LAKE OF TACARIGUA.
HOT SPRINGS OF MARIARA.
TOWN OF NUEVA VALENCIA DEL REY.
DESCENT TOWARDS THE COASTS OF PORTO CABELLO.
The valleys of Aragua form a narrow basin between granitic and
calcareous mountains of unequal height. On the north, they are
separated by the Sierra Mariara from the sea-coast; and towards the
south, the chain of Guacimo and Yusma serves them as a rampart against
the heated air of the steppes. Groups of hills, high enough to
determine the course of the waters, close this basin on the east and
west like transverse dykes. We find these hills between the Tuy and La
Victoria, as well as on the road from Valencia to Nirgua, and at the
mountains of Torito.* (* The lofty mountains of Los Teques, where the
Tuy takes its source, may be looked upon as the eastern boundary of
the valleys of Aragua. The level of the ground continues, in fact, to
rise from La Victoria to the Hacienda de Tuy; but the river Tuy,
turning southward in the direction of the sierras of Guairaima and
Tiara has found an issue on the east; and it is more natural to
consider as the limits of the basin of Aragua a line drawn through the
sources of the streams flowing into the lake of Valencia. The charts
and sections I have traced of the road from Caracas to Nueva Valencia,
and from Porto Cabello to Villa de Cura, exhibit the whole of these
geological relations.) From this extraordinary configuration of the
land, the little rivers of the valleys of Aragua form a peculiar
system, and direct their course towards a basin closed on all sides.
These rivers do not bear their waters to the ocean; they are collected
in a lake; and subject to the peculiar influence of evaporation, they
lose themselves, if we may use the expression, in the atmosphere. On
the existence of rivers and lakes, the fertility of the soil and the
produce of cultivation in these valleys depend. The aspect of the
spot, and the experience of half a century, have proved that the level
of the waters is not invariable; the waste by evaporation, and the
increase from the waters running into the lake, do not uninterruptedly
balance each other. The lake being elevated one thousand feet above
the neighbouring steppes of Calabozo, and one thousand three hundred
and thirty-two feet above the level of the ocean, it has been
suspected that there are subterranean communications and filtrations.
The appearance of new islands, and the gradual retreat of the waters,
have led to the belief that the lake may perhaps, in time, become
entirely dry. An assemblage of physical circumstances so remarkable
was well fitted to fix my attention on those valleys where the wild
beauty of nature is embellished by agricultural industry, and the arts
of rising civilization.
The lake of Valencia, called Tacarigua by the Indians, exceeds in
magnitude the lake of Neufchatel in Switzerland; but its general form
has more resemblance to the lake of Geneva, which is nearly at the
same height above the level of the sea. As the slope of the ground in
the valleys of Aragua tends towards the south and the west, that part
of the basin still covered with water is the nearest to the southern
chain of the mountains of Guigue, of Yusma, and of Guacimo, which
stretch towards the high savannahs of Ocumare. The opposite banks of
the lake of Valencia display a singular contrast; those on the south
are desert, and almost uninhabited, and a screen of high mountains
gives them a gloomy and monotonous aspect. The northern shore on the
contrary, is cheerful, pastoral, and decked with the rich cultivation
of the sugar-cane, coffee-tree, and cotton. Paths bordered with
cestrums, azedaracs, and other shrubs always in flower, cross the
plain, and join the scattered farms. Every house is surrounded by
clumps of trees. The ceiba with its large yellow flowers* (* Carnes
tollendas, Bombax hibiscifolius.) gives a peculiar character to the
landscape, mingling its branches with those of the purple erythrina.
This mixture of vivid vegetable colours contrasts finely with the
uniform tint of an unclouded sky. In the season of drought, where the
burning soil is covered with an undulating vapour, artificial
irrigations preserve verdure and promote fertility. Here and there the
granite rock pierces through the cultivated ground. Enormous stony
masses rise abruptly in the midst of the valley. Bare and forked, they
nourish a few succulent plants, which prepare mould for future ages.
Often on the summit of these lonely hills may be seen a fig-tree or a
clusia with fleshy leaves, which has fixed its roots in the rock, and
towers over the landscape. With their dead and withered branches,
these trees look like signals erected on a steep cliff. The form of
these mounts unfolds the secret of their ancient origin; for when the
whole of this valley was filled with water, and the waves beat at the
foot of the peaks of Mariara (the Devil's Nook* (* El Rincon del
Diablo.)) and the chain of the coast, these rocky hills were shoals or
islets.
These features of a rich landscape, these contrasts between the two
banks of the lake of Valencia, often reminded me of the Pays de Vaud,
where the soil, everywhere cultivated, and everywhere fertile, offers
the husbandman, the shepherd, and the vine-dresser, the secure fruit
of their labours, while, on the opposite side, Chablais presents only
a mountainous and half-desert country. In these distant climes
surrounded by exotic productions, I loved to recall to mind the
enchanting descriptions with which the aspect of the Leman lake and
the rocks of La Meillerie inspired a great writer. Now, while in the
centre of civilized Europe, I endeavour in my turn to paint the scenes
of the New World, I do not imagine I present the reader with clearer
images, or more precise ideas, by comparing our landscapes with those
of the equinoctial regions. It cannot be too often repeated that
nature, in every zone, whether wild or cultivated, smiling or
majestic, has an individual character. The impressions which she
excites are infinitely varied, like the emotions produced by works of
genius, according to the age in which they were conceived, and the
diversity of language from which they in part derive their charm. We
must limit our comparisons merely to dimensions and external form. We
may institute a parallel between the colossal summit of Mont Blanc and
the Himalaya Mountains; the cascades of the Pyrenees and those of the
Cordilleras: but these comparisons, useful with respect to science,
fail to convey an idea of the characteristics of nature in the
temperate and torrid zones. On the banks of a lake, in a vast forest,
at the foot of summits covered with eternal snow, it is not the mere
magnitude of the objects which excites our admiration. That which
speaks to the soul, which causes such profound and varied emotions,
escapes our measurements as it does the forms of language. Those who
feel powerfully the charms of nature cannot venture on comparing one
with another, scenes totally different in character.
But it is not alone the picturesque beauties of the lake of Valencia
that have given celebrity to its banks. This basin presents several
other phenomena, and suggests questions, the solution of which is
interesting alike to physical science and to the well-being of the
inhabitants. What are the causes of the diminution of the waters of
the lake? Is this diminution more rapid now than in former ages? Can
we presume that an equilibrium between the waters flowing in and the
waters lost will be shortly re-established, or may we apprehend that
the lake will entirely disappear?
According to astronomical observations made at La Victoria, Hacienda
de Cura, Nueva Valencia, and Guigue, the length of the lake in its
present state from Cagua to Guayos, is ten leagues, or twenty-eight
thousand eight hundred toises. Its breadth is very unequal. If we
judge from the latitudes of the mouth of the Rio Cura and the village
of Guigue, it nowhere surpasses 2.3 leagues, or six thousand five
hundred toises; most commonly it is but four or five miles. The
dimensions, as deduced from my observations are much less than those
hitherto adopted by the natives. It might be thought that, to form a
precise idea of the progressive diminution of the waters, it would be
sufficient to compare the present dimensions of the lake with those
attributed to it by ancient chroniclers; by Oviedo for instance, in
his History of the Province of Venezuela, published about the year
1723. This writer in his emphatic style, assigns to "this inland sea,
this monstruoso cuerpo de la laguna de Valencia"* (* "Enormous body of
the lake of Valencia."), fourteen leagues in length and six in
breadth. He affirms that at a small distance from the shore the lead
finds no bottom; and that large floating islands cover the surface of
the waters, which are constantly agitated by the winds. No importance
can be attached to estimates which, without being founded on any
measurement, are expressed in leagues (leguas) reckoned in the
colonies at three thousand, five thousand, and six thousand six
hundred and fifty varas.* (* Seamen being the first, and for a long
time the only, persons who introduced into the Spanish colonies any
precise ideas on the astronomical position and distances of places,
the legua nautica of 6650 varas, or of 2854 toises (20 in a degree),
was originally used in Mexico and throughout South America; but this
legua nautica has been gradually reduced to one-half or one-third, on
account of the slowness of travelling across steep mountains, or dry
and burning plains. The common people measure only time directly; and
then, by arbitrary hypotheses, infer from the time the space of ground
travelled over. In the course of my geographical researches, I have
had frequent opportunities of examining the real value of these
leagues, by comparing the itinerary distances between points lying
under the same meridian with the difference of latitudes.) Oviedo, who
must so often have passed over the valleys of Aragua, asserts that the
town of Nueva Valencia del Rey was built in 1555, at the distance of
half a league from the lake; and that the proportion between the
length of the lake and its breadth, is as seven to three. At present,
the town of Valencia is separated from the lake by level ground of
more than two thousand seven hundred toises (which Oviedo would no
doubt have estimated as a space of a league and a half); and the
length of the basin of the lake is to its breadth as 10 to 2.3, or as
7 to 1.6. The appearance of the soil between Valencia and Guigue, the
little hills rising abruptly in the plain east of the Cano de Cambury,
some of which (el Islote and la Isla de la Negra or Caratapona) have
even preserved the name of islands, sufficiently prove that the waters
have retired considerably since the time of Oviedo. With respect to
the change in the general form of the lake, it appears to me
improbable that in the seventeenth century its breadth was nearly the
half of its length. The situation of the granite mountains of Mariara
and of Guigue, the slope of the ground which rises more rapidly
towards the north and south than towards the east and west, are alike
repugnant to this supposition.
In treating the long-discussed question of the diminution of the
waters, I conceive we must distinguish between the different periods
at which the sinking of their level has taken place. Wherever we
examine the valleys of rivers, or the basins of lakes, we see the
ancient shore at great distances. No doubt seems now to be
entertained, that our rivers and lakes have undergone immense
diminutions; but many geological facts remind us also, that these
great changes in the distribution of the waters have preceded all
historical times; and that for many thousand years most lakes have
attained a permanent equilibrium between the produce of the water
flowing in, and that of evaporation and filtration. Whenever we find
this equilibrium broken, it will be well rather to examine whether the
rupture be not owing to causes merely local, and of very recent date,
than to admit an uninterrupted diminution of the water. This reasoning
is conformable to the more circumspect method of modern science. At a
time when the physical history of the world, traced by the genius of
some eloquent writers, borrowed all its charms from the fictions of
imagination, the phenomenon of which we are treating would have been
adduced as a new proof of the contrast these writers sought to
establish between the two continents. To demonstrate that America rose
later than Asia and Europe from the bosom of the waters, the lake of
Tacarigua would have been described as one of those interior basins
which have not yet become dry by the effects of slow and gradual
evaporation. I have no doubt that, in very remote times, the whole
valley, from the foot of the mountains of Cocuyza to those of Torito
and Nirgua, and from La Sierra de Mariara to the chain of Guigue, of
Guacimo, and La Palma, was filled with water. Everywhere the form of
the promontories, and their steep declivities, seem to indicate the
shore of an alpine lake, similar to those of Styria and Tyrol. The
same little helicites, the same valvatae, which now live in the lake
of Valencia, are found in layers of three or four feet thick as far
inland as Turmero and La Concesion near La Victoria. These facts
undoubtedly prove a retreat of the waters; but nothing indicates that
this retreat has continued from a very remote period to our days. The
valleys of Aragua are among the portions of Venezuela most anciently
peopled; and yet there is no mention in Oviedo, or any other old
chronicler, of a sensible diminution of the lake. Must we suppose,
that this phenomenon escaped their observation, at a time when the
Indians far exceeded the white population, and when the banks of the
lake were less inhabited? Within half a century, and particularly
within these thirty years, the natural desiccation of this great basin
has excited general attention. We find vast tracts of land which were
formerly inundated, now dry, and already cultivated with plantains,
sugar-canes, or cotton. Wherever a hut is erected on the bank of the
lake, we see the shore receding from year to year. We discover
islands, which, in consequence of the retreat of the waters, are just
beginning to be joined to the continent, as for instance the rocky
island of Culebra, in the direction of Guigue; other islands already
form promontories, as the Morro, between Guigue and Nueva Valencia,
and La Cabrera, south-east of Mariara; others again are now rising in
the islands themselves like scattered hills. Among these last, so
easily recognised at a distance, some are only a quarter of a mile,
others a league from the present shore. I may cite as the most
remarkable three granite islands, thirty or forty toises high, on the
road from the Hacienda de Cura to Aguas Calientes; and at the western
extremity of the lake, the Serrito de Don Pedro, Islote, and
Caratapona. On visiting two islands entirely surrounded by water, we
found in the midst of brushwood, on small flats (four, six, and even
eight toises height above the surface of the lake,) fine sand mixed
with helicites, anciently deposited by the waters. (Isla de Cura and
Cabo Blanco. The promontory of Cabrera has been connected with the
shore ever since the year 1750 or 1760 by a little valley, which bears
the name of Portachuelo.) In each of these islands may be perceived
the most certain traces of the gradual sinking of the waters. But
still farther (and this accident is regarded by the inhabitants as a
marvellous phenomenon) in 1796 three new islands appeared to the east
of the island Caiguira, in the same direction as the islands Burro,
Otama, and Zorro. These new islands, called by the people Los nuevos
Penones, or Los Aparecidos,* (* Los Nuevos Penones, the New Rocks. Los
Aparecidos, the Unexpectedly-appeared.) form a kind of banks with
surfaces quite flat. They rose, in 1800, more than a foot above the
mean level of the water.
It has already been observed that the lake of Valencia, like the lakes
of the valley of Mexico, forms the centre of a little system of
rivers, none of which have any communication with the ocean. These
rivers, most of which deserve only the name of torrents, or brooks,*
are twelve or fourteen in number. (* The following are their names:
Rios de Aragua, Turmero, Maracay, Tapatapa, Agnes Calientes, Mariara,
Cura, Guacara, Guataparo, Valencia, Cano Grande de Cambury, etc.) The
inhabitants, little acquainted with the effects of evaporation, have
long imagined that the lake has a subterranean outlet, by which a
quantity of water runs out equal to that which flows in by the rivers.
Some suppose that this outlet communicates with grottos, supposed to
be at great depth; others believe that the water flows through an
oblique channel into the basin of the ocean. These bold hypotheses on
the communication between two neighbouring basins have presented
themselves in every zone to the imagination of the ignorant, as well
as to that of the learned; for the latter, without confessing it,
sometimes repeat popular opinions in scientific language. We hear of
subterranean gulfs and outlets in the New World, as on the shores of
the Caspian sea, though the lake of Tacarigua is two hundred and
twenty-two toises higher, and the Caspian sea fifty-four toises lower,
than the sea; and though it is well known, that fluids find the same
level, when they communicate by a lateral channel.
The changes which the destruction of forests, the clearing of plains,
and the cultivation of indigo, have produced within half a century in
the quantity of water flowing in on the one hand, and on the other the
evaporation of the soil, and the dryness of the atmosphere, present
causes sufficiently powerful to explain the progressive diminution of
the lake of Valencia. I cannot concur in the opinion of M. Depons*
(who visited these countries since I was there) "that to set the mind
at rest, and for the honour of science," a subterranean issue must be
admitted. (* In his Voyage a la Terre Ferme M. Depons says, "The small
extent of the surface of the lake renders impossible the supposition
that evaporation alone, however considerable within the tropics, could
remove as much water as the rivers furnish." In the sequel, the author
himself seems to abandon what he terms "this occult case, the
hypothesis of an aperture.") By felling the trees which cover the tops
and the sides of mountains, men in every climate prepare at once two
calamities for future generations; want of fuel and scarcity of water.
Trees, by the nature of their perspiration, and the radiation from
their leaves in a sky without clouds, surround themselves with an
atmosphere constantly cold and misty. They affect the copiousness of
springs, not, as was long believed, by a peculiar attraction for the
vapours diffused through the air, but because, by sheltering the soil
from the direct action of the sun, they diminish the evaporation of
water produced by rain. When forests are destroyed, as they are
everywhere in America by the European planters, with imprudent
precipitancy, the springs are entirely dried up, or become less
abundant. The beds of the rivers, remaining dry during a part of the
year, are converted into torrents whenever great rains fall on the
heights. As the sward and moss disappear with the brushwood from the
sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer
impeded in their course; and instead of slowly augmenting the level of
the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow, during heavy
showers, the sides of the hills, bearing down the loosened soil, and
forming sudden and destructive inundations. Hence it results, that the
clearing of forests, the want of permanent springs, and the existence
of torrents, are three phenomena closely connected together. Countries
situated in opposite hemispheres, as, for example, Lombardy bordered
by the Alps, and Lower Peru inclosed between the Pacific and the
Cordillera of the Andes, afford striking proofs of the justness of
this assertion.
Till the middle of the last century, the mountains round the valleys
of Aragua were covered with forests. Great trees of the families of
mimosa, ceiba, and the fig-tree, shaded and spread coolness along the
banks of the lake. The plain, then thinly inhabited, was filled with
brushwood, interspersed with trunks of scattered trees and parasite
plants, enveloped with a thick sward, less capable of emitting radiant
caloric than the soil that is cultivated and consequently not
sheltered from the rays of the sun. With the destruction of the trees,
and the increase of the cultivation of sugar, indigo, and cotton, the
springs, and all the natural supplies of the lake of Valencia, have
diminished from year to year. It is difficult to form a just idea of
the enormous quantity of evaporation which takes place under the
torrid zone, in a valley surrounded with steep declivities, where a
regular breeze and descending currents of air are felt towards
evening, and the bottom of which is flat, and looks as if levelled by
the waters. It has been remarked, that the heat which prevails
throughout the year at Cura, Guacara, Nueva Valencia, and on the
borders of the lake, is the same as that felt at midsummer in Naples
and Sicily. The mean annual temperature of the valleys of Aragua is
nearly 25.5 degrees; my hygrometrical observations of the month of
February, taking the mean of day and night, gave 71.4 degrees of the
hair hygrometer. As the words great drought and great humidity have no
determinate signification, and air that would be called very dry in
the lower regions of the tropics would be regarded as humid in Europe,
we can judge of these relations between climates only by comparing
spots situated in the same zone. Now at Cumana, where it sometimes
does not rain during a whole year, and where I had the means of
collecting a great number of hygrometric observations made at
different hours of the day and night, the mean humidity of the air is
86 degrees; corresponding to the mean temperature of 27.7 degrees.
Taking into account the influence of the rainy months, that is to say,
estimating the difference observed in other parts of South America
between the mean humidity of the dry months and that of the whole
year; an annual mean humidity is obtained, for the valleys of Aragua,
at farthest of 74 degrees, the temperature being 25.5 degrees. In this
air, so hot, and at the same time so little humid, the quantity of
water evaporated is enormous. The theory of Dalton estimates, under
the conditions just stated, for the thickness of the sheet of water
evaporated in an hour's time, 0.36 mill., or 3.8 lines in twenty-four
hours. Assuming for the temperate zone, for instance at Paris, the
mean temperature to be 10.6 degrees, and the mean humidity 82 degrees,
we find, according to the same formulae, 0.10 mill., an hour, and 1
line for twenty-four hours. If we prefer substituting for the
uncertainty of these theoretical deductions the direct results of
observation, we may recollect that in Paris, and at Montmorency, the
mean annual evaporation was found by Sedileau and Cotte, to be from 32
in. 1 line to 38 in. 4 lines. Two able engineers in the south of
France, Messrs. Clausade and Pin, found, that in subtracting the
effects of filtrations, the waters of the canal of Languedoc, and the
basin of Saint Ferreol lose every year from 0.758 met. to 0.812 met.,
or from 336 to 360 lines. M. de Prony found nearly similar results in
the Pontine marshes. The whole of these experiments, made in the
latitudes of 41 and 49 degrees, and at 10.5 and 16 degrees of mean
temperature, indicate a mean evaporation of one line, or one and
three-tenths a day. In the torrid zone, in the West India Islands for
instance, the effect of evaporation is three times as much, according
to Le Gaux, and double according to Cassan. At Cumana, in a place
where the atmosphere is far more loaded with humidity than in the
valley of Aragua, I have often seen evaporate during twelve hours, in
the sun, 8.8 mill., in the shade 3.4 mill.; and I believe, that the
annual produce of evaporation in the rivers near Cumana is not less
than one hundred and thirty inches. Experiments of this kind are
extremely delicate, but what I have stated will suffice to demonstrate
how great must be the quantity of vapour that rises from the lake of
Valencia, and from the surrounding country, the waters of which flow
into the lake. I shall have occasion elsewhere to resume this subject;
for, in a work which displays the great laws of nature in different
zones, we must endeavour to solve the problem of the mean tension of
the vapours contained in the atmosphere in different latitudes, and at
different heights above the surface of the ocean.
A great number of local circumstances cause the produce of evaporation
to vary; it changes in proportion as more or less shade covers the
basin of the waters, with their state of motion or repose, with their
depth, and the nature and colour of their bottom; but in general
evaporation depends only on three circumstances, the temperature, the
tension of the vapours contained in the atmosphere, and the resistance
which the air, more or less dense, more or less agitated, opposes to
the diffusion of vapour. The quantity of water that evaporates in a
given spot, everything else being equal, is proportionate to the
difference between the quantity of vapour which the ambient air can
contain when saturated, and the quantity which it actually contains.
Hence it follows that the evaporation is not so great in the torrid
zone as might be expected from the enormous augmentation of
temperature; because, in those ardent climates, the air is habitually
very humid.
Since the increase of agricultural industry in the valleys of Aragua,
the little rivers which run into the lake of Valencia can no longer be
regarded as positive supplies during the six months succeeding
December. They remain dried up in the lower part of their course,
because the planters of indigo, coffee, and sugar-canes, have made
frequent drainings (azequias), in order to water the ground by
trenches. We may observe also, that a pretty considerable river, the
Rio Pao, which rises at the entrance of the Llanos, at the foot of the
range of hills called La Galera, heretofore mingled its waters with
those of the lake, by uniting with the Cano de Cambury, on the road
from the town of Nueva Valencia to Guigue. The course of this river
was from south to north. At the end of the seventeenth century, the
proprietor of a neighbouring plantation dug at the back of the hill a
new bed for the Rio Pao. He turned the river; and, after having
employed part of the water for the irrigation of his fields, he caused
the rest to flow at a venture southward, following the declivity of
the Llanos. In this new southern direction the Rio Pao, mingled with
three other rivers, the Tinaco, the Guanarito, and the Chilua, falls
into the Portuguesa, which is a branch of the Apure. It is a
remarkable phenomenon, that by a particular position of the ground,
and the lowering of the ridge of division to south-west, the Rio Pao
separates itself from the little system of interior rivers to which it
originally belonged, and for a century past has communicated, through
the channel of the Apure and the Orinoco, with the ocean. What has
been here effected on a small scale by the hand of man, nature often
performs, either by progressively elevating the level of the soil, or
by those falls of the ground occasioned by violent earthquakes. It is
probable, that in the lapse of ages, several rivers of Soudan, and of
New Holland, which are now lost in the sands, or in inland basins,
will open for themselves a course to the shores of the ocean. We
cannot at least doubt, that in both continents there are systems of
interior rivers, which may be considered as not entirely developed;
and which communicate with each other, either in the time of great
risings, or by permanent bifurcations.
The Rio Pao has scooped itself out a bed so deep and broad, that in
the season of rains, when the Cano Grande de Cambury inundates all the
land to the north-west of Guigue, the waters of this Cano, and those
of the lake of Valencia, flow back into the Rio Pao itself; so that
this river, instead of adding water to the lake, tends rather to carry
it away. We see something similar in North America, where geographers
have represented on their maps an imaginary chain of mountains,
between the great lakes of Canada and the country of the Miamis. At
the time of floods, the waters flowing into the lakes communicate with
those which run into the Mississippi; and it is practicable to proceed
by boats from the sources of the river St. Mary to the Wabash, as well
as from the Chicago to the Illinois. These analogous facts appear to
me well worthy of the attention of hydrographers.
The land that surrounds the lake of Valencia being entirely flat and
even, a diminution of a few inches in the level of the water exposes
to view a vast extent of ground covered with fertile mud and organic
remains.* (* This I observed daily in the Lake of Mexico.) In
proportion as the lake retires, cultivation advances towards the new
shore. These natural desiccations, so important to agriculture, have
been considerable during the last ten years, in which America has
suffered from great droughts. Instead of marking the sinuosities of
the present banks of the lake, I have advised the rich landholders in
these countries to fix columns of granite in the basin itself, in
order to observe from year to year the mean height of the waters. The
Marquis del Toro has undertaken to put this design into execution,
employing the fine granite of the Sierra de Mariara, and establishing
limnometers, on a bottom of gneiss rock, so common in the lake of
Valencia.
It is impossible to anticipate the limits, more or less narrow, to
which this basin of water will one day be confined, when an
equilibrium between the streams flowing in and the produce of
evaporation and filtration, shall be completely established. The idea
very generally spread, that the lake will soon entirely disappear,
seems to me chimerical. If in consequence of great earthquakes, or
other causes equally mysterious, ten very humid years should succeed
to long droughts; if the mountains should again become clothed with
forests, and great trees overshadow the shore and the plains of
Aragua, we should more probably see the volume of the waters augment,
and menace that beautiful cultivation which now trenches on the basin
of the lake.
While some of the cultivators of the valleys of Aragua fear the total
disappearance of the lake, and others its return to the banks it has
deserted, we hear the question gravely discussed at Caracas, whether
it would not be advisable, in order to give greater extent to
agriculture, to conduct the waters of the lake into the Llanos, by
digging a canal towards the Rio Pao. The possibility* of this
enterprise cannot be denied, particularly by having recourse to
tunnels, or subterranean canals. (The dividing ridge, namely, that
which divides the waters between the valleys of Aragua and the Llanos,
lowers so much towards the west of Guigue, as we have already
observed, that there are ravines which conduct the waters of the Cano
de Cambury, the Rio Valencia, and the Guataparo, in the time of
floods, to the Rio Pao; but it would be easier to open a navigable
canal from the lake of Valencia to the Orinoco, by the Pao, the
Portuguesa, and the Apure, than to dig a draining canal level with the
bottom of the lake. This bottom, according to the sounding, and my
barometric measurements, is 40 toises less than 222, or 182 above the
surface of the ocean. On the road from Guigue to the Llanos, by the
table-land of La Villa de Cura, I found, to the south of the dividing
ridge, and on its southern declivity, no point of level corresponding
to the 182 toises, except near San Juan. The absolute height of this
village is 194 toises. But, I repeat that, farther towards the west,
in the country between the Cano de Cambury and the sources of the Rio
Pao, which I was not able to visit, the point of level of the bottom
of the lake is much further north.) The progressive retreat of the
waters has given birth to the beautiful and luxuriant plains of
Maracay, Cura, Mocundo, Guigue, and Santa Cruz del Escoval, planted
with tobacco, sugar-canes, coffee, indigo, and cacao; but how can it
be doubted for a moment that the lake alone spreads fertility over
this country? If deprived of the enormous mass of vapour which the
surface of the waters sends forth daily into the atmosphere, the
valleys of Aragua would become as dry and barren as the surrounding
mountains.
The mean depth of the lake is from twelve to fifteen fathoms; the
deepest parts are not, as is generally admitted, eighty, but
thirty-five or forty deep. Such is the result of soundings made with
the greatest care by Don Antonio Manzano. When we reflect on the vast
depths of all the lakes of Switzerland, which, notwithstanding their
position in high valleys, almost reach the level of the Mediterranean,
it appears surprising that greater cavities are not found at the
bottom of the lake of Valencia, which is also an Alpine lake. The
deepest places are between the rocky island of Burro and the point of
Cana Fistula, and opposite the high mountains of Mariara. But in
general the southern part of the lake is deeper than the northern: nor
must we forget that, if all the shores be now low, the southern part
of the basin is the nearest to a chain of mountains with abrupt
declivities; and we know that even the sea is generally deepest where
the coast is elevated, rocky, or perpendicular.
The temperature of the lake at the surface during my abode in the
valleys of Aragua, in the month of February, was constantly from 23 to
23.7 degrees, consequently a little below the mean temperature of the
air. This may be from the effect of evaporation, which carries off
caloric from the air and the water; or because a great mass of water
does not follow with an equal rapidity the changes in the temperature
of the atmosphere, and the lake receives streams which rise from
several cold springs in the neighbouring mountains. I have to regret
that, notwithstanding its small depth, I could not determine the
temperature of the water at thirty or forty fathoms. I was not
provided with the thermometrical sounding apparatus which I had used
in the Alpine lakes of Salzburg, and in the Caribbean Sea. The
experiments of Saussure prove that, on both sides of the Alps, the
lakes which are from one hundred and ninety to two hundred and
seventy-four toises of absolute elevation* (* This is the difference
between the absolute elevations of the lakes of Geneva and Thun.)
have, in the middle of winter, at nine hundred, at six hundred, and
sometimes even at one hundred and fifty feet of depth, a uniform
temperature from 4.3 to 6 degrees: but these experiments have not yet
been repeated in lakes situated under the torrid zone. The strata of
cold water in Switzerland are of an enormous thickness. They have been
found so near the surface in the lakes of Geneva and Bienne, that the
decrement of heat in the water was one centesimal degree for ten or
fifteen feet; that is to say, eight times more rapid than in the
ocean, and forty-eight times more rapid than in the atmosphere. In the
temperate zone, where the heat of the atmosphere sinks to the freezing
point, and far lower, the bottom of a lake, even were it not
surrounded by glaciers and mountains covered with eternal snow, must
contain particles of water which, having during winter acquired at the
surface the maximum of their density, between 3.4 and 4.4 degrees,
have consequently fallen to the greatest depth. Other particles, the
temperature of which is +0.5 degrees, far from placing themselves
below the stratum at 4 degrees, can only find their hydrostatic
equilibrium above that stratum. They will descend lower only when
their temperature is augmented 3 or 4 degrees by the contact of strata
less cold. If water in cooling continued to condense uniformly to the
freezing point, there would be found, in very deep lakes and basins
having no communication with each other (whatever the latitude of the
place), a stratum of water, the temperature of which would be nearly
equal to the maximum of refrigeration above the freezing point, which
the lower regions of the ambient atmosphere annually attain. Hence it
is probable, that, in the plains of the torrid zone, or in the valleys
but little elevated, the mean heat of which is from 25.5 to 27
degrees, the temperature of the bottom of the lakes can never be below
21 or 22 degrees. If in the same zone the ocean contain at depths of
seven or eight hundred fathoms, water the temperature of which is at 7
degrees, that is to say, twelve or thirteen degrees colder than the
maximum of the heat* of the equinoctial atmosphere over the sea, I
think it must be considered as a direct proof of a submarine current,
carrying the waters of the pole towards the equator. (* It is almost
superfluous to observe that I am considering here only that part of
the atmosphere lying on the ocean between 10 degrees north and 10
degrees south latitude. Towards the northern limits of the torrid
zone, in latitude 23 degrees, whither the north winds bring with an
extreme rapidity the cold air of Canada, the thermometer falls at sea
as low as 16 degrees, and even lower.) We will not here solve the
delicate problem, as to the manner in which, within the tropics and in
the temperate zone, (for example, in the Caribbean Sea and in the
lakes of Switzerland,) these inferior strata of water, cooled to 4 or
7 degrees, act upon the temperature of the stony strata of the globe
which they cover; and how these same strata, the primitive temperature
of which is, within the tropics, 27 degrees, and at the lake of Geneva
10 degrees, react upon the half-frozen waters at the bottom of the
lakes, and of the equinoctial ocean. These questions are of the
highest importance, both with regard to the economy of animals that
live habitually at the bottom of fresh and salt waters, and to the
theory of the distribution of heat in lands surrounded by vast and
deep seas.
The lake of Valencia is full of islands, which embellish the scenery
by the picturesque form of their rocks, and the beauty of the
vegetation with which they are covered: an advantage which this
tropical lake possesses over those of the Alps. The islands are
fifteen in number, distributed in three groups;* without reckoning
Morro and Cabrera, which are already joined to the shore. (* The
position of these islands is as follows: northward, near the shore,
the Isla de Cura; on the south-east, Burro, Horno, Otama, Sorro,
Caiguira, Nuevos Penones, or the Aparecidos; on the north-west, Cabo
Blanco, or Isla de Aves, and Chamberg; on the south-west, Brucha and
Culebra. In the centre of the lake rise, like shoals or small detached
rocks, Vagre, Fraile, Penasco, and Pan de Azucar.) They are partly
cultivated, and extremely fertile on account of the vapours that rise
from the lake. Burro, the largest of these islands, is two miles in
length, and is inhabited by some families of mestizos, who rear goats.
These simple people seldom visit the shore of Mocundo. To them the
lake appears of immense extent; they have plantains, cassava, milk,
and a little fish. A hut constructed of reeds; hammocks woven from the
cotton which the neighbouring fields produce; a large stone on which
the fire is made; the ligneous fruit of the tutuma (the calabash) in
which they draw water, constitute their domestic establishment. An old
mestizo who offered us some goat's milk had a beautiful daughter. We
learned from our guide, that solitude had rendered him as mistrustful
as he might perhaps have been made by the society of men. The day
before our arrival, some hunters had visited the island. They were
overtaken by the shades of night; and preferred sleeping in the open
air to returning to Mocundo. This news spread alarm throughout the
island. The father obliged the young girl to climb up a very lofty
zamang or acacia, which grew in the plain at some distance from the
hut, while he stretched himself at the foot of the tree, and did not
permit his daughter to descend till the hunters had departed.
The lake is in general well stocked with fish; though it furnishes
only three kinds, the flesh of which is soft and insipid, the guavina,
the vagre, and the sardina. The two last descend into the lake with
the streams that flow into it. The guavina, of which I made a drawing
on the spot, is 20 inches long and 3.5 broad. It is perhaps a new
species of the genus erythrina of Gronovius. It has large silvery
scales edged with green. This fish is extremely voracious, and
destroys other kinds. The fishermen assured us that a small crocodile,
the bava,* which often approached us when we were bathing, contributes
also to the destruction of the fish. (* The bava, or bavilla, is very
common at Bordones, near Cumana. See volume 1. The name of bava,
baveuse, has misled M. Depons; he takes this reptile for a fish of our
seas, the Blennius pholis. Voyage a la Terre Ferme. The Blennius
pholis, smooth blenny, is called by the French baveuse (slaverer), in
Spanish, baba.) We never could succeed in procuring this reptile so as
to examine it closely: it generally attains only three or four feet in
length. It is said to be very harmless; its habits however, as well as
its form, much resemble those of the alligator (Crocodilus acutus). It
swims in such a manner as to show only the point of its snout, and the
extremity of its tail; and places itself at mid-day on the bare beach.
It is certainly neither a monitor (the real monitors living only in
the old continent,) nor the sauvegarde of Seba (Lacerta teguixin,)
which dives and does not swim. It is somewhat remarkable that the lake
of Valencia, and the whole system of small rivers flowing into it,
have no large alligators, though this dangerous animal abounds a few
leagues off in the streams which flow either into the Apure or the
Orinoco, or immediately into the Caribbean Sea between Porto Cabello
and La Guayra.
In the islands that rise like bastions in the midst of the waters, and
wherever the rocky bottom of the lake is visible, I recognised a
uniform direction in the strata of gneiss. This direction is nearly
that of the chains of mountains on the north and south of the lake. In
the hills of Cabo Blanco there are found among the gneiss, angular
masses of opaque quartz, slightly translucid on the edges, and varying
from grey to deep black. This quartz passes sometimes into hornstein,
and sometimes into kieselschiefer (schistose jasper). I do not think
it constitutes a vein. The waters of the lake* decompose the gneiss by
erosion in a very extraordinary manner. (* The water of the lake is
not salt, as is asserted at Caracas. It may be drunk without being
filtered. On evaporation it leaves a very small residuum of carbonate
of lime, and perhaps a little nitrate of potash. It is surprising that
an inland lake should not be richer in alkaline and earthy salts,
acquired from the neighbouring soils. I have found parts of it porous,
almost cellular, and split in the form of cauliflowers, fixed on
gneiss perfectly compact. Perhaps the action ceases with the movement
of the waves, and the alternate contact of air and water.
The island of Chamberg is remarkable for its height. It is a rock of
gneiss, with two summits in the form of a saddle, and raised two
hundred feet above the surface of the water. The slope of this rock is
barren, and affords only nourishment for a few plants of clusia with
large white flowers. But the view of the lake and of the richly
cultivated neighbouring valleys is beautiful, and their aspect is
wonderful after sunset, when thousands of aquatic birds, herons,
flamingoes, and wild ducks cross the lake to roost in the islands, and
the broad zone of mountains which surrounds the horizon is covered
with fire. The inhabitants, as we have already mentioned, burn the
meadows in order to produce fresher and finer grass. Gramineous plants
abound, especially at the summit of the chain; and those vast
conflagrations extend sometimes the length of a thousand toises, and
appear like streams of lava overflowing the ridge of the mountains.
When reposing on the banks of the lake to enjoy the soft freshness of
the air in one of those beautiful evenings peculiar to the tropics, it
is delightful to contemplate in the waves as they beat the shore, the
reflection of the red fires that illumine the horizon.
Among the plants which grow on the rocky islands of the lake of
Valencia, many have been believed to be peculiar to those spots,
because till now they have not been discovered elsewhere. Such are the
papaw-trees of the lake; and the tomato* of the island of Cura. (* The
tomatoes are cultivated, as well as the papaw-tree of the lake, in the
Botanical Garden of Berlin, to which I had sent some seeds.) The
latter differs from our Solanum lycopersicum; the fruit is round and
small, but has a fine flavour; it is now cultivated at La Victoria, at
Nueva Valencia, and everywhere in the valleys of Aragua. The
papaw-tree of the lake (papaya de la laguna) abounds also in the
island of Cura and at Cabo Blanco; its trunk shoots higher than that
of the common papaw (Carica papaya), but its fruit is only half as
large, perfectly spherical, without projecting ribs, and four or five
inches in diameter. When cut open it is found quite filled with seeds,
and without those hollow places which occur constantly in the common
papaw. The taste of this fruit, of which I have often eaten, is
extremely sweet.* (* The people of the country attribute to it an
astringent quality, and call it tapaculo.) I know not whether it be a
variety of the Carica microcarpa, described by Jacquin.
The environs of the lake are insalubrious only in times of great
drought, when the waters in their retreat leave a muddy sediment
exposed to the rays of the sun. The banks, shaded by tufts of
Coccoloba barbadensis, and decorated with fine liliaceous plants,* (*
Pancratium undulatum, Amaryllis nervosa.) remind us, by the appearance
of the aquatic vegetation, of the marshy shores of our lakes in
Europe. We find there, pondweed (potamogeton), chara, and cats'-tail
three feet high, which it is difficult not to confound with the Typha
angustifolia of our marshes. It is only after a careful examination,
that we recognise each of these plants for distinct species,* (*
Potamogeton tenuifolium, Chara compressa, Typha tenuifolia.) peculiar
to the new continent. How many plants of the straits of Magellan, of
Chile, and the Cordilleras of Quito have formerly been confounded with
the productions of the northern temperate zone, owing to their analogy
in form and appearance.
The inhabitants of the valleys of Aragua often inquire why the
southern shore of the lake, particularly the south-west part towards
los Aguacotis, is generally more shaded, and exhibits fresher verdure
than the northern side. We saw, in the month of February, many trees
stripped of their foliage, near the Hacienda de Cura, at Mocundo, and
at Guacara; while to the south-east of Valencia everything presaged
the approach of the rains. I believe that in the early part of the
year, when the sun has southern declination, the hills around
Valencia, Guacara, and Cura are scorched by the heat of the solar
rays, while the southern shore receives, along with the breeze when it
enters the valley by the Abra de Porto Cabello, an atmosphere which
has crossed the lake, and is loaded with aqueous vapour. On this
southern shore, near Guaruto, are situated the finest plantations of
tobacco in the whole province.
Among the rivers flowing into the lake of Valencia some owe their
origin to thermal springs, and deserve particular attention. These
springs gush out at three points of the granitic Cordillera of the
coast; near Onoto, between Turmero and Maracay; near Mariara,
north-east of the Hacienda de Cura; and near Las Trincheras, on the
road from Nueva Valencia to Porto Cabello. I could examine with care
only the physical and geological relations of the thermal waters of
Mariara and Las Trincheras. In going up the small river Cura towards
its source, the mountains of Mariara are seen advancing into the plain
in the form of a vast amphitheatre, composed of perpendicular rocks,
crowned by peaks with rugged summits. The central point of the
amphitheatre bears the strange name of the Devil's Nook (Rincon del
Diablo). The range stretching to the east is called El Chaparro; that
to the west, Las Viruelas. These ruin-like rocks command the plain;
they are composed of a coarse-grained granite, nearly porphyritic, the
yellowish white feldspar crystals of which are more than an inch and a
half long. Mica is rare in them, and is of a fine silvery lustre.
Nothing can be more picturesque and solemn than the aspect of this
group of mountains, half covered with vegetation. The Peak of
Calavera, which unites the Rincon del Diablo to the Chaparro, is
visible from afar. In it the granite is separated by perpendicular
fissures into prismatic masses. It would seem as if the primitive rock
were crowned with columns of basalt. In the rainy season, a
considerable sheet of water rushes down like a cascade from these
cliffs. The mountains connected on the east with the Rincon del
Diablo, are much less lofty, and contain, like the promontory of La
Cabrera, and the little detached hills in the plain, gneiss and
mica-slate, including garnets.
In these lower mountains, two or three miles north-east of Mariara, we
find the ravine of hot waters called Quebrada de Aguas Calientes. This
ravine, running north-west 75 degrees, contains several small basins.
Of these the two uppermost, which have no communication with each
other, are only eight inches in diameter; the three lower, from two to
three feet. Their depth varies from three to fifteen inches. The
temperature of these different funnels (pozos) is from 56 to 59
degrees; and what is remarkable, the lower funnels are hotter than the
upper, though the difference of the level is only seven or eight
inches. The hot waters, collected together, form a little rivulet,
called the Rio de Aguas Calientes, which, thirty feet lower, has a
temperature of only 48 degrees. In seasons of great drought, the time
at which we visited the ravine, the whole body of the thermal waters
forms a section of only twenty-six square inches. This is considerably
augmented in the rainy season; the rivulet is then transformed into a
torrent, and its heat diminishes for it appears that the hot springs
themselves are subject only to imperceptible variations. All these
springs are slightly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The
fetid smell, peculiar to this gas, can be perceived only by
approaching very near the springs. In one of these wells only, the
temperature of which is 56.2 degrees, bubbles of air are evolved at
nearly regular intervals of two or three minutes. I observed that
these bubbles constantly rose from the same points, which are four in
number; and that it was not possible to change the places from which
the gas is emitted, by stirring the bottom of the basin with a stick.
These places correspond no doubt to holes or fissures on the gneiss;
and indeed when the bubbles rise from one of the apertures, the
emission of gas follows instantly from the other three. I could not
succeed in inflaming the small quantities of gas that rise above the
thermal waters, or those I collected in a glass phial held over the
springs, an operation that excited in me a nausea, caused less by the
smell of the gas, than by the excessive heat prevailing in this
ravine. Is this sulphuretted hydrogen mixed with a great proportion of
carbonic acid or atmospheric air? I am doubtful of the first of these
mixtures, though so common in thermal waters; for example at Aix la
Chapelle, Enghien, and Bareges. The gas collected in the tube of
Fontana's eudiometer had been shaken for a long time with water. The
small basins are covered with a light film of sulphur, deposited by
the sulphuretted hydrogen in its slow combustion in contact with the
atmospheric oxygen. A few plants near the springs were encrusted with
sulphur. This deposit is scarcely visible when the water of Mariara is
suffered to cool in an open vessel; no doubt because the quantity of
disengaged gas is very small, and is not renewed. The water, when
cold, gives no precipitate with a solution of nitrate of copper; it is
destitute of flavour, and very drinkable. If it contain any saline
substances, for example, the sulphates of soda or magnesia, their
quantities must be very insignificant. Being almost destitute of
chemical tests,* (* A small case, containing acetate of lead, nitrate
of silver, alcohol, prussiate of potash, etc., had been left by
mistake at Cumana. I evaporated some of the water of Mariara, and it
yielded only a very small residuum, which, digested with nitric acid,
appeared to contain only a little silica and extractive vegetable
matter.) we contented ourselves with filling at the spring two
bottles, which were sent, along with the nourishing milk of the tree
called palo de vaca, to MM. Fourcroy and Vauquelin, by the way of
Porto Cabello and the Havannah. This purity in hot waters issuing
immediately from granite mountains is in Europe, as well as in the New
Continent, a most curious phenomenon.* (* Warm springs equally pure
are found issuing from the granites of Portugal, and those of Cantal.
In Italy, the Pisciarelli of the lake Agnano have a temperature equal
to 93 degrees. Are these pure waters produced by condensed vapours?)
How can we explain the origin of the sulphuretted hydrogen? It cannot
proceed from the decomposition of sulphurets of iron, or pyritic
strata. Is it owing to sulphurets of calcium, of magnesium, or other
earthy metalloids, contained in the interior of our planet, under its
rocky and oxidated crust?
In the ravine of the hot waters of Mariara, amidst little funnels, the
temperature of which rises from 56 to 59 degrees, two species of
aquatic plants vegetate; the one is membranaceous, and contains
bubbles of air; the other has parallel fibres. The first much
resembles the Ulva labyrinthiformis of Vandelli, which the thermal
waters of Europe furnish. At the island of Amsterdam, tufts of
lycopodium and marchantia have been seen in places where the heat of
the soil was far greater: such is the effect of an habitual stimulus
on the organs of plants. The waters of Mariara contain no aquatic
insects. Frogs are found in them, which, being probably chased by
serpents, have leaped into the funnels, and there perished.
South of the ravine, in the plain extending towards the shore of the
lake, another sulphureous spring gushes out, less hot and less
impregnated with gas. The crevice whence this water issues is six
toises higher than the funnel just described. The thermometer did not
rise in the crevice above 42 degrees. The water is collected in a
basin surrounded by large trees; it is nearly circular, from fifteen
to eighteen feet diameter, and three feet deep. The slaves throw
themselves into this bath at the end of the day, when covered with
dust, after having worked in the neighbouring fields of indigo and
sugar-cane. Though the water of this bath (bano) is habitually from 12
to 14 degrees hotter than the air, the negroes call it refreshing;
because in the torrid zone this term is used for whatever restores
strength, calms the irritation of the nerves, or causes a feeling of
comfort. We ourselves experienced the salutary effects of the bath.
Having slung our hammocks on the trees round the basin, we passed a
whole day in this charming spot, which abounds in plants. We found
near the bano of Mariara the volador, or gyrocarpus. The winged fruits
of this large tree turn like a fly-wheel, when they fall from the
stalk. On shaking the branches of the volador, we saw the air filled
with its fruits, the simultaneous fall of which presents the most
singular spectacle. The two membranaceous and striated wings are
turned so as to meet the air, in falling, at an angle of 45 degrees.
Fortunately the fruits we gathered were at their maturity. We sent
some to Europe, and they have germinated in the gardens of Berlin,
Paris, and Malmaison. The numerous plants of the volador, now seen in
hot-houses, owe their origin to the only tree of the kind found near
Mariara. The geographical distribution of the different species of
gyrocarpus, which Mr. Brown considers as one of the laurineae, is very
singular. Jacquin saw one species near Carthagena in America.* (* The
Gyrocarpus Jacquini of Gartner, or Gyrocarpus americanus of
Willdenouw.) This is the same which we met with again in Mexico, near
Zumpango, on the road from Acapulco to the capital.* (* The natives of
Mexico called it quitlacoctli. I saw some of its young leaves with
three and five lobes; the full-grown leaves are in the form of a
heart, and always with three lobes. We never met with the volador in
flower.) Another species, which grows on the mountains of Coromandel,*
(* This is the Gyrocarpus asiaticus of Willdenouw.) has been described
by Roxburgh; the third and fourth* grow in the southern hemisphere, on
the coasts of Australia. (* Gyrocarpus sphenopterus, and G. rugosus.)
After getting out of the bath, while, half-wrapped in a sheet, we were
drying ourselves in the sun, according to the custom of the country, a
little man of the mulatto race approached us. After bowing gravely, he
made us a long speech on the virtues of the waters of Mariara,
adverting to the numbers of invalids by whom they have been visited
for some years past, and to the favourable situation of the springs,
between the two towns Valencia and Caracas. He showed us his house, a
little hut covered with palm-leaves, situated in an enclosure at a
small distance, on the bank of a rivulet, communicating with the bath.
He assured us that we should there find all the conveniences of life;
nails to suspend our hammocks, ox-leather to stretch over benches made
of reeds, earthern vases always filled with cool water, and what,
after the bath, would be most salutary of all, those great lizards
(iguanas), the flesh of which is known to be a refreshing aliment. We
judged from his harangue, that this good man took us for invalids, who
had come to stay near the spring. His counsels and offers of
hospitality were not altogether disinterested. He styled himself the
inspector of the waters, and the pulpero* (* Proprietor of a pulperia,
or little shop where refreshments are sold.) of the place. Accordingly
all his obliging attentions to us ceased as soon as he heard that we
had come merely to satisfy our curiosity; or as they express it in the
Spanish colonies, those lands of idleness, para ver, no mas, to see,
and nothing more. The waters of Mariara are used with success in
rheumatic swellings, and affections of the skin. As the waters are but
very feebly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, it is necessary to
bathe at the spot where the springs issue. Farther on, these same
waters are employed for the irrigation of fields of indigo. A wealthy
landed proprietor of Mariara, Don Domingo Tovar, had formed the
project of erecting a bathing-house, and an establishment which would
furnish visitors with better resources than lizard's flesh for food,
and leather stretched on a bench for their repose.
On the 21st of February, in the evening, we set out from the beautiful
Hacienda de Cura for Guacara and Nueva Valencia. We preferred
travelling by night, on account of the excessive heat of the day. We
passed by the hamlet of Punta Zamuro, at the foot of the high
mountains of Las Viruelas. The road is bordered with large
zamang-trees, or mimosas, the trunks of which rise to sixty feet high.
Their branches, nearly horizontal, meet at more than one hundred and
fifty feet distance. I have nowhere seen a vault of verdure more
beautiful and luxuriant. The night was gloomy: the Rincon del Diablo
with its denticulated rocks appeared from time to time at a distance,
illumined by the burning of the savannahs, or wrapped in ruddy smoke.
At the spot where the bushes were thickest, our horses were frightened
by the yell of an animal that seemed to follow us closely. It was a
large jaguar, which had roamed for three years among these mountains.
He had constantly escaped the pursuits of the boldest hunters, and had
carried off horses and mules from the midst of enclosures; but, having
no want of food, had not yet attacked men. The negro who conducted us
uttered wild cries, expecting by these means to frighten the tiger;
but his efforts were ineffectual. The jaguar, like the wolf of Europe,
follows travellers even when he will not attack them; the wolf in the
open fields and in unsheltered places, the jaguar skirting the road
and appearing only at intervals between the bushes.
We passed the day on the 23rd in the house of the Marquis de Toro, at
the village of Guacara, a very considerable Indian community. An
avenue of carolineas leads from Guacara to Mocundo. It was the first
time I had seen in the open air this majestic plant, which forms one
of the principal ornaments of the extensive conservatories of
Schonbrunn.* (* Every tree of the Carolinea princeps at Schonbrunn has
sprung from seeds collected from one single tree of enormous size,
near Chacao, east of Caracas.) Mocundo is a rich plantation of
sugar-canes, belonging to the family of Toro. We there find, what is
so rare in that country, a garden, artificial clumps of trees, and on
the border of the water, upon a rock of gneiss, a pavilion with a
mirador, or belvidere. The view is delightful over the western part of
the lake, the surrounding mountains, and a forest of palm-trees that
separates Guacara from the city of Nueva Valencia. The fields of
sugar-cane, from the soft verdure of the young reeds, resemble a vast
meadow. Everything denotes abundance; but it is at the price of the
liberty of the cultivators. At Mocundo, with two hundred and thirty
negroes, seventy-seven tablones, or cane-fields, are cultivated, each
of which, ten thousand varas square,* (* A tablon, equal to 1849
square toises, contains nearly an acre and one-fifth: a legal acre has
1344 square toises, and 1.95 legal acre is equal to one hectare.)
yields a net profit of two hundred or two hundred and forty piastres
a-year. The creole cane and the cane of Otaheite* are planted in the
month of April, the first at four, the second at five feet distance.
(* In the island of Palma, where in the latitude of 29 degrees the
sugar-cane is said to be cultivated as high as 140 toises above the
level of the Atlantic, the Otaheite cane requires more heat than the
Creole cane.) The cane ripens in fourteen months. It flowers in the
month of October, if the plant be sufficiently vigorous; but the top
is cut off before the panicle unfolds. In all the monocotyledonous
plants (for example, the maguey cultivated at Mexico for extracting
pulque, the wine-yielding palm-tree, and the sugar-cane), the
flowering alters the quality of the juices. The preparation of sugar,
the boiling, and the claying, are very imperfect in Terra Firma,
because it is made only for home consumption; and for wholesale,
papelon is preferred to sugar, either refined or raw. This papelon is
an impure sugar, in the form of little loaves, of a yellow-brown
colour. It contains a mixture of molasses and mucilaginous matter. The
poorest man eats papelon, as in Europe he eats cheese. It is believed
to have nutritive qualities. Fermented with water it yields the
guarapo, the favourite beverage of the people. In the province of
Caracas subcarbonate of potash is used, instead of lime, to purify the
juice of the sugar-cane. The ashes of the bucare, which is the
Erythrina corallodendrum, are preferred.
The sugar-cane was introduced very late, probably towards the end of
the sixteenth century, from the West India Islands, into the valleys
of Aragua. It was known in India, in China, and in all the islands of
the Pacific, from the most remote antiquity; and it was planted at
Khorassan, in Persia, as early as the fifth century of our era, in
order to obtain from it solid sugar.* (* The Indian name for the
sugar-cane is sharkara. Thence the word sugar.) The Arabs carried this
reed, so useful to the inhabitants of hot and temperate countries, to
the shores of the Mediterranean. In 1306, its cultivation was yet
unknown in Sicily; but was already common in the island of Cyprus, at
Rhodes, and in the Morea. A hundred years after it enriched Calabria,
Sicily, and the coasts of Spain. From Sicily the Infante Don Henry
transported the cane to Madeira: from Madeira it passed to the Canary
Islands, where it was entirely unknown; for the ferulae of Juba, quae
expressae liquorem fundunt potui ucundum, are euphorbias (the Tabayba
dulce), and not, as has been recently asserted,* sugar-canes. (* On
the origin of cane-sugar, in the Journal de Pharmacie 1816 page 387.
The Tabayba dulce is, according to Von Buch, the Euphorbia
balsamifera, the juice of which is neither corrosive nor bitter like
that of the cardon, or Euphorbia canariensis.) Twelve
sugar-manufactories (ingenios de azucar) were soon established in the
island of Great Canary, in that of Palma, and between Adexe, Icod, and
Guarachico, in the island of Teneriffe. Negroes were employed in this
cultivation, and their descendants still inhabit the grottos of
Tiraxana, in the Great Canary. Since the sugar-cane has been
transplanted to the West Indies, and the New World has given maize to
the Canaries, the cultivation of the latter has taken the place of the
cane at Teneriffe and the Great Canary. The cane is now found only in
the island of Palma, near Argual and Tazacorte,* where it yields
scarcely one thousand quintals of sugar a year. (* "Notice sur la
Culture du Sucre dans les Isles Canariennes" by Leopold von Buch.) The
sugar-cane of the Canaries, which Aiguilon transported to St. Domingo,
was there cultivated extensively as early as 1513, or during the six
or seven following years, under the auspices of the monks of St.
Jerome. Negroes were employed in this cultivation from its
commencement; and in 1519 representations were made to government, as
in our own time, that the West India Islands would be ruined and made
desert, if slaves were not conveyed thither annually from the coast of
Guinea.
For some years past the culture and preparation of sugar has been much
improved in Terra Firma; and, as the process of refining is prohibited
by the laws at Jamaica, they reckon on the fraudulent exportation of
refined sugar to the English colonies. But the consumption of the
provinces of Venezuela, in papelon, and in raw sugar employed in
making chocolate and sweetmeats (dulces) is so enormous, that the
exportation has been hitherto entirely null. The finest plantations of
sugar are in the valleys of Aragua and of the Tuy, near Pao de Zarate,
between La Victoria and San Sebastian, near Guatire, Guarenas, and
Caurimare. The first canes arrived in the New World from the Canary
Islands; and even now Canarians, or Islenos, are placed at the head of
most of the great plantations, and superintend the labours of
cultivation and refining.
It is this connexion between the Canarians and the inhabitants of
Venezuela, that has given rise to the introduction of camels into
those provinces. The Marquis del Toro caused three to be brought from
Lancerote. The expense of conveyance was very considerable, owing to
the space which these animals occupy on board merchant-vessels, and
the great quantity of water they require during a long sea-voyage. A
camel, bought for thirty piastres, costs between eight and nine
hundred before it reaches the coast of Caracas. We saw four of these
animals at Mocundo; three of which had been bred in America. Two
others had died of the bite of the coral, a venomous serpent very
common on the banks of the lake. These camels have hitherto been
employed only in the conveyance of the sugarcanes to the mill. The
males, stronger than the females, carry from forty to fifty arrobas. A
wealthy landholder in the province of Varinas, encouraged by the
example of the Marquis del Toro, has allotted a sum of 15,000 piastres
for the purpose of bringing fourteen or fifteen camels at once from
the Canary Islands. It is presumed these beasts of burden may be
employed in the conveyance of merchandise across the burning plains of
Casanare, from the Apure and Calabozo, which in the season of drought
resemble the deserts of Africa. How advantageous it would have been
had the Conquistadores, from the beginning of the sixteenth century,
peopled America with camels, as they have peopled it with horned
cattle, horses, and mules. Wherever there are immense distances to
cross in uninhabited lands; wherever the construction of canals
becomes difficult (as in the isthmus of Panama, on the table-land of
Mexico, and in the deserts that separate the kingdom of Quito from
Peru, and Peru from Chile), camels would be of the highest importance,
to facilitate inland commerce. It seems the more surprising, that
their introduction was not encouraged by the government at the
beginning of the conquest, as, long after the taking of Grenada,
camels, for which the Moors had a great predilection, were still very
common in the south of Spain. A Biscayan, Juan de Reinaga, carried
some of these animals at his own expense to Peru. Father Acosta saw
them at the foot of the Andes, about the end of the sixteenth century;
but little care being taken of them, they scarcely ever bred, and the
race soon became extinct. In those times of oppression and cruelty,
which have been described as the era of Spanish glory, the
commendatories (encomenderos) let out the Indians to travellers like
beasts of burden. They were assembled by hundreds, either to carry
merchandise across the Cordilleras, or to follow the armies in their
expeditions of discovery and pillage. The Indians endured this service
more patiently, because, owing to the almost total want of domestic
animals, they had long been constrained to perform it, though in a
less inhuman manner, under the government of their own chiefs. The
introduction of camels attempted by Juan de Reinaga spread an alarm
among the encomenderos, who were, not by law, but in fact, lords of
the Indian villages. The court listened to the complaints of the
encomenderos; and in consequence America was deprived of one of the
means which would have most facilitated inland communication, and the
exchange of productions. Now, however, there is no reason why the
introduction of camels should not be attempted as a general measure.
Some hundreds of these useful animals, spread over the vast surface of
America, in hot and barren places, would in a few years have a
powerful influence on the public prosperity. Provinces separated by
steppes would then appear to be brought nearer to each other; several
kinds of inland merchandize would diminish in price on the coast; and
by increasing the number of camels, above all the species called
hedjin, or the ship of the desert, a new life would be given to the
industry and commerce of the New World.
On the evening of the 22nd we continued our journey from Mocundo by
Los Guayos to the city of Nueva Valencia. We passed a little forest of
palm-trees, which resembled, by their appearance, and their leaves
spread like a fan, the Chamaerops humilis of the coast of Barbary. The
trunk, however, rises to twenty-four and sometimes thirty feet high.
It is probably a new species of the genus corypha; and is called in
the country palma de sombrero, the footstalks of the leaves being
employed in weaving hats resembling our straw hats. This grove of
palm-trees, the withered foliage of which rustles at the least breath
of air--the camels feeding in the plain--the undulating motion of the
vapours on a soil scorched by the ardour of the sun, give the
landscape an African aspect. The aridity of the land augments as the
traveller approaches the town, after passing the western extremity of
the lake. It is a clayey soil, which has been levelled and abandoned
by the waters. The neighbouring hills, called Los Morros de Valencia,
are composed of white tufa, a very recent limestone formation,
immediately covering the gneiss. It is again found at Victoria, and on
several other points along the chain of the coast. The whiteness of
this tufa, which reflects the rays of the sun, contributes greatly to
the excessive heat felt in this place. Everything seems smitten with
sterility; scarcely are a few plants of cacao found on the banks of
the Rio de Valencia; the rest of the plain is bare, and destitute of
vegetation. This appearance of sterility is here attributed, as it is
everywhere in the valleys of Aragua, to the cultivation of indigo;
which, according to the planters, is, of all plants, that which most
exhausts (cansa) the ground. The real physical causes of this
phenomenon would be an interesting inquiry, since, like the effects of
fallowing land, and of a rotation of crops, it is far from being
sufficiently understood. I shall only observe in general, that the
complaints of the increasing sterility of cultivated land become more
frequent between the tropics, in proportion as they are near the
period of their first breaking-up. In a region almost destitute of
herbs, where every plant has a ligneous stem, and tends to raise
itself as a shrub, the virgin soil remains shaded either by great
trees, or by bushes; and under this tufted shade it preserves
everywhere coolness and humidity. However active the vegetation of the
tropics may appear, the number of roots that penetrate into the earth,
is not so great in an uncultivated soil; while the plants are nearer
to each other in lands subjected to cultivation, and covered with
indigo, sugar-canes, or cassava. The trees and shrubs, loaded with
branches and leaves, draw a great part of their nourishment from the
ambient air; and the virgin soil augments its fertility by the
decomposition of the vegetable substances which progressively
accumulate. It is not so in the fields covered with indigo, or other
herbaceous plants; where the rays of the sun penetrate freely into the
earth, and by the accelerated combustion of the hydrurets of carbon
and other acidifiable principles, destroy the germs of fecundity.
These effects strike the imagination of the planters the more
forcibly, as in lands newly inhabited they compare the fertility of a
soil which has been abandoned to itself during thousands of years,
with the produce of ploughed fields. The Spanish colonies on the
continent, and the great islands of Porto-Rico and Cuba, possess
remarkable advantages with respect to the produce of agriculture over
the lesser West India islands. The former, from their extent, the
variety of their scenery, and their small relative population, still
bear all the characters of a new soil; while at Barbadoes, Tobago, St.
Lucia, the Virgin Islands, and the French part of St. Domingo, it may
be perceived that long cultivation has begun to exhaust the soil. If
in the valleys of Aragua, instead of abandoning the indigo grounds,
and leaving them fallow, they were covered during several years, not
with corn, but with other alimentary plants and forage; if among these
plants such as belong to different families were preferred, and which
shade the soil by their large leaves, the amelioration of the fields
would be gradually accomplished, and they would be restored to a part
of their former fertility.
The city of Nueva Valencia occupies a considerable extent of ground,
but its population scarcely amounts to six or seven thousand souls.
The streets are very broad, the market place, (plaza mayor,) is of
vast dimensions; and, the houses being low, the disproportion between
the population of the town, and the space that it occupies, is still
greater than at Caracas. Many of the whites, (especially the poorest,)
forsake their houses, and live the greater part of the year in their
little plantations of indigo and cotton, where they can venture to
work with their own hands; which, according to the inveterate
prejudices of that country, would be a disgrace to them in the town.
Nueva Valencia, founded in 1555 under the government of Villacinda, by
Alonzo Diaz Moreno, is twelve years older than Caracas. Valencia was
at first only a dependency of Burburata; but this latter town is
nothing now but a place of embarkation for mules. It is regretted, and
perhaps justly, that Valencia has not become the capital of the
country. Its situation in a plain, on the banks of a lake, recalls to
mind the position of Mexico. When we reflect on the easy communication
afforded by the valleys of Aragua with the Llanos and the rivers that
flow into the Orinoco; when we recognize the possibility of opening an
inland navigation, by the Rio Pao and the Portuguesa, as far as the
mouths of the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Amazon, it may be
conceived that the capital of the vast provinces of Venezuela would
have been better placed near the fine harbour of Porto Cabello,
beneath a pure and serene sky, than near the unsheltered road of La
Guayra, in a temperate but constantly foggy valley. Near the kingdom
of New Grenada, and situate between the fertile corn-lands of La
Victoria and Barquesimeto, the city of Valencia ought to have
prospered; but, notwithstanding these advantages, it has been unable
to maintain the contest with Caracas.
Only those who have seen the myriads of ants, that infest the
countries within the torrid zone, can form an idea of the destruction
and the sinking of the ground occasioned by these insects. They abound
to such a degree on the site of Valencia, that their excavations
resemble subterranean canals, which are filled with water in the time
of the rains, and become very dangerous to the buildings. Here
recourse has not been had to the extraordinary means employed at the
beginning of the sixteenth century in the island of St. Domingo, when
troops of ants ravaged the fine plains of La Vega, and the rich
possessions of the order of St. Francis. The monks, after having in
vain burnt the larvae of the ants, and had recourse to fumigations,
advised the inhabitants to choose by lot a saint, who would act as a
mediator against the plague of the ants.* (* Un abogado contra los
harmigos.) The honour of the choice fell on St. Saturnin; and the ants
disappeared as soon as the first festival of this saint was
celebrated. Incredulity has made great progress since the time of the
conquest; and it was only on the back of the Cordilleras that I found
a small chapel, destined, according to its inscription, for prayers to
be addressed to Heaven for the destruction of the termites.