, as it was first 

 called, became later Nueva Cordoba, and ultimately took the name of Cumana 

 from its river, which is itself now known as the Rio Manzanares. 



Of all Venezuelan towns Cumana has suffered most from earthquakes ; as a 

 precaution against fresh disasters, all the houses are now built very low, while 

 those of the Guayqueries Indians, on the opposite or west side of the Manza- 

 nares, are mere straw-thatched huts. The spacious roadstead is little visited 

 by shipping, the various havens of the seaboard being more than sufficient for 

 the undeveloped traffic of this region. 



The highly-esteemed tobacco of the Cumanacoa district, in the upper Manza- 

 nares valley, is all exported from Cumana, which stands on one of the classic sites 

 of the New World. A few miles to the south was situated the old pre-Columbian 

 city of Aineracnpana — the Maracapano or Macarapano figuring on recent maps — 

 meaning, in the local Indian language, *' Ameraca-town." In 1542, when the 

 traveller Benzoni visited this place, he found it, although much decayed, still 

 occupied by a colony of about 400 Spaniards, who carried on a large trade with 

 the interior, and with the slave- dealers who brought their gangs of captives to the 

 Ameraca market. During Benzoni's stay a single dealer arrived with a convoy 

 of over 4,000 Indians, while hundreds had perished of hunger and hardships on 

 the road. The colonists of Espanola traded directly with Ameraca, which at that 

 time was the emporium of the whole seaboard of South America. According to 

 Pinard 's hypothesis, the name of this city, converging point of all the trade 

 routes of the southern lands washed by the Caribbean Sea, was applied first to the 

 neighbouring mainland, and then to the whole of the New World. The change 

 from Ameraca, or Amaraca, to America would be easily explained by the obscure 



