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The National Geographic Magazine 



from a sense of fair play and for diplo- 

 matic reasons, might have been some- 

 what modified : 



"Good-bye, ye Latin greasers, su atento ser- 



vidor; 6 

 ■Que van bien ; 7 pues adios ; 8 — my boat is on the 



shore. 

 •Oh dirty people, dirty homes, oh despicable 



spot, . 

 Departing I will bless you in your dirtiness and 



rot!" 



Equally unjust is the cool assertion — 

 pardon the seeming paradox — of the 

 writer above referred to, who gives the 

 town a steady temperature of "ioo° 

 Fahrenheit from, one year's end to an- 

 other." As a matter of fact, the mean 

 temperature is about 84 Fahrenheit, 

 and the maximum very little over ninety, 

 which, owing to the moisture of the air, 

 could easily deceive the perspiring tour- 

 ist. "It is generally the duration of a 

 high temperature," observes Humboldt, 

 "and not the excess of heat, or its abso- 

 lute quantity, which occasions the suffer- 

 ings of the inhabitants of the torrid 

 zone;" and eighty- four degrees with a 

 humid atmosphere is certainly excessive. 



Another stigma cast upon La Guaira 

 is its unhealthfulness, and especially the 

 prevalence of yellow fever. La Guaira, 

 be it known, is not particularly un- 

 healthful, certainly not so unhealthful as 

 Caracas, and while a mild form of yellow 

 fever lurks in the neighborhood, it is not 

 greatly to be dreaded. "Indeed," the in- 

 habitants might exclaim, "who gave us 

 the yellow fever? Was it not communi- 

 cated to the city originally by a vessel 

 from Philadelphia, after we had enjoyed 

 more than two centuries of immunity?" 

 This charge, to be sure, has not been 

 proven, but the crew of an American ves- 

 sel in port (in the year 1799) were 

 actually the first to be stricken, and local 

 "historians draw their own conclusions. 



La Guaira was founded in 1558, two 

 years before our ancient city of St Au- 

 gustine, and has shared the usual vicis- 

 situdes of the Spanish settlements upon 



1 Houses ; 2 better said ; 3 streets ; 4 tomorrow ; 

 * thank God; 6 at your service; 7 good luck to 

 you ; 8 so good-bye. 



the coast, having been repeatedly at- 

 tacked by pirates and foreign fleets, sev- 

 eral of which, notably that of the British 

 commodore Knowles, were successfully 

 repulsed. The city, furthermore, was 

 destroyed by the great earthquake of 

 181 2, and experienced many exciting 

 events in the war of independence, as, 

 indeed, it has at intervals ever since, not 

 least of which was the blockade of the 

 powers a few years ago. This indignity, 

 however, its officials assert, will never be 

 repeated, and they point to the well- 

 equipped batteries, silent and grim, but 

 ever ready for the enemy — ready, that 

 is, in a Pickwickian sense ! 



I have coupled Maracaibo with Cu- 

 mana and La Guaira in naming this 

 article, though the situation of the former 

 makes the title plainly a misnomer. It 

 is difficult, however, in passing to this 

 western city to resist mentioning a few 

 of the interesting towns in the interven- 

 ing region, historic old places, such as 

 Tocuyo, founded in 1545; Coro, the an- 

 cient capital of the province of Vene- 

 zuela and the seat of the Welsers, 

 founded in 1527, just seven years after 

 Cumana, and in reality the first perma- 

 nent settlement in Tierra Firme ; Carora, 

 founded in 1572, more than half a cen- 

 tury after Cumana, yet a hundred and 

 ten years before William Penn estab- 

 lished his colony on the Northern Conti- 

 nent; Ocumare — but why continue the 

 list ; no more historic region can be found 

 in the New World than these southern 

 shores of the Caribbean Sea, and none, 

 certainly, are more neglected by the trav- 

 eler. 



Maracaibo, as the reader is aware, is 

 situated upon the lake of the same name, 

 or rather upon the strait connecting the 

 lake with the outer gulf. Like La Guai- 

 ra and Puerto Cabello, it has excellent 

 steamer communications with Curacao 

 and New York, an American line having 

 built two vessels of sufficiently light 

 draft to pass the dangerous sand bars 

 that obstruct the entrance to the lake. 

 Were navigation entirely unobstructed 

 and the city not preyed upon as it has 



