63 



dity of the coast . In the interior of the province 

 we meet with spaces of land, two or three 

 leagues square, quite destitute of springs. The 

 sugar-cane, indigo, and coffee, can grow only in 

 places where running waters can be made to 

 supply the artificial irrigations necessary during 

 very dry weather. The first colonists very im- 

 prudently destroyed the forests. Evaporation is 

 enormous on a stony soil surrounded with rocks, 

 that radiate heat on every side. The mountains 

 of the coast appear like a wall, extending East 

 and West from Cape Codera toward Point 

 Tucacas. They prevent the humid air of the 

 shore, those inferior strata of the atmosphere 

 resting immediately on the sea, and dissolving 

 the largest proportion of water, from penetrating 

 to the inlands. There are few apertures, few 

 ravines, which, like those of Catia, or of Tipe *, 

 lead from the coast to the high longitudinal 

 valleys. No bed of a great river, no gulf allow- 

 ing the sea to flow into the lands, spreads mois- 

 ture by an abundant evaporation. In the eighth 

 and tenth degrees of latitude, in regions where 

 the clouds do not glide along the soil, many 

 trees are stripped of their leaves in the months 

 of January and February ; not on account of 

 the sinking of the temperature, as in Europe, 

 but because the air, at this season, the farthest 



* Chap, xii, vol. iii, p. 455 ; and chap, xiii, p. 533, 



