One of the sons, after
having languished in a dungeon, had been sent to the Havannah, to be
imprisoned in a strong fortress. With what joy his mother heard that
after our return from the Orinoco, we should visit the Havannah! She
entrusted me with five piastres, "the whole fruit of her savings." I
earnestly wished to return them to her; but I feared to wound her
delicacy, and give pain to a mother, who felt a pleasure in the
privations she imposed on herself.
All the society of the town was assembled in the evening, to admire in
a magic lantern views of the great capitals of Europe. We were shown
the palace of the Tuileries, and the statue of the Elector at Berlin.
An apothecary who had been ruined by an unhappy propensity for working
mines, accompanied us in our excursion to the Serro de Chacao, very
rich in auriferous pyrites. We continued to descend the southern
declivity of the Cordillera of the coast, in which the plains of
Aragua form a longitudinal valley. We passed a part of the night of
the 11th of March at the village of San Juan, remarkable for its
thermal waters, and the singular form of two neighbouring mountains,
called the Morros of San Juan. They form slender peaks, which rise
from a wall of rocks with a very extensive base.
