NEW VALENCIA. 177 
lencia. As the heat was excessive, they preferred 
travelling by night. Near the hamlet of Punta 
Zamuro, at the foot of the lofty mountains of Las 
-Viruelas, the road was bordered by large mimosas 
sixty feet in height, and with horizontal branches 
meeting at a distance of more than fifty yards, 
so as to form a most beautiful canopy of verdure. 
The night was gloomy, and the Rincon del Diablo 
with its serrated cliffs appeared from time to time 
illuminated by the burning of the savannahs. At 
a place where the wood was thickest their horses 
were frightened by the yelling of a large jaguar, 
which seemed to follow them closely, and which 
they were informed had roamed among these moun- 
tains for three years, having escaped the pursuit of 
the most intrepid hunters. 
They spent the 22d in the house of the Marquis 
de Foro, at the village of Guacara, a large Indian 
community ; and on the 23d, after visiting Mocundo, 
an extensive sugar-plantation near it, they continued 
their journey to New Valencia. They passed a 
little wood of palms, of the genus Corypha, the 
withered foliage of which, together with the camels 
feeding in the plain, and the undulating motion of 
the vapours on the arid soil, gave the landscape 
quite an African character. The sterility of the 
land increased as they advanced towards the city, 
which is said to have been founded in 1555 by 
Alonzo Diaz Moreno, and contains a population 
of six or seven thousand individuals. The streets 
are broad; and as the houses are low, they occu- 
pied a large extent of ground. Here the termites 
or white ants were so numerous, that their excava- 
tions resembled subterranean canals, which, being 
L 
