136 



\ 



that at a small distance from the shore, thg 

 lead finds no bottom ; and that large floating 

 islands cover the surface of the waters, which 

 are constantly agitated by the winds*. No 

 importance can be attached to estimations, 

 which, without being founded on any measure- 

 ment, are expressed in leagues, leguas, reckoned 

 in the colonies at three thousand, five thousand, 

 and six thousand six hundred and fifty varas -f~. 

 What is worthy of our attention in the works of 

 a man, who must so often have passed over the 

 valleys of Aragua, is the assertion, that the town 

 of Nueva Valencia de elRey was built in 1555, 

 at the distance of half a league from the lake % ; 

 and that the proportion between the length of 



* Oviedo, p. 125. 



t Seamen being the first, and for a long time the only 

 persons, who introduced into the Spanish colonies any precise 

 ideas on the astronomical position and distances of places, it 

 was the legua nautica of 6650 varas, or of 2854 toises, 20 in 

 a degree, that was originally used in Mexico and South 

 America ; but this legua nautica has been gradually reduced 

 to one half or one third, on account of the slowness of tra- 

 velling across steep mountains, or dry and burning plains. 

 The common people measure only time directly ; and then, 

 by arbitrary hypotheses, infer from the time the space of 

 ground travelled over. In the course of my geographical 

 researches, I have had frequent opportunities of examining 

 the real value of leagues, by comparing the itinerary distances 

 between points lying under the same meridian with the 

 difference of latitudes, 

 X Oviedo, p. 140. 



