104 



dian sorcerers ; the leaves of the second have 

 the smell of the real cinnamon of Ceylon*. 

 From Punzera the road leads by Terecen and 

 Nueva Palencia, which was a new colony of 

 Canarians, to the Port of San Juan, situate on 

 the right bank of the river Areo : and it is only 

 by crossing this river in a canoe, that the tra- 

 veller can arrive at the famous petroleum 

 springs (or mineral tar) of Buen Pastor. They 

 were described to us as small wells or funnels, 

 hollowed out by nature in a marshy soil. This 

 phenomenon recalled to us the lake of asphal- 

 tum, or of chapapote, in the island of Trinidad*f~, 

 which is distant from Buen Pastor, in a straight 

 line, only thirty-five sea leagues. 



Having long combated the desire we felt to 

 descend from the Guarapiche to the Golfo Triste, 

 we took the direct road of the mountains. The 

 valleys of Guanaguana and Caripe are separated 

 by a kind of dyke, or calcareous ridge, well 



* Is it the launis cinnamomoides of Mutis } What is that 

 other cinnamon-tree, which the Indians call tuorco, common 

 in the mountains of Tocuyo, and at the sources of the Rio 

 Uchere, the bark of which is mixed with chocolate ? Father 

 Caulin gives the name of curucay to the copaifera officinalis, 

 which yields the balsam of capivi. (Hist, corograf., p. 24 et 

 34. 



f Laguna de la Brea, south-east of the port of Naparima. 

 There is another spring, of asphaltum on the eastern coast of 

 the island, in the bay of Mayaro. 



