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peach-trees loaded with flowers. This village, 

 the Valle, and the banks of the Macarao, fur- 

 nish great abundance of peaches, quinces, and 

 other Eu ropean fruits for the market of Caraccas. 

 Between Antimano and Ajuntas we crossed the 

 Rio Guayra seventeen times. The road is very 

 fatiguing ; yet, instead of constituting a new 

 one, it would perhaps be better, to change the 

 bed of the river, which loses a great quantity of 

 water by the combined effects of nitration and 

 evaporation. Each sinuosity forms a marsh 

 more or less extensive. This loss of water is to 

 be regretted in a province, the whole cultivated 

 region of which, with the exception of the land 

 between the sea and the littoral chain of Ma- 

 riara and Niguatar, is extremely dry. The 

 rains are much less frequent and less violent in 

 this place, than in the interior of New Andalu- 

 *sia, at Cumanacoa, and on the banks of the 

 Guarapiche. Many of the mountains of Ca- 

 raccas enter the region of the clouds ; but the 

 strata of primitive rocks dip at an angle of 

 70° or 80°, and generally toward the North- 

 West, so that the waters are either lost in ' the 

 interior of the Earth, or gush out in copious 

 springs, not toward the South, but to the North 

 of the mountains of the coast of Niguatar, Avi- 

 la, and Mariara. The rising of the gneiss and 

 mica-slate strata toward the South appears to 

 me, to explain in great part the extreme humi- 



