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puted whether the port lie to the East or to the 

 West of the town, with which the communica- 

 tions are the most frequent. The inhabitants 

 believe, that Porto-Cabello is North-North-West 

 from Nueva Valencia ; and indeed my observa- 

 tions give a longitude of three or four minutes 

 more toward the West. Mr. Fidalgo fin,ds a 

 difference toward the East *. 



We were received with the utmost kindness 

 in the house of a French physician, Mr. Juliac, 

 who had studied with much advantage, at 

 Montpellier. His small house contained a col- 

 lection of things the most various, but which 

 were all calculated to interest travellers. We 

 found works of literature and natural history ; 

 notes on meteorology ; skins of the jaguar and 

 of large aquatic serpents ; live animals, monkeys, 

 armadilloes, and birds. Our host was principal 

 surgeon to the royal hospital of Porto-Cabello, 

 and celebrated in the country for his profound 

 study of the yellow fever. During a period of 

 seven years, he had seen six or eight thousand 

 persons enter the hospitals attacked by this 

 cruel malady. He had observed the ravages, 

 that the epidemic caused in Admiral Ariztiza- 

 bal's fleet, in 1793. That fleet lost nearly the 

 third of it's men ; for the sailors were almost all 

 unseasoned Europeans, and held an unrestrained 



* See Introd. to my Observ. Ast. } vol. \, p. xli. 



