434 
EXTENDED l’ltOSX’ECT. 
coaled from us the view of the town of Caracas; but we 
distinguished the nearest houses, the villages of Cliacao and 
Petare, the coffee plantations, and the course of the Eio 
Gfuayra, a slender streak of water reflecting a silvery light. 
The narrow band of cultivated ground was pleasingly con- 
trasted with the wild and gloomy aspect of the neighbouring 
mountains. Whilst contemplating these grand scenes, we 
feel little regret that the solitudes of the New World are 
not embellished with the monuments of antiquity. 
But we could not long avail ourselves of the advan- 
tage arising from the position of the Silla, in commanding 
all the neighbouring summits. While we were examining 
with our glasses that part of the sea, the horizon of which 
was clearly defined, and the chain of the mountains of 
Ocumare, behind which begins the unknown world of the 
Orinoco and the Amazon, a thick fog from the plains rose 
tc the elevated regions, first filling the bottom of the valley 
of Caracas. The vapours, illumined from above, presented 
a uniform tint of a milky white. The valley seemed over- 
spread with Water, and looked like an arm of the sea, of 
which the adjacent mountains formed the steep shore. In 
vain wo waited for the slave who carried Eamsdcn’s great 
sextant. Eager to avail myself of the favourable state 
of the sky, I resolved to take a few solar altitudes with a 
sextant by Troughton of two inches radius. The disk of 
the sun was half-concealed by the mist. The difference of 
longitude between the quarter of the Trinidad and the 
eastern peak of the Silla appears scarcely to exceed 
0° 3' 22"*. 
Whilst, seated on the rock, I was determining the dip of 
the needle, I found my hands covered with a species of 
nairy bee, a little smaller than the honey-bee of the north of 
Europe. These insects make their nests in the ground. 
They seldom fly ; and, from the slowness of their move- 
ments, I should have supposed they were hcuumbed by the 
cold of the mountains. The people, in these regions, call 
them anqelilos (little angels), because they very seldom 
sting. They are no doubt of the genus Apis, of the division 
melipones. ’ It has been erroneously affirmed that these 
* The difference of longitude between the Silla and La Guayra, accord- 
ing to Fidalgo, is 0° G / 40 T , 
