77 



quistador, Juan Urpin, in 1637. A fruitless at- 

 tempt was then made, to give the whole province 

 the name of New Catalonia. As our maps often 

 mark two towns, Barcelona and Cumanagoto, 

 instead of one, and the two names are consider- 

 ed as synonimous, it may be useful to clear up 

 the cause of this error. Anciently at the mouth 

 of the Rio Nevers, there was an Indian town, 

 built in 1588 by Lucas Faxardo, and named 

 San Cristoval de los Cumanagotos. This town 

 was peopled solely by natives who came from 

 the saltworks of Apaicuare. In 1637, Urpin 

 founded, two leagues farther inland, the Spanish 

 town of Nueva Barcelona, which he peopled 

 with some of the inhabitants of Cumanagoto 

 and many Catalonians. For thirty-four years 

 quarrels were incessantly arising between the 

 wo neighbouring communities, till 1671, when 

 the governor Angulo succeeded in persuading 

 them, to unite on a third spot, where the town 

 of Barcelona now stands ; the latitude of which, 

 according to my observations *, is 10° &• 52". 



* Plaza Mayor. This is only the result of six circumme- 

 ridian heights of Canopus, taken in the same night. Las 

 Memorias d'Espinosa (vol. ii, p. 80) give 10° 9' 6". Mr. Fer- 

 rer found (Conn, des Terns, 1817, p. 322) 10° 8' 24. I 

 know not where these observations were made, but I believe 

 they give the latitude too far north. For, at Caraccas, Guy- 

 ana, and the Havannah, my observations differed only a few 

 seconds from those of Mr. Ferrer. The difference of latitude 

 between the town and the Motto appeared to me to be 



