116 SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



after the rains, when the marine animals are killed by the fresh waters of the 

 Rio San Esteban mingling with the saline coast lagoons. Hei'e also the sharks 

 are much dreaded, although at La Guaira they frighten nobody, and even fly from 

 bathers.* Puerto Cabello exports colîee, cacao, hides, dyewoods, and copper 

 ores. 



San Felipe — Coro—Trujillo. 



These ores, however, are chiefly shipped at Puerto Tucacas, farther west, this 

 place being connected by a railway nearly CO miles long with La Luz, a little east 

 of the mountainous Aroa mining district. A large amount of capital has been 

 invested in these copper-mines of Aroa, which are the only works of the kind in 

 Venezuela that have not been abandoned, and which yielded 72,610 tons in 1888. 

 It is proposed to continue the railway towards San Felipe, Barqummcto, and other 

 inland towns. 



San Felipe, founded in 1551 in honour of Phillip XL, is still the capital of the 

 flourishing Yaracui valley, with its extensive cacao and sugar-cane plantations. 

 But it has never quite recovered from the disastrous earthquake of 1812, and 

 at present San Felipe is surpassed in trade and population by Yaritagiia, 

 which lies near the divide between the basins of the Yaracui and Portuguesa 

 rivers. 



Barquisiraeto stands at an altitude of about 1,800 feet on the southern slope of 

 this divide, on a rivulet which flows through the Bio Cojede to the Portuguesa 

 affluent of the Apure. This place represents the ancient Nuera Segovia, which 

 was founded in 1550, and afterwards displaced. Settlers had been attracted to the 

 spot by the mineral deposits of the surrounding mountains ; the mines were held 

 for some years by runaway negroes, who here entrenched themselves, and set up 

 an independent petty state. Barquisiraeto has recovered from the catastrophe 

 of 1812, and is now one of the flourishing towns of Venezuela, while Qiiihor, lying 

 to the south-west, has lost its former importance. The Teutonic type is said 

 to persist in Quibor, which was founded by the Germans of Coro, in the reign of 

 Charles V. 



There are no large towns in the extensive basin of the Bio Tocuyo, which 

 reaches the coast north of Punta Tucacas and the little seaport of Chichirivichi. 

 Carom, and the industrious little town of Tocuyo, which gives its name to the 

 river, lie a long way from the sea in fertile valleys separated from Lake 

 Maracaibo by the arid plateaux of Agua de Obispo. On this coast there are no 

 harbours or ports except the little village of Vela de Coro at the neck of the sandy 

 Paraguana Peninsula, and the beach shoals so gently that large vessels have to 

 cast anchor in the ofiing two or three miles from the shore. 



The western inlet of the Gulf of Coro, on the other side of the sandy Medanos 

 isthmus, is still more inhospitable ; yet it was at one time much frequented by 

 shipping, the spot where Coro now stands having been chosen as the starting point 

 of the expsdition sent to conquer Venezuela. Coro itself was founded by Ampues 

 in. 1527, and here the Spaniards were well received by the Indians, who helped 



* P. V. N. Mytrs, Life and Nature under the Tropics. 



