204 



out attacking them. These animals are three 

 or four feet long. We never met with them in 

 the Manzanares, but with a great number of 

 dolphins which sometimes ascend the river in 

 the night, and frighten the bathers by spouting 

 water. 



The Port of Cumana is a road capable of re- 

 ceiving all the navies of Europe. The whole of 

 the Gulf of Cariaco, which is thirty-five miles 

 long, and sixty-eight miles broad, affords excel- 

 lent anchorage. The great ocean is not more 

 calm and pacific on the coasts of Peru, than the 

 sea of the Antilles from Portocabello, and espe- 

 cially from Cape Codera, to the Point of Paria. 

 The hurricanes of the West Indies are never felt 

 in these regions, the vessels of which are with- 

 out decks. The only danger in the port of Cu- 

 mana is a shoal, that of Morro Roxo <f, which 

 is nine hundred toises broad from east to west, 



* Ton in as. 



+ There are from one to three fathoms water on this shoal, 

 while just beyond it's edges there are eighteen, thirty, and 

 even thirty-eight. The remains of an old battery, situate 

 to the nor til-north-cast of the castle of St. Antonio, and very 

 near it, serve as a mark to avoid the bank of Morro Roxo. 

 Before this battery shuts in with a very high mountain of the 

 peninsula of Araya, which bears from the castle of St. Anto- 

 nio, north 65° 80' east, at six leagues distance, the ship must 

 be put about. If this be neglected, the danger of striking is 

 so much the greater, as the heights of Bordones keep the 

 wind from a vessel steering for the port. 



