Spanish America, Vol. II (of 2)

The principal ornament of this place is a handsome church, so large that it might well be termed a cathedral; the number of inhabitants of the town is about 8000.

Tulmero is another town in the same fertile valley at six leagues distance west of the latter, and two from Maracay. This town is modern, well built, and the residence of a number of tobacco, coffee, indigo, cacao, &c., planters, but has been peculiarly the abode of the officers appointed to the administration of the tobacco farm; it is embellished with a handsome church and neat private buildings, and is governed by a lieutenant; a vicar also resides here, for the direction of ecclesiastical affairs.

The population is about 8000 souls.

Maracay, forty miles south-west of Caraccas, is also seated in the same rich vale of Aragoa, and is a beautiful new town famous for the excellent chocolate made in its neighbourhood. The inhabitants who are mostly descendants of Biscayan Spaniards, have been computed to amount to 8500, who cultivate indigo, cacao, cotton, coffee and grain.

Valencia in 10° 9' north latitude, and 68° 25' west longitude, sixteen miles south-west of Caraccas, was founded in consequence of Faxardo, one of the conquerors having greatly praised the surrounding country; it was first built by Villacinda in 1555, with the view of establishing a port near the capital; but Alonzo Diaz Moreno afterwards preferred a scite more distant from lake Tacarigua (now Valencia), and he accordingly removed the colony half a league west of the lake to a beautiful plain, where the air was pure and the soil fertile.

The population of this city is said to be about 8000 souls, mostly creoles, of good families, with some Biscayans and Canarians; the streets are wide and well paved, and the houses built like those of Caraccas, but not of stone. This town has a beautiful square, in which the church, a very pretty structure, stands. In 1802 another church was built and dedicated to Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria; and the Franciscans have a monastery which has also a neat church.

The inhabitants were formerly noted for their indolence, but have lately become active and industrious, and the situation of the place is peculiarly favourable for trade, being separated from Puerto Cavello by only ten leagues of good road. Every commodity landed at that port for the consumption of the provinces of the interior passes through Valencia, which necessarily causes much traffic. The adjacent country produces every sort of provision and fruits in great abundance, and the plains feed immense herds of cattle, with sheep, horses and mules, so that its markets are well supplied. Near it is the lake of Valencia, which has been described already.

Valencia, with the towns of Victoria and Barquisimeto, suffered very much from the earthquake which overthrew Caraccas, La Guayra, Merida and the villages of San Felipe and Maiqueta, on the 26th of March, 1812.

Ocumara, though only a village, is celebrated for having a very fine port, the entrance to which has a battery for eight pieces of cannon. Ocumara is five leagues east of Porto Cabello; the port is excellent and well sheltered, with fine moorings. The village is about a league distant from the anchoring place on a small river of the same name, which, after fertilizing a fine valley, enters the sea at the foot of the fort. Between this bay and La Guayra are the bays of Choroni, Puerto, La Cruz, Los Arecifes and Catia, and between Ocumara, or Seinega de Ocumara are the bays of Turiamo, Burburata, and Paranego, from all of which the inhabitants of the coasts export their produce to La Guayra, Porto Cavello, or the West Indies, as each of these afford fine anchoring places for vessels. In the bay of Burburata there is a village, formerly a place of consequence, but principally of note for the number of mules which it exports.

San Carlos was formerly a missionary village, which owes its present beauty to the luxuriancy of the surrounding country; it is twenty-eight leagues south-south-west of Valencia, in 9° 20' north latitude; the climate is very hot, but owing to the prevalence of the north-east wind it is much ameliorated. The inhabitants amount to 9500, composed of Spaniards from the Canaries, and Creoles, and are engaged in rearing cattle, horses and mules, which form their chief riches; the quality of the soil is so good that it gives an exquisite flavour to the fruits, particularly to its oranges, which are celebrated throughout the province.

Indigo and coffee are the chief articles cultivated at San Carlos, and the town is large, handsome, and well laid out.

Araura on the shore of the river Acarigua is north-north-east of Truxillo, in a fertile country, where numerous herds of cattle are reared, and cotton and coffee are cultivated; this town, which was, till lately, a missionary village, contains a fine square, a handsome church, and several streets of well built houses.

Calaboso was also a mission until lately; it was formed into a town for the sake of those Spanish owners who wished to be near their cattle which roam on the vast plains of the same name.

It is situated between the rivers Guarico and Orituco, which unite their waters four or five leagues below the town, and then flow into the Apure.

The number of inhabitants in this new town is 4800, and it has 116 settlements in its jurisdiction, containing 1186 free Indians, 3100 people of colour, and 943 slaves. It is fifty-two leagues south of Caraccas, and about the same distance from the Orinoco, in 8° 40' north latitude.

San Juan del Pao is also inhabited by the proprietors of the cattle on the plains, and consists of a church and several handsome streets on the Pao, which runs into the Orinoco. It contains 5400 souls, and is fifty leagues south-west of Caraccas, in 9° 20' north latitude.

San Luis de Cura, in 9° 45' north latitude, twenty-two leagues south-west of Caraccas, and eight leagues south-east of Lake Valencia, possesses 4000 inhabitants, and a miraculous image of the Virgin, to which votaries are constantly flocking.

St. Sebastian de los Reyes in 9° 54' north latitude, twenty-eight leagues south-south-west of Caraccas, and in a hot climate, contains 3500 souls.

St. Felipe or Cocorota, in a very fertile soil, where cacao, indigo, coffee, cotton and sugar are cultivated, contains 6800 inhabitants, and is well built. It stands in 10° 15' north latitude, 50 leagues west of Caraccas, 15 leagues north-west of Valencia, and seven leagues north-west of Nirgua; which place was built in the early periods of the conquest, on account of its mines; but it is now in a decaying state, and is inhabited only by Sambos, or the race springing from the Indians and negroes; their number amounts to 3200. This town is in 10° south latitude, 48 leagues west of Caraccas.

Besides the above, there are several other smaller towns, and some very large villages in this government, which are too numerous to describe.

The country of Venezuela is not famous for mines of gold or silver, though some gold has occasionally been found in the streams, which rush from the mountains; the pearl fishery of its coasts will be described in treating of the island of Margarita.

THE PROVINCE OF MARACAYBO

Maracaybo, or Maracaibo, surrounds the lake of the same name. It is bounded on the west by Santa Marta, in New Granada; on the east by Coro and Venezuela; on the north by Santa Marta, and the gulf of Maracaybo; and on the south by Merida and Santa Marta. Owing to the great extent of the lake, this province extends but a short distance inland to the east and west, its length being about 100 leagues.

The soil of Maracaybo is unfruitful on the banks of the lake. The east shore is dry and unhealthy, and on the west shore the land does not begin to be fertile for more than twenty-five leagues south of the city. South of the lake the country may vie with the richest lands of South America.

In this province the population is estimated at about 100,000 souls.

It was from the Indian towns built on posts of iron wood on the lake of Maracaybo that the Spaniards gave the country the name of Venezuela, or Little Venice. This country was long unknown after the conquest. Ampues, who was governor at Coro, had engaged all the neighbouring nations of Indians, by his conciliatory measures, to swear allegiance to Spain, when, in 1528, Alfinger and Sailler, who had been sent, with 400 followers, to assume the government, under the authority of the company of the Welsers, landed at Coro. Unfortunately for the Indians, they dispossessed Ampues of his government, and began to search in every direction round the lake for gold; finding that their hopes of suddenly acquiring riches from this source were not likely to be realised, Alfinger took the resolution of penetrating into the interior, to pillage the Indian towns, and make prisoners of as many as he could, in order to sell them for slaves. The Indian villages about the lake were soon destroyed; carnage and havoc spread around; the natives were sold to the merchants from the islands, and the whole province was a scene of horror and devastation. Alfinger did not long survive this inhuman conduct, he met his fate in a valley, six leagues from Pamplona, in Merida, the natives killing him there in a skirmish in 1531.

Two other German agents succeeded him, and continued the same barbarous conduct towards the Indians, which coming to the knowledge of the king of Spain, they were formally dispossessed: but it is asserted that the traces of the crimes they committed are visible to this day. Four villages of Maracaybo were all that escaped, and are yet standing, the iron wood on which they are founded becoming like a mass of stone from the petrifying quality of the water. These villages are situated on the east part of the lake, at unequal distances from each other, and have a church, which is also built in the water on piles, and to which the inhabitants of all the villages resort.

Several small rivers empty themselves into this lake: but as the country is uninhabited, excepting by Indians, and immediately on the shores, nothing is known with accuracy concerning them, the savage Goahiros from La Hacha preventing all access on the western side, and keeping the settlers continually in alarm.

The lake is navigable for vessels of any burden, but this advantage is sometimes rendered useless by a dangerous sand-bank across the narrow entrance, on which vessels drawing twelve feet water will occasionally ground.

Near the borders of the lake, on the west, are the only parts of this province which are cultivated, where, notwithstanding the heat of the climate, and the insalubrity of the air, some whites have fixed their habitations to cultivate cacao, and other plants. These settlers are much scattered, and have a chapel placed in the centre, to which they all occasionally resort.

The climate of the province is in general hot and unhealthy, excepting in the southern parts which border on the snowy mountains of Merida.

Its chief town is the city of Maracaybo, in north latitude 10° 30', and west longitude 71° 46', on the western side of the narrow or strait which leads into the lake at about six leagues from the sea, on a sandy soil, and in a dry hot climate. In July and August the air is so heated, that it seems as if it issued from a furnace: but the most usual preventative for the ill effects of this abominable climate is constant bathing in the lake. Thunderstorms, hurricanes, and earthquakes, are common in this country.

The city is built with some taste, but disfigured by having most of its houses covered with reeds. The principal part of the town is on the shore of a small gulf, a league in length, which extends towards the broad part of the lake on the south, and the other part is built on the neck to the north, where the lake is only three leagues in width. The place where the town begins is named Maracaybo Point; that where the gulf commences Aricta Point; opposite to which is Point Sta. Lucia.

Maracaybo was founded in 1571 by Alonzo Pacheco, an inhabitant of Truxillo, who gave it the name of New Zamora. It contains one parish church, a chapel of ease, and a convent of Franciscans and is supplied with water from the lake, which at times is brackish near this place, when the strong breezes, especially in March, impregnate it with salt from the spray of the sea.

The population consists of about 24,000 persons, owing to the number of emigrants who fled hither from St. Domingo. The great families, or people of rank, are about thirty. The whites, or Europeans and Creoles, apply themselves to agriculture, commerce, the fisheries and navigation, and live very comfortably. The slaves and freemen are composed of negroes and mulattoes, who exercise all the laborious trades and handicrafts, and the number of slaves is about 5000.

The best schooners which sail on the Spanish Main are built at this city, which possesses peculiar advantages for ship-building. Though the air is so hot, and the land so arid, yet the natives enjoy a good state of health, and live to an old age, owing, most probably, to the custom of frequent ablutions, as the children may be said to live in the water, and most of the people pass their time in navigating the lake. The young people are celebrated for their wit and ingenuity: but the charge of a want of probity in their dealings with strangers is brought against these people. The females are sprightly and modest, and are extremely fond of music; the notes of the harp resounding through the streets of an evening. The great object of veneration at Maracaybo is an image of the Virgin, denominated Chiquinquira, the name of a village in New Granada, from whence she was brought.

A temple was dedicated to her worship in 1586, and immediately a fountain rose up under the altar where she was placed; miraculous virtues were communicated to its waters, and this image has procured a lasting reputation in the surrounding country.

The mariners of the lake invoke this holy shrine in all their undertakings, and it is placed in the chapel of ease of St. Juan de Dios. Three forts protect the harbour of Maracaybo. This place was plundered by Michael de Basco, and Francis Lolonois, in 1667, when they sailed up the gulf of Venezuela, with eight ships and 660 men; they entered the strait, stormed and took the fort of La Barra which defended it, and putting to death the garrison consisting of 250 men, they then advanced to Maracaybo; on their arrival there, the inhabitants abandoned the city, and removed their most valuable goods.

Here they remained a fortnight reveling in drunkenness and debauchery, and then proceeded to Gibraltar, which the people of Maracaybo had newly fortified; after a severe contest, this place was also taken, but proved a barren triumph, which so exasperated the Buccaneers, that they set fire to the place, and threatened Maracaybo with the same fate; the poor inhabitants collected as much property as they could, and ransomed the city, but not before it had been gutted of every thing.

Soon after this, Henry Morgan a Welsh adventurer attacked Porto Bello, and succeeding in his expedition, fitted out in 1669, a fleet of fifteen vessels, manned with 960 men, with which he sailed to Maracaybo, silenced the fort of the Strait, reached the city, and found it deserted; but following the people to the woods, he discovered their treasures; he then sailed to Gibraltar, which was desolate; while engaged in torturing the people he had made prisoners, in order to make them produce their hidden treasures, he learnt that three Spanish men of war, had arrived at the entrance of the lake. Summoning all the impudence he was master of, Morgan sent an order to the commander of the vessels to ransom the city. The answer was, as might be expected, a denial, and direction to surrender himself immediately; to this he replied, that if the admiral would not allow him to pass, he would find means to do so; accordingly dividing his plunder among his vessels, that each might have a share to defend, he sent a fire-ship into the enemy's fleet, and having burnt two, and captured a third ship, he made a show of landing men to attack the fort, which being thus put off its guard, Morgan passed the bar with his whole armament, without sustaining the slightest damage.

Maracaybo is the seat of the governor of the province, who enjoys the same salary, and exercises the same authority as the governor of Cumana. This district was at one time under the jurisdiction of the governor of Merida, but since that province has been annexed to the viceroyalty of New Granada, and since the province of Varinas has been formed out of part of Venezuela and part of Maracaybo, the latter has been made a distinct government.

On the east side of Maracaybo Lake are several small towns, of which Paraute, Las Barbacoas, Gibraltar, and San Pedro, are the most considerable places.

Paraute is eighty miles south of Coro, and is a small place on the banks of the lake.

Las Barbacoas is situated a short distance farther south, and seventy-five miles south of Coro.

Gibraltar, in 10° 4' north latitude, and 67° 36' west longitude, is 100 miles south-east of Maracaybo, on the eastern banks of the lake; it is a very old town, famous for the production of a particular sort of tobacco, called tobacco of Maracaybo, from which the best sort of snuff, vulgarly called Maccabaw, is made.

The country in the vicinity of this town is well watered with rivers, and consequently grows excellent cacao. Cedars of immense size are found in its woods, but the climate is very hot and insalubrious, especially during the rainy season, when the merchants and planters retire to Maracaybo or Merida.

San Pedro is a short distance south of Gibraltar, and also on the banks of the lake. The other places being mere villages, or scattered plantations, are not worth mentioning.

Truxillo, on the confines of Merida, in 8° 40' north latitude, twenty leagues north of Merida, 105 south-west of Caraccas, and thirty west of Guanara, is in a country producing sugar, cacao, indigo, coffee, &c., and in which wheat is cultivated in great abundance, and forms the chief article of the commerce of the inhabitants, who also carry the above fruits, sweetmeats, cheese, woollens, &c. to Maracaybo, by means of the lake, which is only twenty-five leagues distant, but the route to which lies across the desert and unhealthy plains of Llonay.

The inhabitants of Truxillo are an active and an industrious race; and at present amount to 7600 souls, though the city, which is one of the oldest on the continent, was formerly also one of the best peopled, until it was destroyed and sacked by Francis Gramont, the Buccaneer, who, in 1678, traversed the province of Venezuela, with a small band of followers, attracted by the riches of this place.

The scite of Truxillo is between two mountains, and it contains a good parish church, a chapel of ease, two monasteries, a convent of Dominican nuns, and an hospital.

PROVINCE OF VARINAS

Varinas, the next province of Caraccas, divides the territories of this government from those of the kingdom of New Granada.

It is bounded on the north by the provinces of Maracaybo and Venezuela, east by the plains of Caraccas and the Orinoco, west by Merida and New Granada, and south by Juan de los Llanos, or Casanare.

This province was formed in the year 1787, by separating the southern districts of Venezuela and Maracaybo, when it was also constituted a distinct government. The chief has the title of governor, and his functions are the same as those of Cumana and Maracaybo, in the civil, military and ecclesiastical departments.

In order to defend this new province, a militia was raised in 1803, and a garrison allotted to the city of Varinas, consisting of seventy-seven men. The chief products of this extensive country are tobacco, well known in the European markets, and cattle, sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo; and all the fruits of the torrid zone, find here a soil adapted to each; and their qualities are unrivalled.

The commodities of Varinas are exported chiefly by water to Guiana; the place of embarkation being at a spot called Tocunos, five leagues below the city.

The most remarkable features of this country are the extensive plains, of which it is mostly composed, and which are covered with a luxuriant herbage, feeding innumerable herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and droves of mules and horses; these are either used in the province, or exported by means of the Great Orinoco.

Varinas is intersected by numerous large and navigable rivers, which occasionally inundate and fertilize its plains. Of these, the Apure, the Portuguesa, the Guanarito, the Bocono, Guanapalo, the Arauca, the Capanaparo, the Sinaruco, and the Meta, are the most noted.

The Apure rises in one of the ridges that diverge from the eastern branch of the Andes in New Granada, in the province of Santa Fé; its length is 170 leagues, of which forty are from north-east to south-east, and the rest from west to east, where it joins the Orinoco by a number of mouths, after having received many very fine rivers, which will one day serve to render the carrying on of the trade from the eastern district of New Granada, and the countries bordering on the Atlantic extremely easy. These rivers are the Tinaco, San Carlos, Cojeda, Agua Blanca, Acarigua, Areyaruo, Hospicia, Abaria, Portuguesa, Guanare, Tucapido, Bocono, Masparro, La Yuca, the Santo Domingo, Paguay, Tisnados, &c., which all come either from the mountains of Granada, or those of Venezuela, and mingle their waters with the Apure, in the immense plains of Varinas.

The Santo Domingo, and Portuguesa, are the largest of these streams, almost the whole of which unite above Santiago, and form a great body of water, which enters the Apure twelve leagues below that place, and twenty leagues north of the Orinoco. This immense quantity of water gives such an impulse to the Apure, that it forces the Orinoco before it for the space of four miles, although the latter river is there a league in width. The shock of the meeting of these two noble rivers is so great, that it occasions a great agitation in the middle of the Orinoco, forming dreadful eddies and whirlpools, at which the most dextrous Indians shudder. For the space of three leagues after the stream of the greater river has regained its force, the waters of the Apure are still distinguishable by their bright and crystal appearance, after which they are lost in the muddy current of the Orinoco. The exportation of cattle by way of Guiana takes place along the banks of these two rivers, on account of the excellent pasturage which they every where afford. All the traders of the eastern portion of Caraccas, are induced by the easy means of conveyance afforded by so many confluent streams, to send their coffee, cotton and indigo to Guiana, instead of sending them on the backs of mules to Caraccas, or Porto Cavello, and traveling 300 miles in a country often almost impassable, from the inundations of the rivers.

The Arauca is a river nearly as large as the Apure, and which rises in the mountains of Santa Fé, a short distance south of the sources of the latter, with which it holds a parallel course, through a country inundated by the Apure, and communicates with it near the Orinoco by several branches before it enters that river, thus forming some large and fertile islands.

The Rio Capanaparo rises in the marshy country south of the Arauca, and enters the Orinoco, south of the latter river by two mouths, at some distance from each other.

South of this is another named the Sinaruco, which also rises in the marshes, and receives an accession to its waters from the overflowings of the Apure and the Arauca, entering the Orinoco between the Capanaparo and the Meta.

The Meta is a noble river, which rises in the mountain ridge opposite to Santa Fé de Bogota, and flowing through the province of Juan de los Llanos, and the district of Casanare, it receives many other large rivers, and enters the Orinoco, thirty leagues below the cataracts of Ature, and 125 leagues from Santo Tomé of Guiana. The Meta receives the Pachiquiaro, the Upia, the Cravo, and the Pauto in Juan de los Llanos, and the Ariporo, the Chire, and the Casanare (a fine river into which flow several others) in the province or district of Casanare. The Meta also receives several smaller streams in Varinas, and seems destined to form vast commercial relations between the kingdom of New Granada and the government of Caraccas.