271 



native city in a magic lantern, when we are at a 

 distance of two thousand leagues from it ! 



An apothecary, who had been ruined by an 

 unhappy propensity for working of mines, ac- 

 companied us in our excursion to the Serro de 

 Chacas, very rich in auriferous pyrites. , We 

 continued to descend the southern declivity of 

 the Cordillera of the coast, in which the plains 

 of Aragua form a longitudinal valley. We 

 passed a part of the night of the 11th at the vil- 

 lage of San Juan, remarkable for it's thermal 

 waters; and the singular form of two neighbour- 

 ing mountains, called the Morros of San Juan. 

 These form slender peaks, that rise from a wall 

 of rocks with a very extensive basis. The wall 

 is perpendicular, and resembles the Devils Wall^ 

 which surrounds a part of the group of moun- 

 tains in the Hartz *. These being perceived 

 from afar in the Llanos, affect the imagination 

 of the inhabitants of the plain, who are not ac- 

 customed to the least unequal ground, and the 

 height of the peaks is singularly exaggerated 

 by them. They were described to us as being 

 placed in the middle of the steppes, which they 

 in reality bound toward the North, far beyond a 

 range of hills called La Galera. Judging from 

 angles taken at a distance of two miles, these 

 hills are scarcely more than a hundred and fifty- 



* Die Teufels Maner, near Wernigerode in Germany, 



