Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Promised To Describe His Features
Exactly To His Father, But The Sight Of Our Books And Instruments
Somewhat Chilled The Mother's Confidence.
She said "that in a long
journey, amidst so many cares of another kind, we might well forget
the colour of her child's eyes."
On the road from Maracay to the Hacienda de Cura we enjoyed from
time to time the view of the lake of Valencia. An arm of the
granitic chain of the coast stretches southward into the plain. It
is the promontory of Portachuelo which would almost close the
valley, were it not separated by a narrow defile from the rock of
La Cabrera. This place has acquired a sad celebrity in the late
revolutionary wars of Caracas; each party having obstinately
disputed its possession, as opening the way to Valencia, and to the
Llanos. La Cabrera now forms a peninsula: not sixty years ago it
was a rocky island in the lake, the waters of which gradually
diminish. We spent seven very agreeable days at the Hacienda da
Cura, in a small habitation surrounded by thickets.
We lived after the manner of the rich in this country; we bathed
twice, slept three times, and made three meals in the twenty-four
hours. The temperature of the water of the lake is rather warm,
being from twenty-four to twenty-five degrees; but there is another
cool and delicious bathing-place at Toma, under the shade of ceibas
and large zamangs, in a torrent gushing from the granitic mountains
of the Rincon del Diablo. In entering this bath, we had not to fear
the sting of insects, but to guard against the little brown hairs
which cover the pods of the Dolichos pruriens. When these small
hairs, well characterised by the name of picapica, stick to the
body, they excite a violent irritation on the skin; the dart is
felt, but the cause is unperceived.
Near Cura we found all the people occupied in clearing the ground
covered with mimosa, sterculia, and Coccoloba excoriata, for the
purpose of extending the cultivation of cotton. This product, which
partly supplies the place of indigo, has succeeded so well during
some years, that the cotton-tree now grows wild on the borders of
the lake of Valencia. We have found shrubs of eight or ten feet
high entwined with bignonia and other ligneous creepers. The
exportation of cotton from Caracas, however, is yet of small
importance. It amounted at an average at La Guayra scarcely to
three or four hundred thousand pounds in a year; but including all
the ports of the Capitania-general, it arose, on account of the
flourishing culture of Cariaco, Nueva Barcelona, and Maracaybo, to
more than 22,000 quintals. The cotton of the valleys of Aragua is
of fine quality, being inferior only to that of Brazil; for it is
preferred to that of Carthagena, St. Domingo, and the Caribbee
Islands. The cultivation of cotton extends on one side of the lake
from Maracay to Valencia; and on the other from Guayca to Guigue.
The large plantations yield from sixty to seventy thousand pounds a
year.
During our stay at Cura we made numerous excursions to the rocky
islands (which rise in the midst of the lake of Valencia,) to the
warm springs of Mariara, and to the lofty granitic mountain called
El Cucurucho de Coco. A dangerous and narrow path leads to the port
of Turiamo and the celebrated cacao-plantations of the coast. In
all these excursions we were agreeably surprised, not only at the
progress of agriculture, but at the increase of a free laborious
population, accustomed to toil, and too poor to rely on the
assistance of slaves. White and mulatto farmers had everywhere
small separate establishments. Our host, whose father had a revenue
of 40,000 piastres, possessed more lands than he could clear; he
distributed them in the valleys of Aragua among poor families who
chose to apply themselves to the cultivation of cotton. He
endeavoured to surround his ample plantations with freemen, who,
working as they chose, either in their own land or in the
neighbouring plantations, supplied him with day-labourers at the
time of harvest. Nobly occupied on the means best adapted gradually
to extinguish the slavery of the blacks in these provinces, Count
Tovar flattered himself with the double hope of rendering slaves
less necessary to the landholders, and furnishing the freedmen with
opportunities of becoming farmers. On departing for Europe he had
parcelled out and let a part of the lands of Cura, which extend
towards the west at the foot of the rock of Las Viruelas. Four
years after, at his return to America, he found on this spot,
finely cultivated in cotton, a little hamlet of thirty or forty
houses, which is called Punta Zamuro, and which we visited with
him. The inhabitants of this hamlet are almost all mulattos,
Zamboes, or free blacks. This example of letting out land has been
happily followed by several other great proprietors. The rent is
ten piastres for a fanega of ground, and is paid in money or in
cotton. As the small farmers are often in want, they sell their
cotton at a very moderate price. They dispose of it even before the
harvest: and the advances, made by rich neighbours, place the
debtor in a situation of dependence, which frequently obliges him
to offer his services as a labourer. The price of labour is cheaper
here than in France. A freeman, working as a day-labourer (peon),
is paid in the valleys of Aragua and in the llanos four or five
piastres per month, not including food, which is very cheap on
account of the abundance of meat and vegetables. I love to dwell on
these details of colonial industry, because they serve to prove to
the inhabitants of Europe, a fact which to the enlightened
inhabitants of the colonies has long ceased to be doubtful, namely,
that the continent of Spanish America can produce sugar, cotton,
and indigo by free hands, and that the unhappy slaves are capable
of becoming peasants, farmers, and landholders.
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