the moment when the cracked ground was ready to swallow them up. When
this courageous woman heard the astonishment that was expressed at a
presence of mind so extraordinary, she answered, with great
simplicity, "I had been told in my infancy: if the earthquake surprise
you in a house, place yourself under a doorway that communicates from
one apartment to another; if you be in the open air and feel the
ground opening beneath you, extend both your arms, and try to support
yourself on the edge of the crevice." Thus, in savage regions or in
countries exposed to frequent convulsions, man is prepared to struggle
with the beasts of the forest, to deliver himself from the jaws of the
crocodile, and to escape from the conflict of the elements.

The town of Angostura, in the early years of its foundation, had no
direct communication with the mother-country. The inhabitants were
contented with carrying on a trifling contraband trade in dried meat
and tobacco with the West India Islands, and with the Dutch colony of
Essequibo, by the Rio Carony. Neither wine, oil, nor flour, three
articles of importation the most sought after, was received directly
from Spain. Some merchants, in 1771, sent the first schooner to Cadiz;
and since that period a direct exchange of commodities with the ports
of Andalusia and Catalonia has become extremely active. The population
of Angostura,* after having been a long time languishing, has much
increased since 1785. (* Angostura, or Santo Thome de la Nueva
Guayana, in 1768, had only 500 inhabitants. Caulin page 63. They were
numbered in 1780 and the result was 1513 (455 Whites, 449 Blacks, 363
Mulattoes and Zamboes, and 246 Indians). The population in the year
1789 rose to 4590; and in 1800 to 6600 souls. Official Lists
manuscript. The capital of the English colony of Demerara, the town of
Stabroek, the name of which is scarcely known in Europe, is only fifty
leagues distant, south-east of the mouths of the Orinoco. It contains,