CHAPTER VIII - EXCURSION CONTINUED, AND RETURN TO CUMANA

Summary

Arriving at the hospital of the Arragonese Capuchins, which was backed by an enormous wall of rocks of resplendent whiteness, covered with a luxuriant vegetation, our travellers were hospitably received by the monks. The superior was absent; but having heard of their intention to visit the place, he had provided for them whatever could serve to render their abode agreeable. The inner court, surrounded by a portico, they found highly convenient for setting up their instruments and making observations. In the convent they found a numerous society, consisting of old and infirm missionaries, who sought for health in the salubrious air of the mountains of Caripe, and younger ones newly arrived from Spain. Although the inmates of this establishment knew that Humboldt was a Protestant, they manifested no mark of distrust, nor proposed any indiscreet question, to diminish the value of the benevolence which they exercised with so much liberality. Even the light of science had in some degree extended to this obscure place; for, in the library of the superior, they found among other books the Traité d'Electricité by the Abbé Nollet, and one of the monks had brought with him a Spanish translation of Chaptal's Treatise on Chemistry.

The height of this monastery above the sea is nearly the same as that of Caraccas and the inhabited parts of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.