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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At That Time,
The Spaniards, Attracted By The High Repute Of The Two Gold Mines
Of Los Teques And Baruta, Were Not Yet Masters Of The Whole Valley,
And Preferred Remaining Near The Road Leading To The Coast.
(* The
foundation of Santiago de Leon de Caracas dates from 1567, and is
posterior to that of Cumana, Coro, Nueva Barcelona, and
Caravalleda, or El Collado.) The town of Quito is also built in the
narrowest and most uneven part of a valley, between two fine
plains, Turupamba and Rumipamba.
The descent is uninterrupted from the custom-house of the Pastora,
by the square of Trinidad and the Plaza Mayor, to Santa Rosalia,
and the Rio Guayra. This declivity of the ground does not prevent
carriages from going about the town; but the inhabitants make
little use of them. Three small rivers, descending from the
mountains, the Anauco, the Catuche, and the Caraguata, intersect
the town, running from north to south. Their banks are very high;
and, with the dried-up ravines which join them, furrowing the
ground, they remind the traveller of the famous Guaicos of Quito,
only on a smaller scale. The water used for drinking at Caracas is
that of the Rio Catuche; but the richer class of the inhabitants
have their water brought from La Valle, a village a league distant
on the south. This water and that of Gamboa are considered very
salubrious, because they flow over the roots of sarsaparilla.* (*
Throughout America water is supposed to share the properties of
those plants under the shade of which it flows.
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