SCENERY OF THE COAST. 
375 
short, and often broke one upon another. The sea ran the 
higher, owing to the wind being contrary to the current, til! 
after midnight. The general motion of the waters within 
the tropics towards the west is felt strongly on the coast 
during two-thirds of the year. In the mouths of September, 
October, and November, the current often Hows eastward for 
fifteen or twenty days in succession; and vessels on their 
way from Guayra to Porto Cabello have sometimes been 
unable to stem" the current which runs from west to east, 
although they have had the wind astern. The cause of these 
anomalies is not yet discovered. The pilots think they are 
the effect of gales of wind from the north-west in the gulf of 
Mexico. 
On the 21st of November, at sunrise, we were to the 
west of Cape Codera, opposite Curuao. The coast is rocky 
and veiy elevated, the scenery at once wild and picturesque. 
“We were sufficiently near land to distinguish scattered huts 
surrounded by cocoa-trees, and masses of vegetation, which 
stood out from the dark ground of the rocks. The moun- 
tains are everywhere perpendicular, and three or four thou- 
sand feet high ; their sides cast broad and deep shadows 
upon the humid land, which stretches out to the sea, glowing 
with the freshest verdure. This shore produces most of 
those fruits of the hot regions, which are seen in such great 
abundance in the markets of the Caracas. The fields cul- 
tivated with sugar-cane and maize, between Camburi and 
Niguatar, stretch through narrow valleys, looking like cre- 
vices or clefts in the rocks : and penetrated by the rays of 
the sun, then above the horizon, they presented the most 
singular contrasts of light and shade. 
The mountain of Niguatar and the Silla of Caracas are 
the loftiest summits of tins littoral chain. The first almost 
reaches the height of Canigou ; it seems as if the Pyrenees or 
the Alps, stripped of their snows, had risen from the bosom 
of the ocean ; so much more stupendous do mountains 
appear when viewed for the first time from the sea. Near 
Caravalleda, the cultivated lands enlarge ; _ we find hills 
with gentle declivities, and the vegetatbn rises to a great 
height. The sugar-cane is here cultivated, and the monks 
of La Merced have a plantation with two hundred slaves. 
This spot was formerly extremely subject to fevei ; and it is 
