442 
MINES OE LOS TEQTJE3 
Next to tlie works at Burin, near Barquisimeto, those of 
the valley of Caracas, and of the mountains near the capital, 
are the most ancient. Francisco Faxardo and his wife 
Isabella, of the nation of the Guaiquerias,* often visited 
the table-land where the capital of Venezuela is now situ- 
ated. They had given this, table-laud the name of Valle 
do San Francisco ; and having seen some bits of gold in 
the hands of the natives, Faxardo succeeded, in the year 
15G0, in discovering the mines of Los Teques,f to ' the 
south-west of Caracas, near the group of the mountains of 
Cocuiza, which separate the valleys of Caracas and Aragua. 
It is thought that in the first of these valleys, near 
Baruta, south of the village of Valle, the natives had made 
some excavations in veins of auriferous quartz; and that, 
when the Spaniards first settled there, and founded the 
town of Caracas, they filled the shafts, which had been dry, 
with water. It is now impossible to ascertain this fact; 
but it is certain that, long before the Conquest, grains of 
gold were a medium of exchange, I do not say generally 
but among certain nations of the New Continent. They 
gave gold for the purchase of pearls ; and it does not appear 
extraordinary, that, after having for a long time picked up 
grains of gold in the rivulets, people who had fixed habita- 
tions, and were devoted to agriculture, should have tried to 
trace the auriferous veins in the superior surface of the soil, 
the mines of Los Tcques could not be peaceably wrought, 
till the defeat of the Cacique Gmaycaypuro, a celebrated 
chief of the Toques, who long contested with the Spaniards 
the possession of the province of Venezuela. 
We have yet to mention a third point to which the 
attention of the Conquistadores was called by indications 
Faxardo ami his wile were the founders of the town of the Collado 
now called Caravalleda. 
f rhiitecn years later, in 15711, Gabriel do Avila, one of the alcaldes of 
the new town of Caracas, renewed the working of these mines, which 
were from that time called the “ Real de Minas de Nuestra Seilora.” 
Probably this same Avila, on account of a few farms which he possessed 
in the mountains adjacent to ha Guayra and Caracas, has occasioned the 
Cumbre to receive the name of Montana de Avila. This name has sub- 
sequently been applied erroneously to the Silla, and to all the chain which 
extends towards cape Codera. 
