530 



1560, in discovering the mines of Los Teques*, 

 to the south-west of Caraccas, near the group 

 of the mountain of Cocuiza, which separate the 

 valleys of Caraccas and Aragua. It is thought, 

 that in the first of these valleys, near Baruta 

 (to the south of the village of Valle) ; the natives 

 had made some excavations in veins of auri- 

 ferous quartz • and that, when the Spaniards 

 first settled there, and founded the town of 

 Caraccas, they filled the shafts which had been 

 dry, with water. It is now impossible to verify 

 this fact ; but it is certain, that, long before the 

 Conquest, grains of gold were a medium of 

 exchange, I do not say generally, but among 

 certain nations of the New Continent^. They 

 gave gold to purchase pearls ; and it does not 

 appear extraordinary, that, after having for a 

 long time picked up grains of gold in the rivu- 

 lets, nations enjoying fixed habitations, and de- 



* Thirteen years later, in L573, Gabriel de Avila, one of 

 the alcades of the new town of Caraccas, began anevT the 

 working of these mines, which were from that time called 

 the Real de Minas de Nuestra Senora. Perhaps this same 

 Avila, on account of a few farms which he possessed in the 

 mountains adjacent to La Guayra and Caraccas, has occa- 

 sioned the Cumbre to receive the name of Montana de Avila, 

 This name has subsequently been applied erroneously to the 

 Silla, and to all the chain which extends toward Cape Codera, 

 Oviedo, p. 298 and 324. 



+ Petrus Martyr, p, 91. 



