RETREAT OF THE WATER. 
7 
Cocuyza to those of Torito and Nirgua, and from La Sierra 
de Mariara to the chain of Guigue, of Guacimo, and La 
Palma, was tilled with water. Everywhere the form of the 
promontories, and their steep declivities, seem to indicate 
the shore often alpino lake, similar to those of Styria and 
Tyrol. The same little helicites, the same valvatm, which now 
live in the lake of Valencia, are found in layers of three or 
four feet thick as far inland as Turmero and La Concesion 
near La Victoria. These facts undoubtedly prove a retreat 
of the waters; but nothing indicates that this retreat has 
continued from a very remote period to our days. The 
valleys of Aragua are among the portions of Venezuela most 
anciently peopled; and yet there is no mention in Oviedo, 
or any other old chronicler, of a sensible diminution of the 
lake. Must we suppose, that this phenomenon escaped 
their observation,, at a time when the Indians far exceeded 
the white population, and when the banks of the lake were 
.ess inhabited P Within half a century, and particularly 
within these thirty years, the natural desiccation of this 
great basin has excited general attention. We find vast 
tracts of land which were formerly inundated, now dry, and 
already cultivated with plantains, sugar-canes, or cotton. 
Wherever a hut is erected on the bank of the lake, we see 
* if- T 0re recedill S fr° m year to year. We discover islands, 
which, in consequence of the retreat of the waters, are just 
beginning to he joined to the continent, as for instance the 
rocky island of Culebra, in the direction of Guigue ; other 
isiands already form promontories, as the Morro, between 
Guigue and LNueva Valencia, and La Cabrera, south-east of 
Mariara; others again are now rising in the islands them- 
selves like scattered hills. Among these last, so easily 
recognized at a distance, some are onlv a quarter of a mile, 
others a league from the present shore." I may cite as the 
most remarkaDle three granite islands, thirty or forty toises 
ign, on the road from the Hacienda de Cura to Aguas 
Calientes ; and at the western extremity of the lake, the 
oerrito de Don Pedro, Mote, and Caratapona. On visiting 
wo islands * entirely surrounded by water, we found in the 
n p ^ ' u ra an| t Cabo Blanco. The promontory of Cabrera has 
co "" e « e ;l with the shore ever since the year 1750 or 1760 by a little 
y> which bears the name of Port&cbuelo. 
