75 



granitic. Even before my departure from Eu- 

 rope, I had observed with surprise, that primi- 

 tive blocks were alike wanting in Lombardy, 

 and in the great plain of Bavaria, which appears 

 to be the bottom of an ancient lake, raised 

 two hundred and fifty toises above the level of 

 the ocean. It is bounded on the north by the 

 granites of the Upper Palatinate ; and on the 

 south by Alpine limestone, transition-£//ow.y- 

 chiefer, and the mica-slates of the Tyrol. 



We arrived, July the 23d, at the town of 

 Nueva Barcelona, less fatigued by the heat 

 of the llanos, to which we had been long accus- 

 tomed, than by the winds of sand, which occasion 

 painful chaps in the skin. Seven months be- 

 fore, in going from Cumana to Caraccas, we 

 had rested a few hours at the Morro de Barce- 

 lona, a fortified rock, which, toward the village 

 of Pozuelos, is joined to the continent only by a 

 neck of land. We were received in the most 

 affectionate manner, and with the kindest hos- 

 pitality, in the house of a wealthy merchant of 

 French extraction, don Pedro Lavie. Accused 

 of having given an asylum to the unfortunate 

 Espana, when he was a fugitive on these coasts in 

 1 796, Mr. Lavi6 was arrested by the orders of the 

 Audiencia, and dragged as a prisoner to Carac- 

 cas. The friendship of the governor of Cumana, 

 and the remembrance of the services he had 

 rendered to the dawning industry of those 



