86 



CONVENT OF CARIPE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Excursion continued, and Return to Cumana. 



Convent of Caripe— Cave of Guacharo, inhabited by Nocturnal Birds- 

 Purgatory— Forest Scenery— Howling Monkeys— Vera Cruz— Cariaco 

 — Intermittent Fevers — Cocoa-trees— Passage across the Gulf of Cari- 

 aco to Cumana. 



Arriving at the hospital of the Arragonese Capu- 

 chins, which was backed by an enormous wall of 

 rocks of resplendent whiteness, covered with a luxu- 

 riant vegetation, our travellers were hospitably re- 

 ceived by the monks. The superior was absent ; 

 but having heard of their intention to visit the place, 

 he had provided for them whatever could serve to 

 render their abode agreeable. The inner court, sur- 

 rounded by a portico, they found highly convenient 

 for setting up their instruments and making observa- 

 tions. In the convent they found a numerous so- 

 ciety, consisting of old and infirm missionaries, who 

 sought for health in the salubrious air of the moun- 

 tains of Caripe, and younger ones newly arrived 

 from Spain. Although the inmates of this estab- 

 lishment knew that Humboldt was a Protestant, they 

 manifested no mark of distrust, nor proposed any 

 indiscreet question, to diminish the value of the be- 

 nevolence which they exercised with so much libe- 

 rality. Even the light of science had in some de- 

 gree extended to this obscure pla'ce ; for in the library 

 of the superior they found among othe»r books the 

 Traite d'Electricite, by the Abbe Nollet ; and one of 

 the monks had brought with him a Spanish transla- 

 tion of Chaptal's Treatise on Chymistry. 



The height of this monastery above the sea is 

 nearly the same as that of Caraccas, and the 



