DANGEROUS DESCENT. 
283 
our journey we could not escape conversations, in which the 
missionary pertinaciously insisted on the necessity of the 
slave-trade, on the innate wickedness of the blacks, and the 
benefit they derived from then’ state of slavery among the 
Christians ! The mildness of Spanish legislation, compared 
with the Black Code of most other nations that have pos- 
sessions in either of the Indies, cannot be denied. But such 
is the state of the negroes, that justice, far from efficaciously 
protecting them during their lives, cannot even punish acts 
of barbarity which cause their death. 
The road we took across the forest of Catuaro resembled 
the descent of the mountain Santa Maria; here also, the 
most difficult and dangerous places have fanciful names. 
¥e walked as in a narrow furrow, scooped out by torrents, 
and filled with fine tenacious clay. The mules lowered 
their cruppers and slid down the steepest slopes. This 
descent is called Saca Manteca.* There is no danger in 
the descent, owing to the great address of the mules of this 
country. The clay, which renders the soil so slippery, is 
produced by the numerous layers of sandstone and schistose 
clay crossing the bluish grey alpine limestone. This last 
disappears as we draw nearer to Cariaco. When we reached 
the mountain of Meapira, we found it formed in great part 
of a white limestone, filled with fossil remains, and from the 
grains of quartz agglutinated in the mass, it appeared to 
belong to the great formation of the sea-coast breccias. We 
descended this mountain on the strata of the rock, the 
section of which forms steps of unequal height. Farther on, 
going out of the forest, we reached the hill of Buenavista,f 
well deserving the name it bears ; since it commands a view 
of the town of Cariaco, situated in the midst of a vast 
plain filled with plantations, huts, and scattered groups of 
cocoa-palms. To the west of Cariaco extends the wide gulf, 
which a wall of rock separates from the ocean : and towards 
the east are seen, like bluish clouds, the high mountains 
of Paria and Areo. This is one of the most extensive and 
magnificent prospects that can he enjoyed on the coast o{ 
New Andalusia. In the town of Cariaco we found a great 
* Or the Butter- Slope. Manteca in Spanish signifies butter. 
+ Mountain of the Fine Prospect. 
