Near The Mouth Of The Caura, Between The Villages Of San Pedro De Alcantara And San Francisco De Aripao, A Small Lake Of Four Hundred Toises In Diameter Was Formed In 1790, By The Sinking Of The Ground, Consequent On An Earthquake.

It was a portion of the forest of Aripao, which sunk to the depth of eighty or a hundred feet below the level of the neighbouring land.

The trees remained green for several months; and some of them, it was believed, continued to push forth leaves beneath the water. This phenomenon is the more worthy of attention as the soil of these countries is probably granitic. I doubt the secondary formations of the Llanos being continued southward as far as the valley of Caura.

On the 11th of June we landed on the right bank of the Orinoco at Puerto de los Frailes, at the distance of three leagues above the Ciudad de la Piedra, to take altitudes of the sun. The longitude of this point is 67 degrees 26 minutes 20 seconds, or 1 degree 41 minutes east of the mouth of the Apure. Farther on, between the towns of La Piedra and Muitaco, or Real Corona, are the Torno and Boca del Infierno, two points formerly dreaded by travellers. The Orinoco suddenly changes its direction; it flows first east, then north-north-west, and then again east. A little above the Cano Marapiche, which opens on the northern bank, a very long island divides the river into two branches. We passed on the south of this island without difficulty; northward, a chain of small rocks, half covered at high water, forms whirlpools and rapids. This is La Boca del Infierno, and the Raudal de Camiseta. The first expeditions of Diego Ordaz (1531) and Alonzo de Herrera (1535) have given celebrity to this bar. The Great Cataracts of the Atures and Maypures were then unknown; and the clumsy vessels (vergantines), in which travellers persisted in going up the river, rendered the passage through the rapids extremely difficult. At present no apprehension is felt in ascending or descending the Orinoco, at any season, from its mouth as far as the confluence of the Apure and the Meta. The only falls of water in this space are those of Torno or Camiseta, Marimara, and Cariven or Carichana Vieja. Neither of these three obstacles is to be feared with experienced Indian pilots. I dwell on these hydrographic details because a great political and commercial interest is now connected with the communications between Angostura and the banks of the Meta and the Apure, two rivers that lead to the eastern side of the Cordilleras of New Grenada. The navigation from the mouth of the Lower Orinoco to the province of Varinas is difficult only on account of the current. The bed of the river nowhere presents obstacles more difficult to be surmounted than those of the Danube between Vienna and Linz. We meet with no great bars, no real cataracts, until we get above the Meta. The Upper Orinoco, therefore, with the Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro, forms a particular system of rivers, where the active industry of Angostura and the shore of Caracas will remain long unknown.

I obtained horary angles of the sun in an island in the midst of the Boca del Infierno, where we had set up our instruments. The longitude of this point according to the chronometer is 67 degrees 10 minutes 31 seconds. I attempted to determine the magnetic dip and intensity, but was prevented by a heavy storm of rain. As the sky again became serene in the afternoon, we lay down to rest that night on a vast beach, on the southern bank of the Orinoco, nearly in the meridian of the little town of Muitaco, or Real Corona. I found the latitude by three stars to be 8 degrees 0 minutes 26 seconds, and the longitude 67 degrees 5 minutes 19 seconds. When the Observantin monks in 1752 made their first entradas on the territory of the Caribs, they constructed on this spot a small fort. The proximity of the lofty mountains of Araguacais renders Muitaco one of the most healthy places on the Lower Orinoco. There Iturriaga took up his abode in 1756, to repose after the fatigues of the expedition of the boundaries; and as he attributed his recovery to this hot rather than humid climate, the town, or more properly the village, of Real Corona took the name of Pueblo del Puerto sano. Going down the Orinoco more to the east, we left the mouth of the Rio Pao on the north, and that of the Arui on the south. The latter river, which is somewhat considerable, is often mentioned by Raleigh. The current of the Orinoco diminished in velocity as we advanced. I measured several times a base along the beach, to ascertain the time taken by floating bodies in traversing a known distance. Above Alta Gracia, near the mouth of the Rio Ujape, I had found the velocity of the Orinoco 2.3 feet in a second; between Muitaco and Borbon it was only 1.7 foot. The barometric observations made in the neighbouring steppes prove the small slope of the ground from the longitude of 69 degrees to the eastern coast of Guiana. We found in this country, on the right bank of the Orinoco, small formations of primitive grunstein, superimposed on granite (perhaps even embedded in the rock). We saw between Muitaco and the island of Ceiba a hill entirely composed of balls with concentric layers, in which we perceived a close mixture of hornblende and feldspar, with some traces of pyrites. The grunstein resembles that in the vicinity of Caracas; but it was impossible to ascertain the position of a formation which appeared to me to be of the same age as the granite of Parima. Muitaco was the last spot where we slept in the open air on the shore of the Orinoco:

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