218 
PEAK OF COCUTZA. 
dred toises of height; and when examining the question 
whether we may consider the stratum of clouds that enve- 
lops the mountains as a horizontal continuation of the 
stratum which we see immediately above us in the plains. 
The Orinoco, Cull of islands, begins to divide itself into 
several branches, of which the most western remain dry 
during the months of January aud February. The total 
breadth of the river exceeds two thousand five hundred of 
three thousand toises. "We perceived to the East, opposite 
the island of Javanavo, the mouth of the Cano Aujacoa- 
Between this Cano and the Bio Paruasi or Paruati, the 
country becomes more and more woody. A solitary rock, 
of extremely picturesque aspect, rises in the midst of a 
forest of palm-trees, not far from the Orinoco. It is a 
pillar of granite, a prismatic mass, the bare aud steep sides 
of which attain nearly two hundred feet in height. Its 
point, which overtops the highest trees of the forest, b 
terminated by a shelf of rock with a horizontal and smooth 
surface. Other trees crown this summit, which the mis- 
sionaries call the peak, or Mogote cle Cocuyza. This monu- 
ment of nature, iu its simple grandeur recalls to mind the 
Cyclopean remains of antiquity. Its strongly-marked out- 
lines, and the group of trees and shrubs by which it i® 
crowned, stand out from the azure of the sky. It seems a 
forest rising above a forest. 
Further on, near the mouth of the Paruasi, the Orinoco 
narrows. On the east is perceived a mountain with a hare 
top, projecting like a promontory. It is nearly three hun- 
dred feet high, aud served as a fortress for the Jesuit®- 
They had constructed there a small fort, with three batteries 
of cannon, and it was constantly occupied by a military 
detachment. Wo saw the cannon dismounted, and half- 
buried in the sand, at Carichana and at Atures. This fort 0» 
the Jesuits has been destroyed since the dissolution of their 
society ; but the place is still called El Castillo. I find if 
set down, in a manuscript map, lately completed at Caraca® 
by a member of the secular clergy, under the denomination 
of “Trincliera del despotismo monacal.” * 
The garrison which the Jesuits maintained on this roc** 
was not intended merely to protect the Mission? again®' 
* Intrencliment of monachal despotism. 
