Spanish America, Vol. II (of 2). Bonnycastle Richard Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ