To Young America:

“Smart,” as the world over, you are acknowledged to be—in which opinion I most heartily concur, having myself spent among you the best part of my life—permit me to call your attention to one important fact which has escaped your notice thus far, or rather that of your teachers, namely, a better acquaintance with that vast and glorious portion of our great continent lying at your very portals, South America—a region of which you have only a faint idea from the meagre information supplied by your School Geographies and occasional newspaper correspondents, but in fact a land of wondrous exuberance and untold natural wealth, which offers you a field of enterprise worthy of the founders of the States of California and Oregon, and the Territories of Montana, Arizona, and Colorado.

It is a fact that while Europe, situated as it is far beyond our own hemisphere, has always sent her very best men to represent her in the South American States, and to explore and report upon every thing worth knowing, this country, America par excellence, has sent none as yet but broken down and quarrelsome politicians, who, according to the statements of some of the leading periodicals of this country,[1] are absolutely incompetent to fill their post with credit to the nation they represent. To my own personal knowledge I can testify as to the class of men sent afloat to Venezuela, one of whom had previously been master of a tug-boat on the Orinoco and Apure rivers, but through political influence at home was suddenly enabled to emerge from that obscure though honorable calling to that of a diplomatic functionary, although it is but fair to state that his social status in that country was in no wise improved by his change of vocation. When his term of office expired, with the change of administration at headquarters, he was duly replaced by another, whose conduct was so disgraceful[2] that his countrymen resident in the Republic petitioned the Government at home to remove him forthwith, which was granted, but only to replace him by another—since deceased—who, I am informed, was the only drunken man seen in the streets of the capital.

Thanks to the unaided efforts of a missionary gentleman, Rev. Mr. Fletcher,[3] the magnificent empire of Brazil has lately been brought to the notice of the people of the United States, who, quick to appreciate the commercial advantages offered by a foreign country, when fully demonstrated to them, have already established a line of steamers between New York and the principal ports of the Empire. Outside of this the people of this enterprising country have only had occasional glimpses of the vast continent of South America, from the notes of casual travellers and the official reports of Lieuts. Page, Herndon, and Gibbon, of the navy, who confined their observations principally to the practicability of navigating the two great rivers Amazon and La Plata, already surveyed by their respective governments and explored from end to end by several European travellers. It is to be hoped, however, that the eminent naturalist, Agassiz, who lately visited the former river with reference to a particular branch of science, will give us the result of his explorations as clearly, and relieved of the technicalities of scientific lore so common among naturalists, as the distinguished artist Church, who several years ago penetrated, “on his own hook,” to the heart of the Andes, has presented the grand and beautiful ridge on canvass to the eyes of admiring thousands who have gazed upon his admirable paintings, thus familiarising the outside world with that picturesque region, and earning for himself a name second to none in the estimation of the artistic world.

North Americans cannot longer ignore that great section of our continent which, during thirteen years, warred to the knife against her powerful antagonists, Spain and Portugal, for the possession of those political principles proclaimed years before by their own Great Republic; for it is a fact, that while most of the European nations hastened to acknowledge the independence of the South American States, the United States of America were the last to recognize them; and if we of the South have not been as successful in the establishment of Republican Institutions as our brethren of the North, the fault is not ours, but is to be attributed to the “peculiar institutions” implanted on our soil by its fanatical and remorseless conquerors, so utterly inimical to enlightened educational development.[4]

And now look, on the other hand, to the host of distinguished names that figure among the European representatives and explorers in the various sections of South America, and the advantages gained by the countries they represent. At the head of all stands the illustrious Humboldt, who was the first to penetrate that comparatively unknown region at the time (1799), and to lay open her wondrous treasures before the civilized world. Any eulogistic comments upon this truly great man are superfluous: the world is filled with his fame, as radiant as the celestial spheres above, which he overran likewise with his penetrating mind, and after devoting nearly three quarters of a century to the study of the Universe, he died only a few years ago at the advanced age of ninety-two, in the full enjoyment of his mental faculties. His works are the grandest monument of the nineteenth century.

To Prussia we are indebted for the services of another resolute explorer, Prince Adalbert, who fearlessly penetrated to the remotest parts of Brazil, and the botanists, von Tschudi, Karzten, and Moritz, who have enriched the European museums and conservatories with the treasures of our Flora. Other parts of Germany have sent no less distinguished individuals in the persons of Prince Maximilian of Bavaria, and the great naturalists, Narterer, Spix, and von Martius, all of whom have given to the scientific world the result of their explorations in works of enduring fame. France ranks next in distinguished names, such as La Condamine, D’Orvigni, Jussieu, St. Hilaire, Bonpland (the companion of Humboldt), Depons, Lavayesse, Webber, Liais, etc.; and Great Britain, with her Parishes and Fitzroys, who surveyed and carefully sounded every estuary, bay, and inlet which lie between the Plata and the Bay of Valparaiso, with the celebrated naturalist, Darwin, as co-laborer; Sir Robert Schumbourgh, the discoverer of that vegetable wonder, the Victoria Regia, and the hitherto unknown sources of the great river Orinoco, the lake of Parime, supposed in the seventeenth century to be the abode of a mighty and resplendent Indian king—El Dorado—the gilded, from whom that veritable land of gold, as it has subsequently been demonstrated, took the name[5]—with other equally enterprising naturalists and explorers, such as Waterton, Wallace, Bates, Vigne, Markham, and Spruce. Through the efforts of the two last named, England has succeeded in transplanting and successfully cultivating in the mountains of India the various species of cinchona trees indigenous to the Andean range of mountains, that yield that invaluable drug, quinine; while another enterprising Englishman undertook to stock Australia with the Alpaca sheep of the same region, at the risk of his life and fortune.

Thus England, France, and Germany have secured the monopoly of the South American trade, with total exclusion of this country, which has to pay cash for what the former obtain in exchange for the produce of their manufactories. All these nations, moreover, appoint permanent representatives, chosen from among their ablest diplomats, and keep them there as long as they choose to remain, to enable them to become thoroughly acquainted with the people and the peculiarities of the country, endearing themselves to the inhabitants by their munificent hospitality and courtly demeanor. Even distant and snow-bound Russia has sent to South America her commissions of savants and maintains there, as well as Sweden, competent representatives, whose duty it is to report to their respective governments on the progress of affairs and the resources of those countries.

I shall not close the list of European travellers and naturalists, with whom I am acquainted, without adding those of Holland and Belgium, viz., Mr. Langsberg, for many years Minister Plenipotentiary from the former country to Venezuela, Baron Ponthos, and Messrs. Linden and Funk, who, by their united efforts, have contributed to enlighten their countrymen respecting the source from whence India-rubber emanates, and the kind of trees that yield the valuable Calisaya and Angostura barks; what plants yield the fragrant Vanilla and Tonka beans, the healing balsams of Copaiva, Tolu, and Peru; and how indigo, cacao, and coffee are raised. “Does cotton grow in Venezuela?” “Are there any railroads in Chile?” are questions which have respectively been addressed to me and to the accredited Minister of the latter flourishing republic to the United States by persons enjoying the greatest advantages of education in this country. Now, it is a well-known fact to European merchants that the cotton raised in Venezuela ranks among the finest in the world; and as regards railroads, Chile possesses some of the most admirable works of the kind, due to the skill of North American engineers.

But no wonder that so little is known here about South America, when one of the standard School Geographies and most recent publications describes the products of Venezuela in these few lines:

“Its principal products are the woods and fruits of the forest and the cattle of the plains.”

“Exports.—The principal exports are the tropical fruits, which grow without cultivation; and hides, cattle, horses, and mules.”

Any one would be led to suppose, from the perusal of the above quotations, that the country at large is “in a state of nature,” and that the inhabitants themselves are no better off than “the cattle of the plains,”

These things are only found in the depths of the primeval forest, or amidst the labyrinths of rivers that traverse the vast extent of prairie land or llanos which form the subject of this book. These are the grazing grounds as well as military school of the republic: the agricultural portion lies north of this region, amidst the great chain of mountains, which, detaching itself from the main Andean trunk in New Granada, or Colombia, as it is now called, runs eastward along the shores of the Caribbean Sea. The products of this region consist principally, as the school-book quoted above states, in the tropical fruits, not collected at random, as might be inferred from the above meager statement, but through the most careful cultivation, as a contemporary English traveller in that country rightly describes it in a few lines.

“July 11th.—Having got our passports, we started at about 3 P.M. for San Pedro, distant about six leagues. The first three leagues lay through the beautiful valley of Chacao (Caracas). Everything bore the appearance of great prosperity. The road was as good as any in Europe. The hedges were beautifully clipped; hardly a foot of ground could be seen that was not in a high state of cultivation. The plantations were numerous and in good order, and the long chimneys and black smoke showed that even in this remote valley steam was rendering its thousand-handed assistance. We crossed and recrossed the Rio Guaire several times before we arrived at Antimano, some two leagues distant from Caracas. We met several herds of wild cattle, being driven towards Caracas by the llaneros in crimson or blue ponchos, mounted on high-picked saddles, with their constant companion, the lasso, plaited into their horses’ tails, and the long cattle-spears in their hands. The cattle were magnificent-looking animals, and reminded me of the breed that one sees in the bull-rings of old Spain. Coffee is more cultivated in the valley of Chacao than any other crop, and it contributes in no small degree to the beauty of the scenery.”[6]

Besides coffee this country produces the famous Cacao and indigo of Caracas, sugar-cane, and cotton of superior quality, tobacco hardly inferior to that of Cuba, especially the celebrated Varinas and Guacharo kinds, rice, Indian-corn, and most of the cereals of northern latitudes, according to the elevation above the sea level; and as to the products gathered “in a state of nature,” such as sarsaparilla, India-rubber, Piassaba, Vanilla, and Tonka beans, cabinet and dye-woods, their name is legion, and would require a separate volume devoted to that particular branch of scientific research, which the reader can find admirably compiled in the works of Humboldt and Bonpland, St. Hilaire, Sir Robert Schombourgh, Codazzi, and others.

Now it is my purpose to introduce the young American reader to a country—

and which hitherto seems to have been a sealed book to the future “Merchant Princes” of the great North. Humboldt describes it thus, in 1802:—

VENEZUELA.

“Caracas is the capital of a country nearly twice as large as Peru, and now little inferior in extent to the kingdom of New Granada. This country, which the Spanish government designates by the name of Capitania-General de Caracas, or the United Provinces of Venezuela, has nearly a million of inhabitants, among whom are sixty thousand slaves. It comprises, along the coasts, New Andalusia, or the province of Cumana (with the island of Margarita), Barcelona, Venezuela, or Caracas, Coro, and Maracaibo: in the interior the Provinces of Barinas and Guiana; the former situated on the rivers of Santo Domingo and the Apure, the latter stretching along the Orinoco, the Casiquiare, the Atabapo, and the Rio Negro. In a general view of the seven United Provinces of Tierra Firme, we perceive that they form three distinct zones, extending from East to West.

“We find, first, cultivated land along the sea-shore, and near the chain of the mountains on the coast; next, savannas or pasturages; and finally, beyond the Orinoco, a third zone, that of the forests, into which we can penetrate only by the rivers which traverse them. If the native inhabitants of the forest lived entirely on the produce of the chase, like those of the Missouri, we might say that the three zones, into which we have divided the territory of Venezuela, picture the three states of human society; the life of the wild hunter, in the woods of the Orinoco; pastoral life in the savannas or llanos, and the agricultural state, in the high valleys, and at the foot of the mountains on the coast.”[7]

And yet this favored region can be reached in from twelve to fifteen days by sailing packets between Philadelphia and La Guaira; or, should your fast habits require it, we can avail ourselves of the Brazilian line of steamships which will leave us at St. Thomas, where we shall meet the little steamer plying regularly between both points, the whole voyage being thus accomplished in eight days. As we are not in a hurry, however, to get through our journey, we will, for the sake of convenience and diversified amusement, follow the example of the above-mentioned traveller, Sullivan, who, in company of a friend, made the trip before us in a commodious yacht by the way of the West India Islands; but having no craft of our own, we may be permitted to borrow from the New York yacht squadron one of their idle cutters, which can thus be better employed than in cruising round well-known fashionable retreats during a few months of summer, and exposed for the rest of the year to the hard knocks of a wintry climate. This is the best season to visit the tropics, as well as the West Indies, when there is no fear of the dreaded vomito or sweeping hurricanes.

Hardly a day passes without coming in sight of some lovely isle of the Caribbean sea, which, like the “Queen of the Antilles,”—Cuba—rises from amidst the placid waves, crowned with perpetual wreaths of fragrant orange-blossoms and stately palms. Cuba, Hayti, Porto Rico, St. Thomas, Sta. Cruz, Antigua, Granada, Barbadoes, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Tobago, and Trinidad, rise one after another in quick succession. When we reach the last named and most lovely of all, on the eastern extremity of Venezuela, we have the choice of either penetrating at once into the field of our adventures by entering one of the numerous outlets of the Orinoco, which here pours out its tribute to the mighty Atlantic through a hundred mouths; or, following the line of coast to the westward, we may reach a point near the fertile valleys of Aragua, where well-trained horses for the sport and hardy llaneros to guide us, await our arrival. We shall thus have an opportunity of contemplating and admiring that stupendous chain of mountains (fit offspring of the mighty Andes further west), which seems as if thrown up by Titanic force as a barrier against the encroachments of the fierce Atlantic.

Endless are the beauties and points of interest presented by this splendid chain of mountains; its varied climes, from the scorching heats of the tierra caliente on the sea level to the frigid blasts of winter at higher elevations; its silvery springs and roaring cataracts; its unrivalled vegetation and glittering veins of precious metals. The trade winds and currents are in our favor, which will enable us to reach La Guaira in a couple of days, passing in quick succession some minor ports, such as Rio Caribe, Carupano, with its silver-bearing mountains in the distance, the island of Margarita, famous for its pearls, as the name implies; its fisheries, and the gallant defence made by the inhabitants against the combined attacks of the Spanish hordes; Cumana, for its delicious grapes and pine-apples, its salubrious climate, and the purity of the sky, which enabled the immortal Humboldt to watch in wonderment the great meteoric shower in 1799, which he compared to a brilliant display of fire-works; Barcelona, noted only for its hides, and the Monagas brotherhood, who were for many years the terror of the country.

The coast, as we approach La Guaira, is lined with plantations of sugar-cane, cacao and cocoa-nuts, two articles often confounded in English spelling, but widely different in themselves. The former grows on a moderately-sized tree, with large, glossy leaves, while the latter is the product of a palm, remarkable for the height it attains, and the prodigious size of its fruit, in bunches that few men can lift from the ground. The cacao nuts, on the contrary, grow in pods, resembling large cucumbers, of a rich chocolate color outside, filled with oblong nuts enveloped in a white, sub-acid pulp, very agreeable to the taste especially of parrots, monkeys, and squirrels, who destroy great quantities of the pods for the sake of the pulp, so that they require constant watching to protect them from these pests.

A cacao plantation is one of the handsomest orchards that can be seen, shaded as they are by another tree of large proportions, the erythrina, a leguminous plant with crimson flowers, which you may have noticed in greenhouses at home, though much reduced in size, as it never attains there more than a few feet above the boxes on which they are raised as an ornament to the garden in summer. The rapidity with which these trees grow in the tropics is astonishing, for in eight or ten years, the time required to reach its maximum growth, they attain the size of the largest denizens of the forest. Observe how their tops glow with the fiery hue of their blossoms, for this is the season when they exchange their leaves for flowers, the only instance of a plant shedding its leaves in these latitudes, with the exception of the ceiba or silk cotton tree, which the author of Amyas Leigh has so admirably described as growing close to where we are journeying just now.

Here the cordillera rises considerably above the connecting mountains, attaining a height of thirteen thousand feet in the peak of Naiguata, which you may perceive peeping through the clouds yonder, and the next one eleven thousand in the Cerro de Avila, both forming what is called the Silla, or Saddle of Caracas, at the foot of which stands La Guaira, the principal port of the republic, but the vilest anchorage in the world. Here ends our yacht excursion; trusting in future to the nimble-footed mule or to the thumping stage coaches for the rest of the journey.

Despite its wretched shipping facilities, La Guaira carries on a very active trade with foreign marts, as is attested by the number of English, French, German, and Italian merchants, with a few Americans, residing here, forming, as it were a truly foreign colony. The heat, as you perceive, is intense, owing to the proximity of the barren mountain-base, which leaves room scarcely for a loaded mule to turn round in the narrow and crowded-up streets. On this account, I presume, La Guaira is very healthy, for not even the Asiatic cholera could obtain a footing here—excuse the pun—when it decimated the capital in 1853. Cases of vomito occur from time to time; but these are more the exception than the rule; so it does not follow that all hot places in the tropics are unhealthy, for Carupano, Margarita, Cumana, La Guaira, and Coro, which are within the isothermal line of greatest heat—owing, doubtless, to the dry, stony, or sandy soil on which they stand—are among the healthiest spots in Venezuela. However, we shall soon be out of this sultry place, and amidst the glories of a temperate climate. For this purpose we will hire mules at one of the posadas or hotels, to ascend the mountains on our way to Caracas, the capital of the republic, giving the preference to the old road, which is much shorter and more picturesque than the new one for carriage travel. Let us hear first the enthusiastic English tourist describe this route, as I may be accused by some of partiality towards my own country.

“The ascent is very precipitous, and the road rough and narrow, but the view of the boundless ocean on one hand, and the magnificent range of mountains on the other, was very grand. The road rather reminded me of the Great St. Bernard, though the resemblance would not bear analyzing. The sensation of rising gradually into the cooler strata of air was most delicious; and at length, being suddenly enveloped in a cloud, I felt actually cold (a novel sensation I had not experienced for several months), and was not at all sorry to put on my jacket. There is no mountain in the tropics where you rise as immediately and suddenly from the stifling heat of the Tierra Caliente to the delicious temperature of an European sunrise in spring, as the Silla of Caracas.

“On the road from Vera Cruz to Mexico, when the traveller arrives at the height of four thousand feet, beyond which the fever never spreads, he is upwards of thirty miles from the sea, whereas, on the road up the Silla at that height the ocean lies immediately at his feet, and he looks down upon it as from a tower. So perpendicular is the face of the Silla towards the sea, that any large boulder or mass of rock becoming detached high up the mountain and bounding down its face, would fall clean into the ocean. About half way up the mountain, we crossed a deep cleft in the mountain called the Salto—a jump—on rather a rickety old draw-bridge. The bridge is commanded by a ruinous old town, called Torre Quemada, or the Burnt Tower, a name it derives from its being placed just at the height where the traveller, descending to La Guaira, first encounters the stifling exhalations from the Tierra Caliente. About nine o’clock we stopped to breakfast at La Venta, an inn some five thousand feet above La Guaira. Here, in a perfectly European atmosphere, we lay out in the grass, and gazed down upon the ocean and the town of La Guaira; we could just distinguish the Ariel, looking the size of a walnut-shell, hoisting her white sail, and standing away for Porto Cabello, where we were to meet her, unless we returned to Trinidad via the Rio Apure and the Orinoco.”

Both sides of the road are lined with Maguey plants, or varieties of the Agave genus, improperly called aloes and century-plants, from a mistaken notion that they only blossom once in a hundred years. The most beautiful of these is the cocuy, with thick glossy leaves of a clear emerald color, from six to eight feet, and a flower-stock from twenty-five to thirty feet in length. I believe it is the same species that yields the famous beverage of the Mexicans, called pulque, which some compare to fermented animal juices. A much more agreeable drink is obtained here by distillation from this plant, and its leaves turned to better account by scraping out the fine fibres they contain, from which most beautiful hammocks are made in various parts of the country, besides ropes, coffee-bags, twine, etc., etc. A fortune is in store for some Yankee genius who will invent the proper machine for dressing these leaves and getting the fibres. The other varieties are the cocuiza brava, or common century-plant (Agave Americana), with serrated leaves, on which account it is very useful for making hedges, and the cocuiza dulce, with perfectly smooth leaves, containing the strongest fibres and usually cultivated for that purpose. The pith of the flower-stock is also turned to account in various ways, especially for making the best kind of razor-strops.

Were you as much a lover of plants as I am, I would invite you to descend with me to one of those lovely glens formed by these mountains. There, amid moss-covered rocks and sparkling rivulets, I would point out to you those singular orchidacoeous plants usually called air-plants, because they obtain their nourishment from the moist air that surrounds them,—not a bad idea,—those lovely daughters of Flora and Favonius, so rich in perfume as well as color, but whose principal charm consists in their caricaturing most living objects in nature, from the “human form divine,” as in man-orchis (O. mascula) to the bumble-bee, often deceived by a perfect representation of his species (Ophris apifera). Thus we count among our floral treasures “angels,” “swans,” “doves,” “eagles,” “pelicans,” “spiders,” “butterflies,” “bumble-bees,” and even a perfect infant in its cradle, was found by Linden in the mountains of Merida. The celebrated Flor del Espiritu Santo (Peristeria elata) is another of this class. It is there only that are found those two most beautiful species of cattleya (C. MossiÆ and C. Labiata), so highly prized by plant collectors, from all nations, and here called Flor de Mayo, or Mayflower, because it blossoms principally in the month of May. Great favorites are they with us also, and no court-yard is deemed sufficiently ornamented at Caracas without one or more baskets of these lovely plants, the stump of a tree, or any rustic basket filled with bark or moss, being sufficient support for them. In the same manner the curious Butterfly-flower (Oncidium papillio) is raised along with the others, often deceiving persons unacquainted with it, with a perfect representation of the insect whose name it bears; and if you should visit with me some of the cacao plantations in the tierra caliente, I would point out to you two equally exquisite plants of the same family attached to the rough stems and branches of the Erythrina, namely, the Swan-flower (Cycnoches ventricosum) and the Vanilla, both filling the air with the same perfume, but in different form, the former through its swan-like flowers, in clusters of three, five, and even seven, and the latter through its ripened pods—so well known to perfumers and confectioners—as the blossoms of this last, though quite large and handsome, are destitute of perfume.

But to return to our mountain ride, for it is time that we should be prepared to behold a still more glorious view from the summit, than the one just described by Sullivan: “After a regular Spanish breakfast of chocolate and fried eggs, for which, in as regular Spanish custom, we were charged about ten times the proper amount, we continued our ascent, and gained the seat of the Saddle, a hollow between the two peaks, called the Pummel and Croup,[8] about ten o’clock. The summit of the pass called Las Vueltas, is a smooth undulating grass-land, somewhat like the sheep-downs of Sussex. The bold rocky peaks on either hand, stretching in a serrated ridge as far as the eye could reach, were very fine. I could scarcely fancy myself to be only ten degrees north of the equator, and actually on or rather only eight thousand feet above the isothermal line of greatest heat, which passes through Cartagena, La Guaira, and Cumana.

“We had left far below us all the tropical flora, and were amongst English ferns and English blackberries; and I actually discovered one familiar friend, a dandelion. From the summit of Las Vueltas, you first get a magnificent view of the valley of Chacao, lying some four thousand feet below you, with the city of Caracas in the centre of it. I don’t think the view from that height is so fine as some thousand feet lower down, where it certainly beats any view I have ever seen. It is finer in my opinion than the first coup d’oeil of the Vega and city of Granada from the Ultimo Suspiro del Moro, where the degenerate Boabdil el Chico, both in mind and body, turned to take one last fond look at the luxurious abode of his chivalric ancestors and wept bitterly, though too late, at his own cowardice and duplicity, which had almost without a blow surrendered to the “curs of Nazareth” the splendid heritage of nearly seven centuries, and which was never but in imagination to return to the true sons of the Prophet. It is also finer than the Valley of Chamouni or Martigny, from the TÊte Noire, but I think it bears more resemblance to the Vega of Granada.”

Observe how regularly laid out, at right angles to each other, the streets are; the area of the city is great for the number of inhabitants (sixty thousand), most of the houses being built one story high, and occupying in consequence a large space, on account of the earthquakes, which are of frequent occurrence all along the Andean range. As we approach the suburbs, you may notice some of the ruins still remaining of that dreadful catastrophe, which, in 1812, levelled this beautiful city to the ground, burying beneath the dÉbris twelve thousand of the inhabitants, just as they had assembled in the magnificent churches of that time to render homage to the day, Holy Thursday. Since then the city has been rebuilt, it is to be hoped on more solid basis.

Caracas claims the honor of having given birth to several distinguished individuals, among others to BolÍvar and Miranda, two of the greatest champions of South American independence; to Rosio, the Jefferson of Venezuela;

to Andres Bello, a great poet and publicist; and to the eminent surgeon and physician, Dr. Vargas, one of the Presidents of the Republic.

The climate of Caracas has often been called a perpetual spring. “What can we conceive to be more delightful than a temperature which in the day keeps between 20° and 26°,[9] and at night between 16° and 18°, which is equally favorable to the plantain, the orange tree, the coffee tree, the apple, the apricot, and corn? JosÉ de Oviedo y BaÑos, the historiographer of Venezuela, calls the situation of Caracas that of a terrestrial paradise, and compares the Anauco and the neighboring torrents to the four rivers of the Garden of Eden.”[10]

The hotels, Sullivan describes as being as good as any in Europe. “You might travel from one end of Old Spain to the other without finding anything to be compared to them, either as regards cleanliness or the civility of the landlords.” But as here I am at home, you are most cordially invited to our mansion at the end of the Calle del Comercio, where you may verify for yourself the truth of the statements concerning the climate and productions of this fertile valley. We may at once enter the garden, which occupies nearly the whole square, where, after our rough ride, we can refresh ourselves with the fruits of the season.

Here, as you perceive, you find growing side by side the refreshing orange and the luscious apple, the pomegranate and the peach; the banana, the citron, the guava, the sapodilla, and papaw tree, all of them eminently tropical fruits, with the pear, the grape-vine, and other productions of temperate regions. Unsurpassed by any, not even by the famous Mangosteen of the Spicy Islands, you have here the delicious Chirimoya, or cherimoyer, as pronounced by Anglo-Saxons, and which I can only liken to lumps of flavored cream ready to be frozen, suspended from the branches of some fairy tree amidst the most overpowering perfume of its flowers; for it is in bearing all the year round, as indeed are most of the fruit trees you see about this garden, and consequently you may at all times enjoy the advantage of refreshing the inner as well as the outer man with a “wilderness of sweets.” Markham,[11] who has tasted both the chirimoya and mangosteen in their native habitat, gives the preference decidedly to the former, and says of it: “He who has not tasted the chirimoya fruit has yet to learn what fruit is.” “The pineapple, the mangosteen and the chirimoya,” says Dr. Seeman, “are considered the finest fruits in the world. I have tasted them in those localities in which they are supposed to attain their highest perfection—the pineapple in Guayaquil, the mangosteen in the Indian Archipelago, and the chirimoya on the slope of the Andes, and if I were called upon to act the part of a Paris, I would without hesitation assign the apple to the chirimoya. Its taste indeed surpasses that of every other fruit, and Haenke was quite right when he called it the masterpiece of nature.”

The numerous varieties of hot-house grapes, which in your variable climate of the north require so much skill and attention to perfect their growth, here thrive without the least care, and the vines which you see struggling here and there among the trees for some kind of support, proceed from cuttings which I brought over six years ago from one of the best regulated establishments in Connecticut.

Here, too, the stately Mauritia-palm of the Orinoco, the date-palm of the burning Sahara, the royal-palm of Cuba (Oredoxa Regia), and the oil-palm of Africa (Eleis guinensis) commingle their majestic crowns with the dense foliage of the mango tree of India, the aromatic cinnamon tree of Ceylon, the bread-fruit tree of Otaheite, and the sombre pines and cypress of northern regions, forming the most effective protection to the shade-loving magnolia and the delicate violet of your native woods.

Swarms of tiny and brilliant humming-birds flutter amid masses of highly-scented orange blossoms that perfume the air around us. Any one unacquainted with that bijou of the feathered tribe, would mistake it at first sight for some of the metallic-colored beetles which dispute with them the nectar of the fragrant flowers, so brilliant is the lustre shed by both. “For that peculiar charm which resides in flashing light combined with the most brilliant colors, the lustre of precious stones, there are no birds, no creatures that can compare with the humming-birds. Confined exclusively to America—whence we have already gathered between three and four hundred distinct species, and more are continually discovered—these lovely little winged gems were to the Mexican and Peruvian Indians the very quintessence of beauty. By these simple people they were called by various names, signifying ‘the rays of the sun,’ ‘the tresses of the day-star,’ and the like.”[12]

You may have noticed in your conservatories at home a well known creeper called the passion-flower, on account of a fancied similarity in the arrangement of its inflorescence with the instruments of torture employed in the martyrdom of the Saviour, such as the crown of thorns, the three nails, the hammer, and even the spots of sacred blood round the pillar of agony. The plants of this genus are general favorites with northern horticulturists only on account of the beauty and delicious aroma of their flowers, for they bear no fruit with you; but here, this constitutes their principal merit, especially that of the granadilla, which you may perceive intertwining its graceful vines amongst yonder arbor set up for its support. Huge watermelon-like fruits hang from its delicate tendrils as if suspended by a thread; cut open one of them; you will find it filled with a nectarian juice, which, when crushed in the mouth, regale your palate with the compound flavor of the strawberry and the peach. Other varieties of passion-flower—of which there are many though less pretentious in size than the granadilla—bear fruit equally rich in flavor. Unfortunately, not all fructify in the same locality, as they require different degrees of temperature, and maybe of atmospheric pressure, also, to ripen their fruit, which they cunningly obtain for themselves by “squatting” of their own accord higher up or lower down the mountains, as the case may be.

I could still point out to you many other delicious fruits in this garden were they in season, such as the tuna or Indian-fig, borne by the nopal, a species of cactus, on the fleshy, downy stems of which the cochineal insect is reared for those most valuable crimson and scarlet dyes “which far outshine the vaunted productions of ancient Tyre;” and the pitahaya, of the same family of plants, notable for the size and effulgence of its flowers. “It begins to open as the sun declines, and is in full expanse throughout the night, shedding a delicious fragrance, and offering its brimming goblet, filled with nectarious juice, to thousands of moths, and other crepuscular and nocturnal insects. When the moon is at the full in those cloudless nights whose loveliness is only known in the tropics, the broad blossom is seen as a circular dish nearly a foot in diameter, very full of petals, of which the outer series are of a yellowish hue, gradually paling to the centre, where they shine in the purest white. The numerous recumbent stamens surround the style, which rises in the midst like a polished shaft, the whole growing in its silvery beauty under the moonbeams, from the dark and matted foliage, and diffusing its delicious clove-like fragrance so profusely that the air is loaded with it for furlongs round.”[13]

I well remember one night when a distinguished foreigner, General Devereux, who rendered the patriot cause so marked a service by bringing over the Irish Legion to assist this country in her struggle for independence, honored me with a visit while keeping bachelor’s hall in this—to me then—earthly paradise. The Queen of Night was shining in all her glory, and the air redolent with the perfume of many exquisite flowers, among others that of the pitahaya just described, while the stillness that reigned around the spot, added to my youthful dreams of fairy lands I had lately visited across the seas, made me feel a particular pride about our mansion in the capital. Although the old hero was perfectly blind—as will be recollected by many who knew him in the United States where he resided afterwards—I could not resist the wish to invite him to take a stroll about the garden. As we passed close to the flowers of the pitahaya, the gallant old soldier stopped suddenly, and seizing me by the hand with an emotion that made me feel the deepest sympathy for the blind man, said: “How happy you must be here, my young friend, surrounded as you are by plants that shed such heavenly perfume!” But when we passed a bower of English honeysuckles, which was my special favorite, as I had planted it with my own hands, his emotions were indeed those of a man who felt as though everything on earth was lost to him—sweet home, friendly associations, the world itself in fact, and that he was only a wandering spirit in a strange sphere.

This, my good companion, reminds me too that such, more or less, is my own situation in this my native land, subject as it has been for years to political convulsions more disastrous to the peacefully inclined, than those subterranean fires which agitate the soil from time to time. Therefore our rambles in the capital must be of short duration, and following the route already pointed out by the traveller Sullivan, we will proceed on our journey towards the fertile valley of Aragua, stopping for the night at Las Adjuntas, a village delightfully situated at the foot of another lofty range of mountains which separates this from that of Caracas, near the junction of two mountain streams that form the Rio Guaire which passes near the capital.

Should you ever be troubled with nervousness or dyspepsia from too close application to business, or even be threatened with that more serious complaint of cold climates, consumption, don’t let your Doctor bother you with physic, nor delude yourself with a trip “down South,” Cuba, or even Europe; all this may at best prolong a miserable existence a little longer; instead of that, come here at once; bring plenty of books to while away the dolce far niente of this quiet place; or if you are a sportsman, your gun and fishing tackle; when sufficiently convalescent to undergo the fatigues of the journey, buy or hire horses for yourself and a good peon or guide, and start for the llanos, where you will have to rough it out as I did some years ago, and I guarantee you a radical cure.

At Las Adjuntas we have the choice of two roads, one for carriages, made at great cost since Sullivan’s visit to the country, and the other one right over the mountains; as this is by far the most picturesque of the two and the one described by him, we will follow on his footsteps, if you wish to enjoy the glorious scenery, of which he says;

“Next morning, at 3 A.M., our faithful mozo roused us,—at San Pedro—and we found our mules already saddled. The morning was very cold, and a cloak was by no means disagreeable. As far as I could make out by the light of a most glorious moon, San Pedro must be a very picturesque and flourishing village. We continued ascending through a thickly-wooded, mountainous path, for about three hours, when we found ourselves along the summit of the mountain, here called Las Cocuizas. Here the scenery was truly magnificent. The road wound along the summit of the Sierra, giving alternate views of the valley of the Tuy, with the distant valley of Aragua on the one hand, and the valley of Ocumare bounded the snow-capped mountains that separate the valleys from the plains on the other. Out of the main valleys narrow little glens wind, and nestle up into the mountains, till lost to view. Their rounded sides, and the emerald brilliancy of nature’s carpet with which they were clothed, reminded me of some of the glens of the Cheviots.

“That morning’s moonlight ride along the summits of the sierra of Las Cocuizas was certainly one of the most enjoyable I ever remember. It was almost like magic, when as the sun began to approach the horizon, the perfect stillness of the forests beneath was gradually broken by the occasional note of some early riser of the winged inhabitants, till at length, as the day itself began to break, the whole forest seemed to be suddenly warmed into life, sending forth choir after choir of gorgeous-plumaged songsters, each after his own manner, to swell the chorus of greeting—a discordant one, I fear it must be owned—to the glorious sun; and when the morning light enabled you to see down into the misty valleys beneath, there were displayed to our enchanted gaze zones of fertility embracing almost every species of tree and flower that flourishes between the Tierra Caliente and the regions of perpetual snow. It certainly was a view of almost unequalled magnificence. We were riding amongst apple and peach trees that might have belonged to an English orchard, and on whose branches we almost expected to see the blackbird and the chaffinch; while a few hundred yards below, parrots and macaws, monkeys and mocking-birds were sporting among the palms and tree-ferns of a tropical climate. I consider that this view alone would repay any lover of fine scenery for all the troubles and risks of crossing the Atlantic, for I do not know where one to be compared with it is to be found in Europe.”

This mountain takes the name of Las Cocuizas from the abundance of Agave plants growing here, and which impart such peculiar aspect to the landscape as we descend towards the bed of the Tuy, at the foot of the mountain. Here we must stop to breakfast and pass the sun before we proceed on our journey along the Tierra Caliente not far from our resting-place.

“We found the pretty village of Las Cocuizas,” proceeds Sullivan, “situated at the entrance of a delicious little glen, down which warbled the waters of the Tuy. The Venta, in fact nearly the whole village was shaded by one enormous saman-tree,[14] which to the dusty and wearied traveller gave it a most enticing appearance; neither did it disappoint our expectations, for a cleaner room and a better breakfast better cooked and better served, I never wish to taste. This venta at Las Cocuizas is most enchantingly situated at the foot of the mountain and at the entrance of the valley of the Tuy, which is there a mere glen; one side is entirely shaded by this enormous tree, and the other overhanging the Tuy, which with its rocky bed and thickly-wooded, precipitous banks, reminded one very much of some of the tributaries of the Tweed. The venta would be a charming place to stay at for a few days’ angling in the Tuy, which I believe is very good.”

After leaving the venta of Las Cocuizas, we wade through the waters of the Tuy—no bridge being provided here—and proceed along a well graded road for carts and carriages skirting the base of another ridge of mountains until we reach the village of El Consejo, where the great valley of Aragua, seventy miles in length, properly commences. And now we are in the great coffee region, “the garden of Venezuela” as it is very aptly called by common accord. As we ride towards the town of La Victoria, where we shall stop for the night, we pass several extensive plantations of that delicious shrub, shaded like the cacao by those stupendous erythrinas which you might mistake for a primeval forest, were it not for the uniformity of their growth and dazzling blossoms. Nothing in your vaunted system of cultivation in the North can excel the care bestowed upon these plantations, which must be kept in the best order to yield handsome returns; but as we cannot stop to visit one of these just now, you will permit me to repeat what the traveller often quoted before, says in regard to the region we are traversing:

“The valleys of Aragua are the most thickly populated and the most highly cultivated of all the districts of Venezuela. The level of the valley is two thousand feet below the valley of Caracas, consequently the heat much more intense. Coffee is now the chief article of exportation from Venezuela, the fluctuating price of which has of late years been very injurious to the country. The berry grown is of a superior quality, and fetches a much better price than the Cuban or Brazilian coffee, though not quite so high as that grown in Jamaica. Some of the coffee and sugar estates we passed were on the largest scale, employing as many as two hundred slaves,[15] besides the same number of laborers. A coffee plantation, either in blossom or when the berry is ripe, is the most beautiful culture in the world. The plant itself, with its regular shoots like a miniature tree, and red berries, is one of the most graceful shrubs I know; and as between the rows of coffee-trees they usually plant plantains and bananas, these with their enormous clusters of yellow fruits and their leaves of some six or eight feet in length, add greatly to the effect, and give the country the appearance of a large fruit garden. Moreover, as it is necessary to plant the mango, and other large fast-growing trees, to protect the ripening berry from the deluging rains and scorching heats, whenever you pass a coffee plantation, even in the hottest day in the midst of summer, when the whole face of the country is parched up and of an unhealthy brown color, the eye is continually refreshed by the cool, verdant appearance of these shaded gardens.”

I may add that the coffee of Venezuela is of various qualities, according to whether it is raised in Tierra Caliente or Tierra Fria, id est, coffee of the low, warm valleys, or coffee of mountainous districts; this last is superior to the former, and bears in consequence the highest price in the market. Again, cafÉ trillado, and cafÉ descerezado, which means coffee dried in the berry as it is gathered, and husked afterwards by a tread-mill composed of a heavy wooden wheel revolving in a circular trough of masonry; and coffee deprived at once of its pulpy covering by machinery as soon as it is picked, dried afterwards in the sun upon extensive platforms of masonry called patios, and passed through different sets of machinery to deprive the grain or bean of the adhering shell and pellicle. The coffee thus prepared is superior in quality to that which is trillado for want of means on the part of the planter to put up the expensive works required for this operation, and therefore bears a higher price.

Interspersed with these plantations are others of no less importance to the industry of these valleys, such as indigo, cotton, indian-corn, wheat and tobacco, all of them requiring the same share of careful cultivation and intelligent management. “The road we were following,” continues Sullivan, “was so well kept and so well wooded, and the hedges so neatly clipped, that I could hardly sometimes help fancying myself riding down some country lanes in England. We followed one lime hedge, which enclosed a coffee plantation, for upwards of two miles. It was the most perfectly kept hedge I had seen in any country; it was four or five feet high and about three feet thick, and throughout its whole length, I don’t believe there was a single flaw through which a dog could have forced its way. Several slaves were employed in trimming it. In fact, in this climate, where the growth of all inanimate nature is unceasing, and so rapid, it must employ several hands continually to keep it in such beautiful order. The scent of the lime as we approached it from some parched country we had been crossing previously, was most delicious.”

As there is nothing to interest us in the towns along this route, we will pass by San Mateo, La Victoria and Turmero, all of them pleasantly surrounded by plantations until we reach Maracay, the point of our destination. On our way thither, we come up with that giant of the vegetable world, the Saman de GÜere, so well described by Humboldt in his Travels, and subsequently by Sullivan. As their statements are corroborative of the facts given elsewhere by me respecting these enormous but most graceful mimosas, I will here use the language of the last mentioned traveller about that of the hacienda de GÜere.

“Soon after leaving Turmero we caught sight of the far-famed Saman de GÜere, and in about an hour’s time arrived at the hamlet of GÜere, from whence it takes its name. It is supposed to be the oldest tree in the world, for so great was the reverence of the Indians for it on account of its age at the time of the Spanish conquest, that the Government issued a decree for its protection from all injury, and it has ever since been public property. It shows no sign whatever of decay, but it is as fresh and green as it was most probably a thousand years ago. The trunk of this magnificent tree is only sixty feet high by thirty feet in circumference, so that it is not so much the enormous size of the Saman de GÜere that constitutes its great attraction, as the wonderful spread of its magnificent branches, and the perfect dome-like shape of its head, which is so exact and regular, that one could almost fancy some extinct race of giants had been exercising their topiarian art upon it. The circumference of this dome is said to be nearly six hundred feet, and the measure of its semicircular head very nearly as great. The saman is a species of mimosa, and what is curious and adds greatly to its beauty and softness is, that the leaves of this giant of nature are as small and delicate as those of the silver willow, and are equally as sensitive to every passing breeze.”

And now for the most picturesque of all the towns on our long ride, Maracay, not on account of any architectural display about its buildings, for it has no pretensions of this kind, but for its many gardens, each house being literally embowered in the choicest productions of the tropics in the way of fruits, such as orange, lime and lemon trees, both sweet and sour; caimito or star-apple, a creamy and luscious fruit growing upon one of the most beautiful trees with which I am acquainted; the same might be said of two other fruit-trees cultivated in these gardens, the mamon and cotopriz; both bearing great bunches of an oval fruit the size of a pigeon’s egg, olive-green in the former, and bright yellow in the latter, containing a kernel enveloped in a sweet, sub-acid pulp; bread-fruit trees of two kinds and accordingly distinguished as fruta de pan and pan de palo, bread-fruit and bread-tree—the former being a large pulpy and greenish fruit very like an Osage orange but larger, containing great numbers of chestnut-like seeds, which roasted or boiled taste very much like bread, and the latter a fruit precisely like its congener in appearance, but destitute of seeds, which assimilates it still more to the “staff of life” when boiled or baked, for it is beautifully white and compact inside.

In addition to the foregoing, these gardens offer you a fine display of other tropical trees no less esteemed for their grateful shade and their delicious fruits, such as sapotes and sapodillas, both elegant in form as well as in bearing; and so is also the splendid mamey apple-tree (mamea Americana) bearing great quantities of large, round and heavy fruits, brown outside, and golden-yellow within, from which marmalades and other delicacies are made by the charming Maracayeras.

The family to which the famous chirimoya belongs (anonaciÆ) have also three other representatives hardly inferior to that “master-piece of nature,” viz.; the guanÁbana (anona muricata) or sour-sop—an ugly name in English for such fine fruit—from which a most cooling drink is made, and still finer ices; the custard-apple, which needs no further explanation than its name to recommend it; and the riÑon, (anona squamosa) also a custardy kindney-like fruit, hence its name.

Butter being expensive, and difficult to keep in this climate, nature has provided a substitute for it in the fruit of the fine tree (Persea gratissima), consecrated, as the name implies, to Perseus, the son of Jupiter and DanaË; thus showing the wisdom of the botanist over the less cultivated English settlers of the Caribean islands, who call it alligator-pear, I presume, from the fact of its being indigenous to a country abounding in saurian reptiles, although I am of opinion that a creature of this sort would rather prefer a more substantial morsel in the shape of a fat Briton, to a fruit which is well adapted to the taste of demigods. In shape it resembles a large pear, but the interior of its rind is lined with a marrow-like substance of a yellowish color, which assimilates very nearly to butter, the place of which it supplies at the breakfast-table. It is, in fact, vegetable-butter, and many prefer it to the ordinary kind.

The extensive family of leguminous or pod-bearing trees also grace these gardens with three additional members remarkable for fine foliage and useful products, such as the algarroba, with hard-shelled pods, containing a number of brown, round seeds or beans—also very hard, enveloped in a farinaceous and very nutricious fecula; a fine aromatic resin, good for varnishes, exudes from the trunk and branches of this tree, and a still finer one can be extracted from its horny pericarp by infusion in alcohol or other extractive medium; guamos (Inga) of various kinds, with pellucid pods one and two feet in length, containing a row of beans enveloped in white, cottony pulp, most grateful to the taste; and the unrivalled tamarind, either as regards beauty of foliage, brilliancy of blossoms, or the delicacy of its acidulous pulpy pods; these are candied either in a green state or when fully ripe, affording in the latter case a most refreshing drink to the fever-stricken in this climate, when made into a decoction. In blossom, the tamarind-tree is one of the most charming objects to behold, for amid its feathery, dark-green foliage, somewhat similar to that of the hemlock, issues a profusion of golden-yellow branches of delicate flowers, almost dazzling to the eyes.

The coco-palm, although far away from the sea-coast, its native habitat, also flourishes in great perfection, contributing not a little to the splendor of the vegetation in these truly tropical gardens, with its glorious crown of monster leaves. And last, though not least, the plantain and banana claim here the supremacy which everyone accords them over all productions of the tropics. A few plants of each only are sufficient to supply a whole family with bread, vegetables, fruit, and preserves of various kinds. “We might be surprised,” observes Humboldt, “at the small extent of these cultivated spots, if we did not recollect that an acre planted with plantains produces nearly twenty times as much food as the same space sown with corn. In Europe, our wheat, barley, and rye cover vast spaces of ground; and in general the arable lands touch each other whenever the inhabitants live upon corn. It is different under the torrid zone, where man obtains food from plants which yield more abundant and earlier harvests. In those favored climates the fertility of the soil is proportioned to the heat and humidity of the atmosphere. An immense population finds abundant nourishment within a narrow space covered with plantains, casava, yams, and maize.”[16]

Well has the immortal bard of the Torrid Zone[17] sung the marvellous exuberance of this plant in the following lines, which I regret to be unable to translate.

Water being abundant throughout these gardens by the provident care of the inhabitants in bringing it in flowing streams from a great distance, they present at all times of the year, even during the driest months of summer, the perpetual spring-like verdure which constitutes their principal charm. Not far from here is the fine lake of Tacarigua or Valencia, which by its gradual but marked evaporation, is constantly adding to the already extensive area of fertile land nowhere to be found like it in the wide world, and which doubtless extorted, even from an Englishman, the following confession:

“It is a great pity Venezuela is so much out of the high roads of travel, and that the inconveniences, for Europeans, of getting at it, are so great. It is, in my opinion, the most beautiful country, as regards climate, scenery, and productions, in the world. The inhabitants are intelligent, civil, and honest; and although there is no excessive wealth in the country, there is, on the other hand, no great poverty, and actual want is unknown, where beef can be procured to any amount for a half penny a pound, and plantains and bananas almost for nothing. The inns are excellent, and travelling perfectly safe. You may, on the sides of its precipitous valleys, in a few hours, ascend from the productions of the torrid zone to those of the frigid. You may, if you like, dine off beefsteak and potatoes, cooled down with French claret or real London stout; or, if you prefer it, you may, in imitation of Leo X. and the Emperor Vitellius, feast your guests on joints of monkey and jaguar, and have your entremÊts of parrots’ tongues and humming-birds’ breasts washed down with sparkling pulque, tapped from the graceful maguey growing at your very door. In fact, there is no luxury you cannot enjoy at a moderate expense. Servants are cheap; and you can buy a horse for five shillings, though it will cost you fifteen to have him shod! The shooting on the llanos and in the mountains, according to all accounts, is very grand. The woods are filled with jaguar and ocelot, to say nothing of snakes, and the plains with deer and wild cattle.

“If any kind fairy were to offer me the sovereignty of any part of the world out of Europe, with power to rule it as I choose, my choice would certainly fall on Venezuela. I am fully convinced it only wants a government strong and stable enough to ensure the necessary protection to capital and property, to render it one of the most flourishing countries in the world. I look back upon the few weeks I spent there as amongst the most enjoyable I ever passed; and if ever any opportunity was to offer of revisiting that delicious country, I should do so with pleasure. Any traveller, wishing to judge for himself, has only to go by the West India steamer to St. Thomas, where he meets the sailing-packet for La Guaira, which he reaches in four or five days; and with a few letters of introduction, or even without any, hospitality will meet him on all hands, and he will never feel a moment hang heavy on his hands.”[18]

And now, seated under the refreshing foliage of these paradisaical gardens, rather than expose you to the dangers of a demi-savage country, I will recount to you the adventures of a former journey, and the peculiarities of a still more wonderful region.