V Alt YIN G CT.TMATES. 
161 
recent formations. Majestic forests cover this Cordillera of 
the interior, and they are joined by a woody vale to the 
open clayey lands and salt marshes of the environs of 
Cum ana. A few birds of considerable size contribute to 
give a peculiar character to these countries. On the sea- 
shore, and in the gulf, we find flocks of fishing herons, and 
alcatras of a very unwieldy form, which swim, like the swan, 
raising their wings. Nearer the habitation of man, thou- 
sands of galinazo vultures, the jackals of the winged tribe, 
are ever busy in disinterring the carcases of animals.* A 
gulf, containing hot and submarine springs, divides the 
secondary from the primary and schistose rocks of the pe n in . 
sula of Araya. Each of these coasts is washed by a tranquil 
sea, of azure tint, and always gently agitated by a breeze from 
one quarter. A bright clear sky, with a few light clouds at 
sunset, reposes on the ocean, on the treeless peninsula, and 
on the plains of Cumana, while we see the storms accumu- 
late and descend in fertile showers among the inland moun- 
tains. Thus on these coasts, as well as at the foot of the 
Andes, the earth and the sky present the extremes of clear 
weather and fogs, of drought and torrents of rain, of abso- 
1 ute nudity and never-ceasing verdure. 
The analogies which we have just indicated, between the 
sea-coasts of New Andalusia and those of Peru, extend also 
to the recurrence of earthquakes, and the limits which nature 
seems to have prescribed to these phenomena. We have 
ourselves felt very violent shocks at Cumana ; and we learned 
on the spot, the most minute circumstances that accompanied 
the great catastrophe of the 14th December, 1797. 
It is a very generally received opinion on the coasts of 
Cumana, and in the island of Margareta, that the gulf of 
Cariaco owes its existence to a rent of the continent attended 
by an irruption of the sea. The remembrance of that great 
event was preserved among the Indians to the end of the 
fifteenth century ; and it is related that, at the time of the 
third voyage of Christopher Columbus, the natives mentioned 
it as ol very recent date. In 1530, the inhabitants were alarmed 
by new shocks on the coasts of Paria and Cumana. The 
land was inundated by the sea, and the small fort, built by 
James Castellou at New Toledo, f was entirely destroyed. At 
* Baffon, Hist. Nat. des Ciseaux, tom. i., p. lid. 
■f Phis was the first name given to the city of Cumana. — Girolama 
