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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This Name Has Subsequently Been Applied Erroneously To
The Silla, And To All The Chain Which Extends Towards Cape Codera.
)
It is thought that in the first of these valleys, near Baruta,
south of the village of Valle, the natives
Had made some
excavations in veins of auriferous quartz; and that, when the
Spaniards first settled there, and founded the town of Caracas,
they filled the shafts, which had been dry, with water. It is now
impossible to ascertain this fact; but it is certain that, long
before the Conquest, grains of gold were a medium of exchange, I do
not say generally, but among certain nations of the New Continent.
They gave gold for the purchase of pearls; and it does not appear
extraordinary, that, after having for a long time picked up grains
of gold in the rivulets, people who had fixed habitations, and were
devoted to agriculture, should have tried to trace the auriferous
veins in the superior surface of the soil. The mines of Los Teques
could not be peaceably wrought, till the defeat of the Cacique
Guaycaypuro, a celebrated chief of the Teques, who long contested
with the Spaniards the possession of the province of Venezuela.
We have yet to mention a third point to which the attention of the
Conquistadores was called by indications of mines, so early as the
end of the sixteenth century. In following the valley of Caracas
eastward beyond Caurimare, on the road to Caucagua, we reach a
mountainous and woody country, where a great quantity of charcoal
is now made, and which anciently bore the name of the Province of
Los Mariches.
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