PUERTO CABELLO, a town and seaport in the South American republic of Venezuela, in the province of Carabobo, used to rank next to Cartagena, and possesses one of the finest natural harbours in that part of the world. It is backed at the distance of about 5 miles by a range of mountains 3000 feet high, across which pass, at a height of 1800 feet, the road (36 miles) and the railway now (1885) in course of construction to Valencia, the capital of the province. The old town used to lie on an island (originally a coral bank) joined to the mainland by a bridge; but since about 1850 the narrow channel between the town and the more extensive suburbs on shore has been filled up and covered with blocks of building, so that now Puerto Cabello occupies a kind of headland projecting into the bay. Formerly the lowness of its site and the mangrove swamps which fringed the whole coast rendered it appallingly unhealthy: at the time of Humboldt’s visit, for example, the surgeon of the hospital reported that in seven years he had 8000 cases of yellow fever, and there were instances of the authorities having to take possession of vessels in the harbour because the entire crew had perished (Eastwick). But yellow fever has not been known at Puerto Cabello since about 1868, and the general deathrate of the place is quite normal. A good supply of water is obtained from the Rio Esteban by m¾ns of an aqueduct 3 miles long. The harbour, about 2 miles long and from one-fourth of a mile to a mile in breadth, is formed by a narrow spit of land or coral ledge running out for about 2 miles from the coast in a northerly and westerly direction. The entrance, about 90 feet deep, is so clear that no pilot is required; and in the outer bay (100 to 300 feet deep) there is safe anchorage. On a high rock ...