2 
AITGOSTUBA.. 
Dutch, under the command of Captain Adrian Janson, in 
1579. The second, founded by Antonio de Berrio in 1591, 
near twelve leagues east of the mouth of the Carony , made 
a courageous resistance to Sir Walter Raleigh, whom the 
Spanish writers of the conquest know only by the name of 
the pirate Recdi. The third town, now the capital of the 
province, is iifty leagues west of tlie confluence of the 
Carony. It was begun in 1764, under the Governor Don 
Joacqiiin Moreno de Mendoza, and is distinguished in the 
public documents from the second town, vulgarly called the 
fortress (el castillo, las fortalezas), or Old Guayana (Vieja 
Guayana), by the name of Santo Thome de la Mieva 
Ouayana. This name being very long, that of Angostura* 
(the strait) has been commonly substituted for it. 
Angostura, the longitude and latitude of which I have 
already indicated from astronomical observations, stands at 
the foot of a hill of amphibolic schist t bare of vegetation. 
The streets are regular, and lor the most part parallel with 
the course of the river. Several of the houses are built on 
the bare rock; and here, as at Cariehana, and in many 
other parts of the missions, the action of black and strong 
strata, when strongly heated by the rays ot the sun upon 
the atmosphere, is considered injurious to health. I think 
the small pools of stagnant water (lagunas y anegadizos), 
which extend behind the town in the direction of south-east, 
are more to be feared. The houses of Angostura are lofty 
and convenient ; they are for the most part built of stone; 
which proves that the inhabitants have but little dread of 
earthquakes. But unhappily this security is not founded 
on induction from any precise data. It is true, that the 
shore of Nueva Andalusia sometimes undergoes very violent 
shocks, without the commotion being propagated across the 
Llanos. The fatal catastrophe of Cumana, on the 4th of 
February, 1797, was not felt at Angostura; but in the great 
earthquake of 1766, which destroyed the same city, the 
• Europe has learnt the existence of the town of Angostura by the trade 
carried on by the Catalonians in the Carony bark, which is the beneficial 
bark of the Bonplanda trifoliata. This bark, coining from Nueva 
Guiana, was called cmteaa or cascarilla del Angostura (Cortex 
Angostura). Botanists so little guessed the origin of this geographical 
denomination that they began by writing Augustura, and then Augusta. 
t Hornblendschiefer. 
