During our abode at Porto Cabello, the current on the coast, generally
directed towards the west,* ran from west to east. This upward current
(corriente por arriba), is very frequent during two or three months of
the year, from September to November. It is believed to be owing to
some north-west winds that have blown between Jamaica and Cape St.
Antony in the island of Cuba. (* The wrecks of the Spanish ships,
burnt at the island of Trinidad, at the time of its occupation by the
English in 1797, were carried by the general or rotary current to
Punta Brava, near Porto Cabello. This general current toward the east,
from the coasts of Paria to the isthmus of Panama and the western
extremity of the island of Cuba, was the subject of a violent dispute
between Don Diego Columbus, Oviedo, and the pilot Andres, in the
sixteenth century.)

The military defence of the coasts of Terra Firma rests on six points:
the castle of San Antonio at Cumana; the Morro of Nueva Barcelona; the
fortifications of La Guayra, (mounting one hundred and thirty-four
guns); Porto Cabello; fort San Carlos, (at the mouth of the lake of
Maracaybo); and Carthagena. Porto Cabello is, next to Carthagena, the
most important fortified place. The town of Porto Cabello is quite
modern, and the port is one of the finest in the world. Art has had
scarcely anything to add to the advantages which the nature of the
spot presents. A neck of land stretches first towards the north, and
then towards the west. Its western extremity is opposite to a range of
islands connected by bridges, and so close together that they might be
taken for another neck of land. These islands are all composed of a
calcareous breccia of extremely recent formation, and analagous to
that on the coast of Cumana, and near the castle of Araya. It is a
conglomerate, containing fragments of madrepores and other corals