modern nations,-is distributed in the seeds, and deposited in the roots of vegetables; while the milk which we use as food appears exclusively the product of animal organization. Such are the impressions which we receive in early childhood, and such is the source of the astonishment with which we are seized on first seeing the cow-tree. Magnificent forests, majestic rivers, and lofty mountains clad in perennial snows, are not the objects which we here admire. A few drops of a vegetable fluid impress us with an idea of the power and fecundity of nature. On the parched side of a rock grows a tree with dry and leathery foliage, its large woody roots scarcely penetrating into the ground. For several months in the year its leaves are not moistened by a shower; its branches look as if they were dead and withered; but when the trunk is bored, a bland and nourishing milk flows from it. It is at sunrise that the vegetable fountain flows most freely. At that time the blacks and natives are seen coming from all parts, provided with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow and thickens at its surface. Some empty their vessels on the spot, while others carry them to their children. One imagines he sees the family of a shepherd who is distributing the milk of his flock."

The travellers had resolved to visit the eastern extremity of the cordilleras of New-Grenada, where they end in the Paramos of Tirnotes and Niquitas; but learning at Barbula that this excursion would retard their arrival at the Orinoco thirty-five days, they judged it prudent to relinquish it, lest they should fail in the real object of their journey, that of ascertaining by astronomical observations the point at which the Rio Negro and the River of Amazons communicate with the former stream. They therefore returned to Guacara, to take leave of the family of the Marquis del Toro, and pass three days more on the shores of the Lake of Valencia. It

PLANTATIONS OF CACAO.

157

happened to be the time of carnival, and all was gayety. The games in which the common people indulged were occasionally not of the most pleasant kind. Some led about an ass laden with water, with which they sprinkled the apartments wherever they found an open window; while others, carrying bags full of the hairs of the Dolichos pruriens, which excite great irritation of the skin, blew them into the faces of those who were passing by. From Guacara they returned to New-Valencia, where they found a few French emigrants, the only ones they saw during five years in the Spanish colonies.

The cacao-plantations have always been considered as the principal source of the prosperity of these countries. The tree (Theobroma cacao) which produces this substance is not now found wild in the woods to the north of the Orinoco, and begins to be seen only beyond the cataracts of Atures and Maypures; but it abounds near the Ventuaro, and on the Upper Orinoco. In the plantations it vegetates so vigorously, that flowers spring out even from the woody roots wherever they are left uncovered. It suffers from the north-east winds; and the heavy showers that fall during the winter season, from December to March, are very injurious to it. Great humidity is favourable only when it augments gradually, and continues a long time without interruption. In the dry season, when the leaves and young fruit are wetted by a heavy shower, the latter falls to the ground. For these reasons the cacao-harvest is very uncertain, and the causes of failure are increased by the depredations of worms, insects, birds, and quadrupeds. This branch of agriculture has the disadvantage, moreover, of obliging the new planter to wait eight or ten years for the fruits of his labours, and of yielding an article of very difficult preservation; but it requires a much less number of slaves than most others, one being sufficient for a thousand trees, which at an average yield

158

CONSUMPTION OF CACAO.

twelve fanegas annually. It appeared probable, that from 1800 to 1806 the yearly produce of the cacaoplantations of the capitania-general of Caraccas was at least 193,000 fanegas, or 299,200 bushels, of which the province of Caraccas furnished three-fourths. The crops are gathered twice a year, at the end of June and of December.

Humboldt states, as the result of numerous local estimates, that Europe consumes,—

23,000,000 pounds of cacao, at 12 fr. per cwt. 27,600,000 fr. 32,000,000 pounds of tea, at 4 fr. per lb......=128,000,000 140,000,000 pounds of coffee, at 114 fr. per cwt.=159,000,000 450,000,000 pounds of sugar, at 54 fr. per cwt.=243,000,000

Total value, 23,250,000l. sterling, or 558,000,000 fr.

The late wars have had a very injurious effect on the cacao-trade of Caraccas; and the cultivation of this article seems to be gradually declining. It is asserted that the new plantations are not so productive as the old, the trees not acquiring the same vigour, and the harvest being later and less abundant. This is supposed to be owing to exhaustion of the land; but Humboldt attributes it rather to the diminution of moisture caused by cropping.*

In concluding his remarks on the province of Venezuela, our author gives a general view of the soil and metallic productions of the districts of Aroa, Barquesimeto, and Carora. From the Sierra Nevada of Merida, and the Paramos of Niquitao, Bocono, and Las Rosas, the eastern cordillera of New-Grenada decreases so rapidly in height, that between the ninth and tenth degrees of latitude it forms only

* According to Macculloch, the little use made of this excellent beverage in England may be ascribed to the oppressiveness of the duties with which it has been loaded, and not to its being unsuitable to the public taste. "At this moment (May, 1831)," he says, " Trinidad and Grenada cacao is worth in bond, in the London market from 24s. to 65-. a cwt.; while the duty is no less than 65s., being nearly 100 per cent. upon the finer qualities, and no less than 230 per cent. upon those that are inferior!"-Macculloch's Dictionary of Commerce, art. Cacao.

GEOLOGY OF THE DISTRICT.

159

a chain of hills, which separates the rivers that join the Apure and the Orinoco from those that flow into the Caribbean Sea or the Lake of Valencia. On this ridge are built the towns of Nirgua, San Felipe, Barquesimeto, and Tocuyo. The ground rises towards the south.

In the cordillera just described, the strata usually dip to the N.W; so that the waters flow in that direction over the ledges, forming those numerous torrents and rivers, the inundations caused by which are so fatal to the health of the inhabitants from Cape Codera to the Lake of Maraycabo.

Of the streams that descend N.E. towards the coast of Porto Cabello and La Puenta de Hicacos, the most remarkable are the Tocuyo, Aroa, and Taracuy; the valleys of which were it not for morbid miasmata, would perhaps be more populous than those of Aragua, as the soil is prolific and the waters navigable. In a lateral valley, opening into that of the Aroa, are copper-mines; and in the ravines nearer the sea are similar ores and gold-washings. The total produce of both amounts to a quantity varying from 1087 to 1358 cwts. of excellent metal. Indications of silver and gold have been found in various parts.

The savannas or llanos of Monai and Carora, separated from the great plains of Portuguesa and Calabozo by the mountainous tract of Tocuyo and Migua, although bare and arid, are oppressed with miasmata; and Humboldt seems to think that their insalubrity may be owing to the disengagement of sulphuretted hydrogen gas.

160

URSINE, OR HOWLING MONKEYS.

CHAPTER XV.

Journey across the Llanos, from Aragua to San Fernando.

Mountains between the Valleys of Aragua and the Llanos-Their Geological Constitution-The Llanos of Caraccas-Route over the Savanna to the Rio Apure-Cattle and Deer-Vegetation-Calabozo-Gymnoti or Electric Eels-Indian Girl-Alligators and Boas-Arrival at San Fernando de Apure.

FROM the chain of mountains which borders the Lake of Valencia towards the south, there stretches in the same direction a vast extent of level land, constituting the llanos or savannas of Caraccas; and from the cultivated and populous district of Aragua, embellished with mountains and rivers, and teeming with vegetation, one descends into a parched desolate plain, bounded by the horizon. On this route we now accompany our travellers, who on the 6th March left the valleys of Aragua, and keeping along the south-west side of the lake, passed over a rich champaign country covered with calabashes, watermelons, and plantains. The rising of the sun was announced by the howling of monkeys, of which they saw numerous bands moving as in procession from one tree to another. These creatures (the Simia ursina) execute their evolutions with singular uniformity. When the boughs of two trees do not touch each other, the leader of the party swings himself by the tail upon the nearest twigs, the rest following in regular succession. The distance to which their howlings may be heard was ascertained by Humboldt to be 1705 yards. The Indians assert that one always chants as leader of the choir; and the missionaries say that when a female