1.14 
THE LAQUSA CIIXCA. 
is recollected that farther eastward, near Cariaco, the hot 
and submarine waters arc sufficiently abundant to change 
the temperature of the gulf at its surface, we cannot doubt 
that the petroleum is the effect of distillation at an im- 
mense depth, issuing from those primitive rocks, beneath 
which lies the focus of all volcanic commotion. 
The Laguna Chica is a cove surroiuided by perpendicular 
mountains, and connected with the gulf of Cariaco only 
by a narrow channel twenty-five fathoms deep. It seems, 
like the fine port of Acapulco, to owe its existence to the 
effect of an earthquake. A beach shows that the sea is 
here receding from the land, as on tlie opposite coast of 
Cumana. The peninsula of Araya, which narrows between 
Cape Mero and Cape las Minas to one thousand four 
hundred toisos, is little more than four thousand toises 
in breadth near the Laguna Chica, reckoning from one 
sea to the other. We had to cross this distance in order 
to find the native alum, and to reach the cape called 
the Punta de Chuparuparu. The road is difficult only be- 
cause no path is traced; and between precipices of some 
depth we were obliged to step over ridges of bare rock, 
the strata of which are much inclined. The princijxal point 
is nearly two hundred and twenty toises high; but the 
mountains, as it often happens in a rocky isthmus, display 
very singular forms. The Paps (tetas) of Chacopata and 
Cariaco, midway between the Laguna Chica and the tow n 
of Cariaco, are peaks, which appear isolated when viewed 
from the platform of the castle of Cumana. The vegetable 
earth in this country is only thirty toises above sea- 
level. Sometimes there is no rain for the space of fifteen 
months ; if, however, a few drops fall immediately after the 
flowering of the melons and gourds, they yield fruit weigh- 
ing from sixty to seventy pounds, notwithstanding the ap- 
parent dryness of the air. I say apparent drpiess, for my 
hygrometric observations prove that the atmosphere of Cu- 
mana and Araya contains nearly nine-tenths of the (quantity 
of watery vapour necessary to its perfect satiuation. 
is this ail’, at once hot and humid, that nourishes those ve- 
getable resciToirs, the cucurbitaccous plants, the agaves and 
raelocactuses half-buried in the sand. Wiien we visited the 
peninsula the preceding year, there was a great scarcity 
