6 
COMMEKCE OP ANGOSTURA. 
the crocodile, and to escape from the conflict ot the 
elements. 
The town of Angostura, in the early years of its founda- 
tion, had no direct communication ■with the mother-country. 
The inhabitants were contented ■with carrying on a trifling 
contraband trade in dried meat and tobacco with the West 
India Islands, and with the Dutch colony of Essequibo, by 
the Eio Carony. Neither wine, oil, nor flour, three articles 
of importation the most sought after, was received directly 
from Spain. Some mercliants, in 1771, sent the first schooner 
to Cadiz; and since that period a direct exchange of com- 
modities with the ports of Andalusia and Catalonia has 
become extremely active. The population of Angostura,* 
after having been a long time languishing, has much in- 
creased since 1785. At the time of my abode in Guiana, 
however, it was far from being equal to that of Stabroek, the 
nearest English to^wn. The mouths of the Orinoco have an 
advantage over every other part in Terra Pirma. They 
afford the most prompt communications with the Penuisula. 
The voyage from Cadiz to Punta Barima is performed some- 
times in eighteen or twenty days. The return to Europe 
takes from thirty to thirty-five days. These mouths being 
placed to windward of all the islands, the vessels of Angos- 
tura can maintain a more advantageous commerce with the 
West Indies than La Guayra and Porto CabeUo. The mer- 
chants of Caracas, therefore, have been always jealous of the 
progress of industry in Spanish Guiana ; and Caracas having 
been hitherto the seat of the supreme government, the port 
of Angostura has been treated witli still less favour than the 
ports of Cumana and Nueva Barcelona. With respect to 
the inland trade, the most active is that of the province of 
Tarinas, which sends mules, cacao, indigo, cotton, and sugar 
to Angostura ; and in return receives generos, that is, the 
* Angoetara, or Santo Thome de la Nueva Guayana, in 1768, had 
only 500 inhabitants. (Cauluiy p. 63.) They were numbered in 1780, and 
the result was 1,513 (455 Whites, 449 Blacks, 363 Jlulattoes and 
Zamboes, and 246 Indians). The population in the year 1789, rose to 
4,590; and in 1800, to 6,600 souls. {Official LisfSi MS.) The capital 
of the English colony of Demerara, the town of Stabroek, tlie name of 
v^hich is scarcely known in Europe, is only fifty leagues distant, south* 
east of the mouths of the Orinoco. It contains, according to Bolingbroke^ 
nearly 10,000 inhabitants. 
