noco river, 240 m.
above its mouth. Pop. (1891) 11,686. It stands upon a small hill about
187 ft. above sea-level, and faces the river where it narrows to a width
of less than half a mile. The city is largely built upon the hillside.
It is the seat of the bishopric of Guayana (founded in 1790), and is the
commercial centre of the great Orinoco basin. Among its noteworthy
edifices are the cathedral, federal college, theatre, masonic temple,
market, custom-house, and hospital. The mean temperature is 83 deg. The
city has a public water-supply, a tramway line, telephone service,
subfluvial cable communication with Soledad near the mouth of the
Orinoco, where connexion is made with the national land lines, and
regular steamship communication with the lower and upper Orinoco.
Previous to the revolution of 1901-3 Ciudad Bolivar ranked fourth among
the Venezuelan custom-houses, but the restrictions placed upon transit
trade through West Indian ports have made her a dependency of the La
Guaira custom-house to a large extent. The principal exports from this
region include cattle, horses, mules, tobacco, cacao, rubber, tonka
beans, bitters, hides, timber and many valuable forest products. The
town was founded by Mendoza in 1764 as San Tomas de la Nueva Guayana,
but its location at this particular point on the river gave to it the
popular name of _Angostura_, the Spanish term for "narrows." This name
was used until 1849, when that of the Venezuelan liberator was bestowed
upon it. Ciudad Bolivar played an important part in the struggle for
independence and was for a time the headquarters of the revolution. The
town suffered severely in the struggle for its possession, and the
political disorders which followed greatly retarded its growth.

CIUDAD DE CURA, an inland town of the state of Aragua, Venezuela, 55 m.
S.W. of Caracas, near the Lago de Valencia. Pop. (1891) 12,198. The town
stands in a broad, fertile valley, between the sources of streams
running southward to the Guarico river and northward to the lake, with
an elevation above sea-level of 1598 ft. Traffic between Puerto Cabello
and the Guarico plains has passed through this town since early colonial
times, and has made it an important commercial centre, from which hides,
cheese, coffee, cacao and beans are sent down to the coast for export;
it bears a high reputation in Venezuela for commercial enterprise.
Ciudad de Cura was founded in 1730, and suffered severely in t