Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Same Art
Appears To Have Been Practised In Places Along The Coasts, And Also
Farther To The South, Among
The mountains of New Grenada.) clearly
proved that real mineral wealth was to be found only to the west
and
South-west of Coro (that is to say, in the mountains near those
of New Grenada), the whole province of Caracas was nevertheless
eagerly explored. A governor, newly arrived on that coast, could
recommend himself to the Spanish court only by boasting of the
mines of his province; and in order to take from cupidity what was
most ignoble and repulsive, the thirst of gold was justified by the
purpose to which it was pretended the riches acquired by fraud and
violence might be employed. "Gold," says Christopher Columbus, in
his last letter* (Lettera rarissima data nelle Indie nella isola di
Jamaica a 7 Julio dei 1503. - "Le oro e metallo sopra gli altri
excellentissimo; e dell' oro si fanno li tesori e chi lo tiene fa e
opera quanto vuole nel mondo[?], e finel[?]mente aggionge a mandare
le anime al Paradiso.") to King Ferdinand, "gold is a thing so much
the more necessary to your majesty, because, in order to fulfil the
ancient prophecy, Jerusalem is to be rebuilt by a prince of the
Spanish monarchy. Gold is the most excellent of metals. What
becomes of those precious stones, which are sought for at the
extremities of the globe? They are sold, and are finally converted
into gold. With gold we not only do whatever we please in this
world, but we can even employ it to snatch souls from Purgatory,
and to people Paradise." These words bear the stamp of the age in
which Columbus lived; but we are surprised to see this pompous
eulogium of riches written by a man whose whole life was marked by
the most noble disinterestedness.
The conquest of the province of Venezuela having been begun at its
western extremity, the neighbouring mountains of Coro, Tocuyo, and
Barquisimeto, first attracted the attention of the Conquistadores.
These mountains join the Cordilleras of New Grenada (those of Santa
Fe, Pamplona, la Grita, and Merida) to the littoral chain of
Caracas. It is a land the more interesting in a geognostical point
of view, as no map has yet made known the mountainous ramifications
which the paramos of Niquitao and Las Rosas send out towards the
north-east. Between Tocuyo, Araure, and Barquisimeto, rises the
group of the Altar Mountains, connected on the south-east with the
paramo of Las Rosas. A branch of the Altar stretches north-east by
San Felipe el Fuerte, joining the granitic mountains of the coast
near Porto Cabello. The other branch takes an eastward direction
towards Nirgua and Tinaco, and joins the chain of the interior,
that of Yusma, Villa de Cura, and Sabana de Ocumare.
The region we have been here describing separates the waters which
flow to the Orinoco from those which run into the immense lake of
Maracaybo and the Caribbean Sea.
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