On the east side of Maracaybo Lake are several small towns, of which Paraute, Las Barbacoas, Gibraltar, and San Pedro, are the most considerable places.
Paraute is eighty miles south of Coro, and is a small place on the banks of the lake.
Las Barbacoas is situated a short distance farther south, and seventy-five miles south of Coro.
Gibraltar, in 10° 4' north latitude, and 67° 36' west longitude, is 100 miles south-east of Maracaybo, on the eastern banks of the lake; it is a very old town, famous for the production of a particular sort of tobacco, called tobacco of Maracaybo, from which the best sort of snuff, vulgarly called Maccabaw, is made.
The country in the vicinity of this town is well watered with rivers, and consequently grows excellent cacao. Cedars of immense size are found in its woods, but the climate is very hot and insalubrious, especially during the rainy season, when the merchants and planters retire to Maracaybo or Merida.
San Pedro is a short distance south of Gibraltar, and also on the banks of the lake. The other places being mere villages, or scattered plantations, are not worth mentioning.
Truxillo, on the confines of Merida, in 8° 40' north latitude, twenty leagues north of Merida, 105 south-west of Caraccas, and thirty west of Guanara, is in a country producing sugar, cacao, indigo, coffee, &c., and in which wheat is cultivated in great abundance, and forms the chief article of the commerce of the inhabitants, who also carry the above fruits, sweetmeats, cheese, woollens, &c. to Maracaybo, by means of the lake, which is only twenty-five leagues distant, but the route to which lies across the desert and unhealthy plains of Llonay.
The inhabitants of Truxillo are an active and an industrious race; and at present amount to 7600 souls, though the city, which is one of the oldest on the continent, was formerly also one of the best peopled, until it was destroyed and sacked by Francis Gramont, the Buccaneer, who, in 1678, traversed the province of Venezuela, with a small band of followers, attracted by the riches of this place.
The scite of Truxillo is between two mountains, and it contains a good parish church, a chapel of ease, two monasteries, a convent of Dominican nuns, and an hospital.