89 



landholder boasts of the water of his spring, the 

 absence of noxious insects, the salutary breeze 

 that blows round his hill, as we descant in Eu- 

 rope on the conveniences of our dwellings, and 

 the picturesque effect of our plantations. 



Our host had visited the new world with an 

 expedition, which was to form establishments 

 for cutting wood for the Spanish navy on the 

 shores of the gulph of Paria. In these vast fo- 

 rests of mahogany, cedar, and brasil-wood, 

 which border the sea of the West Indies, they 

 reckoned on choosing the trunks of the largest 

 trees, giving them in a rough way the shape 

 adapted to the building of ships, and sending 

 them every year to the dock-yard of the Carac- 

 cas, near Cadiz. White men, unaccustomed to 

 the climate, could not support the fatigue of 

 labour, the heat, and the effect of the noxious 

 air exhaled by the forests. The same winds 

 that are loaded with the perfume of flowers, 

 leaves, and woods, infuse also, as we may say, 

 the germes of dissolution into the vital organs. 

 Destructive fevers carried off not only the ship- 

 carpenters, but the persons who had the ma- 

 nagement of the establishment : and this bay, 

 which the first Spaniards named Golfo Tristo, 

 Melancholy Bay, on account of the mournful 

 and savage aspect of it's coasts, became the 

 grave of European seamen. Our host had the 

 rare good fortune to escape these dangers. At- 



