TILLAGE OF GUIGUE. 
71 
larynx must necessarily impart to the water poured into it 
the virtue of curing affections of the lungs. Such is the 
science of the vulgar, which sometimes resembles that of the 
ancients. 
We passed the night at the village of Guigue, the latitude 
of which I found by observations of Canopus to be 10° 4' 
11 . The village, surrounded with the richest cultivation, 
is only a thousand toises distant from the lake of Tacarigua. 
VVe lodged with an old sergeant, a native of Murcia, a man 
°* V’fy 01 'if?iual character. To prove to us that he had 
studied among the Jesuits, he recited the history of the 
creation of the world in Latin. He knew the names of 
Augustus, Tiberius, and Diocletian ; and while enjoying the 
agreeable coolness of the nights in an enclosure planted with 
bananas, lie employed himself in reading all that related to 
the courts of the Homan emperors. He inuuired of us with 
earnestness tor a remedy for the gout, from which he suffered 
severely. ■ I know,” said he, “ a Zambo of Valencia, a 
lamous cimoso, who could cure me ; but the Zambo would 
expect to he treated with attentions which I cannot pay to 
a man oi his colour, and I prefer remaining as I am.” 
On leaving Guigue we began to ascend the chain of 
mountains, extending on the south of the lake towards 
txuacimo and La Palma. Prom the top of a table-land at 
three imndred and twenty toises of elevation, we saw for the 
last time the valleys of Aragua. The gneiss appeared unco- 
vered, presenting the same direction of strata, and the same 
dip towards the north-west. Veins of quartz, that travels' 
the gneiss, are auriferous ; and hence the neighbouring 
ravine bears the name of Quebrada del Oro. We heard with 
surprise at every step the name of “ravine of gold,” in a 
country where only one single mine of copper is wrought. 
We travelled five leagues to the village of Maria Magdalena, 
and two eagues more to the Villa de Cura. It was Sunday, 
ai1 a hi j 1 V . £ e Maria Magdalena the inhabitants were 
assembled before the church. They wanted to force our 
j 11 , °te(‘rs to stop and hear mass. We resolved to remain; 
u , alter a long altercation, the muleteers pursued their 
wa V f may observe, that this is the only dispute in whicli 
we became engaged from such a cause. Very erroneous ideas 
