ZULIA. habitation of man.
There are hot mineral springs
near, and medicinal plants, gums, rida, suffered
Cuenca
much from
in 1644,
277
m a hill Me-
and resins abound.
the earthquake, which destroyed
and was reduced
overthrew Caracas in 1812.
It
to ruins
was soon
by that which
rebuilt,
however,
is now the seat of a bishop, and possesses a college, many schools, and a nunnery. The small town of Mucuchies, about twenty miles to the
and
north-east of Merida,
is
remarkable as being the highest
habited locality in Venezuela. It
is
in-
two thousand eight hun-
dred and twenty three Spanish yards above the level of the sea. Egido, seven miles to the west of Merida,
about three miles from the river Chama. west of in
it is
which
is
in Africa.
is
a
smaU town
Fifteen miles to
the village of Lagunilla, remarkable for a lake,
a mine of urao, like that which is found at
Trona
M. Boussingault
to be
It
has been declared by
sesqui-carbonate of soda.
The
trade of Merida resembles that of Tachira.
Zulia,
till
lately called Maracaibo, is the largest province
in Venezuela,
next to
Guayana, and has
a
superficies,
including the lake, of two thousand seven hundi-ed eighty Spanish square leagues. west,
Merida
Coro,
New
On
to
the
south,
Cegovia, and Los
It
the
has Colmnbia to the
sea to
Andes
and
the
north,
and
to the east.-
the north-west the peninsula of Guajii*a projects far
beyond the
line of the eastern coast of
Zuha.
Cape Chi-
chibaco in the peninsula forms the |3oint of demarcation
between Columbia and Venezuela.
If a
hne be
carried
from the said Cape across the Sierra Aciete, and the mountains of Oca, to the heads of the rivers Soldado it
will
mark out
the
and Hacha,
country of the independent Indian