TBANQTJILLITT OF NATUHF. 
241 
trunks of the largest trees, giving them in a rough nay 
the shape adapted to the building of ships, and sending 
them every year to the dockyard near Cadiz. White men 
unaccustomed to the climate, could not support the fatigue 
of labour, the heat, and the effect of the noxious air exhaled 
by the forests. The same -winds which are loaded with 
the perfume of flowers, leaves, and woods, infuse also, as 
we may say, the germs of dissolution into the vital organs. 
Instructive fevers carried off not only the ship-carpenters, 
but the persons who had the management of the establish- 
ment ; and this bay, which the early Spaniards named Grolfe 
Triste (Melancholy Bay), on account of the gloomy and 
wild aspect of its coasts, became the grave of European 
seamen. Our host had the rare good fortune to escape these 
dangers Alter haying witnessed the death of a great num- 
ber of his friends, he withdrew from the coast to the moun- 
tains of Cocollar. 
Nothing can be compared to the majestic tranquillity 
which theaspect of the firmament presents in this solitary 
region. When tracing with the eye, at night-fall, the mea'- 
dows which bounded the horizon,— the plain covered with ver- 
dure and gently undulated, we thought we beheld from afar, 
as m the deserts of the Orinoco, the surface of the ocean 
supporting the stany vault of Heaven. The tree under 
which we were seated, the luminous insects flying in the 
air, the constellations which shone in the south'; every 
object seemed to tell us how far we were from our native 
land. If amidst this exotic nature we heard from the 
depth of the valley the tinkling of a bell, or the lowing of 
nerds, the remembrance of our country was awakened sud- 
denly. The sounds were like distant voices resounding from 
beyond the ocean, and with magical power transporting us 
from one hemisphere to the other. Strange mobility 0 f 
the imagination of man, eternal source of our enjoyments 
and our pains 1 J 
— 6 .‘ n t *'° co °l °f the morning to climb the Turimi- 
quiri. 1 his is the name given to the summit of the Cocol- 
lar, which, with the Brigantine, forms one single mass of 
mountain, formerly called by the natives the Sierra de los 
lageres. We travelled along a part of the road on horses, 
which roam about these savannahs ; but some of them are 
TOL. I. u 
