As a port of entry, Puerto Cabello is incomparably superior to La Guayra, and has one of the finest harbors on the Caribbean. The climate, however, is far from salubrious. Situated, as it is, in low, marshy ground, surrounded by countless pools of stagnant water, it is not surprising to find that malarial fevers are prevalent here, and that El vómito—yellow fever—is a frequent visitant. The “nymphs that reign o’er sewers and sinks” can here count more fetid effluvia and putrefactive ferments than in any place we had so far seen in Venezuela.
THE PEARL COAST
A most delightful voyage was ours from Puerto Cabello to the Port-of-Spain, the capital of Trinidad. The sea was as placid as an inland lake on a windless day, and the air as balmy as in a morning of June. The coast of the mainland was nearly always in sight, and at times the peaks of the Coast Range rose far above the fleecy clouds that encircled their lofty flanks. The days were beautiful but the nights were glorious. All our youthful dreams about the delights of sailing on southern seas, amid emerald isles, and under bright starlit skies, where soft spice-scented zephyrs blow, were here realized. The serenity and transparency of the azure vault of heaven, with its countless shooting stars, had their counterpart in the smooth, unruffled Caribbean, to whose water millions of Noctilucæ imparted a phosphorescent glow which rivaled that of molten gold. We were at last in the favored home of the chambered nautilus, happily, dreamily gliding along on an even keel
“In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise from crystal springs
To sun their streaming hair.”
Yes, we were skirting along the Pearl Coast,[38] celebrated in legend and story—darkened by deeds of barbarous cruelty and resplendent in records of heroic achievement. I shall not tell of our second visit to La Guayra and of the day we spent at Macuto or describe the present conditions of the historic old towns of Barcelona, Cumana and Carupano, which lay on our course. Much might be said of all these places, distinguished, since their foundation, both in peace and war.
I cannot, however, pass this part of the Pearl Coast without recalling the fact that it was near Cumana that the earliest settlements in Venezuela were effected and that here it was that one of the first—if not the first—permanent colonies on the mainland of the New World was established. Columbus, during his fourth voyage, attempted to make a settlement in Veragua, that might serve as a base of future operations, but the attempt resulted in complete failure. Similar efforts had been made by Alonso de Ojeda and others, but without lasting results. Panama was not founded until 1516 or 1517. Nombre de Dios, it is true, was founded somewhat earlier, but in the beginning was little more than a blockhouse. But here, as early in 1514, on the Rio Manzanares, then the River Cumana, only “a cross-bow-shot” from the shore, the zealous Sons of St. Francis had erected a monastery, and a short time subsequently the Dominicans established another monastery, not far distant, at Santa Fe de Chiribichi. Here they gathered the simple children of the forest around them, and soon had the beginnings of flourishing missions.[39] The trusting and unspoiled Indians welcomed these apostles of the gospel of peace and love, and soon learned to regard them as friends and fathers. So peaceful did all this land become under the influence of the benign teaching of the gentle friars, that, according to Oviedo and Las Casas, a Christian trader could go alone anywhere without ever being molested.[40]