Equinoctial Regions of America, vol 3 | Page 2

last only were performed
by Raleigh in person. This celebrated man was beheaded on October
the 29th, 1618. It is therefore the second town of Santo Tomas, now
called Vieja Guyana, which existed in the time of Raleigh.) The second,
founded by Antonio de Berrio in 1591, near twelve leagues east of the
mouth of the Carony, made a courageous resistance to Sir Walter
Raleigh, whom the Spanish writers of the conquest know only by the
name of the pirate Reali. The third town, now the capital of the

province, is fifty leagues west of the confluence of the Carony. It was
begun in 1764, under the Governor Don Joacquin Moreno de Mendoza,
and is distinguished in the public documents from the second town,
vulgarly called the fortress (el castillo, las fortalezas), or Old Guayana
(Vieja Guayana), by the name of Santo Thome de la Nueva Guayana.
This name being very long, that of Angostura* (the strait) has been
commonly substituted for it. (* Europe has learnt the existence of the
town of Angostura by the trade carried on by the Catalonians in the
Carony bark, which is the beneficial bark of the Bonplanda trifoliata.
This bark, coming from Nueva Guiana, was called corteza or cascarilla
del Angostura (Cortex Angosturae). Botanists so little guessed the
origin of this geographical denomination that they began by writing
Augustura, and then Augusta.)
Angostura, the longitude and latitude of which I have already indicated
from astronomical observations, stands at the foot of a hill of
amphibolic schist* bare of vegetation. (* Hornblendschiefer.) The
streets are regular, and for the most part parallel with the course of the
river. Several of the houses are built on the bare rock; and here, as at
Carichana, and in many other parts of the missions, the action of black
and strong strata, when strongly heated by the rays of the sun upon the
atmosphere, is considered injurious to health. I think the small pools of
stagnant water (lagunas y anegadizos), which extend behind the town in
the direction of south-east, are more to be feared. The houses of
Angostura are lofty and convenient; they are for the most part built of
stone; which proves that the inhabitants have but little dread of
earthquakes. But unhappily this security is not founded on induction
from any precise data. It is true that the shore of Nueva Andalusia
sometimes undergoes very violent shocks, without the commotion
being propagated across the Llanos. The fatal catastrophe of Cumana,
on the 4th of February, 1797, was not felt at Angostura; but in the great
earthquake of 1766, which destroyed the same city, the granitic soil of
the two banks of the Orinoco was agitated as far as the Raudales of
Atures and Maypures. South of these Raudales shocks are sometimes
felt, which are confined to the basin of the Upper Orinoco and the Rio
Negro. They appear to depend on a volcanic focus distant from that of
the Caribbee Islands. We were told by the missionaries at Javita and
San Fernando de Atabapo that in 1798 violent earthquakes took place

between the Guaviare and the Rio Negro, which were not propagated
on the north towards Maypures. We cannot be sufficiently attentive to
whatever relates to the simultaneity of the oscillations, and to the
independence of the movements in contiguous ground. Everything
seems to prove that the propagation of the commotion is not superficial,
but depends on very deep crevices that terminate in different centres of
action.
The scenery around the town of Angostura is little varied; but the view
of the river, which forms a vast canal, stretching from south-west to
north-east, is singularly majestic.
When the waters are high, the river inundates the quays; and it
sometimes happens that, even in the town, imprudent persons become
the prey of crocodiles. I shall transcribe from my journal a fact that
took place during M. Bonpland's illness. A Guaykeri Indian, from the
island of La Margareta, was anchoring his canoe in a cove where there
were not three feet of water. A very fierce crocodile, which habitually
haunted that spot, seized him by the leg, and withdrew from the shore,
remaining on the surface of the water. The cries of the Indian drew
together a crowd of spectators. This unfortunate man was first seen
seeking, with astonishing presence of mind, for a knife which he had in
his pocket. Not being able to find it, he seized the head of the crocodile
and thrust his fingers into its eyes. No man in the hot regions of
America is ignorant that this carnivorous reptile, covered with a buckler
of hard and dry scales, is extremely sensitive in the only parts of his
body which are soft and unprotected, such as the eyes, the hollow
underneath the shoulders, the