200 



behind Brito and Tataraqual. It took it's name 

 from the form of a very deep valley on the north- 

 ern declivity, which resembles the inside of a 

 ship. The summit of this mountain is almost 

 bare of vegetation, and flattened like that of 

 Mowna-Roa, in the Sandwich Islands. It is a 

 perpendicular wall, or, to use a more expressive 

 term of the Spanish navigators, a table, mesa. 

 This peculiar physiognomy, and the symmetrical 

 arrangement of a few cones, which surround the 

 Brigantine, made me at first think, that this 

 group, which is wholly calcareous, contained 

 rocks of basaltic or trappean formation. 



The governor of Cumana had sent, in 1797, a 

 band of determined men to explore this entirely 

 desert country, and to open a direct road to 

 New Barcelona, by the summit of the Mesa. 

 It was reasonably expected, that this way would 

 be shorter, and less dangerous to the health of 

 travellers, than that which was pursued by the 

 couriers along the coasts ; but every attempt to 

 cross the chain of the mountains of the Brigan- 

 tine was fruitless. In this part of America, as 

 in New Holland * to the west of Sidney Town, 

 it is not so much the height of the Cordilleras, 



* The blue mountains of New Holland, and those of Car- 

 marthen and Lansdown, are not visible, in clear weather be- 

 yond fifty miles. Peron. Voyage aux Terres Australes, p. 

 389. Supposing the angle of altitude half a degree, the ab- 

 solute height of these mountains would be about 620 toises. 



