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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It Thence Results That
This Fine Country, Producing At Once Sugar And Corn, Belongs To The
Basin Of The Lake Of Valencia, To A System Of Interior Rivers Not
Communicating With The Sea.
The quarter of the town west of the Rio
Calanchas is called la otra banda; it is the most commercial part;
merchandize is everywhere exhibited, and ranges of shops form the
streets.
Two commercial roads pass through La Victoria, that of
Valencia, or of Porto Cabello, and the road of Villa de Cura, or of
the plains, called camino de los Llanos. We here find more whites
in proportion than at Caracas. We visited at sunset the little hill
of Calvary, where the view is extremely fine and extensive. We
discover on the west the lovely valleys of Aragua, a vast space
covered with gardens, cultivated fields, clumps of wild trees,
farms, and hamlets. Turning south and south-east, we see, extending
as far as the eye can reach, the lofty mountains of La Palma,
Guayraima, Tiara, and Guiripa, which conceal the immense plains or
steppes of Calabozo. This interior chain stretches westward along
the lake of Valencia, towards the Villa de Cura, the Cuesta de
Yusma, and the denticulated mountains of Guigne. It is very steep,
and constantly covered with that light vapour which in hot climates
gives a vivid blue tint to distant objects, and, far from
concealing their outlines, marks them the more strongly. It is
believed that among the mountains of the interior chain, that of
Guayraima reaches an elevation of twelve hundred toises. I found in
the night of the eleventh of February the latitude of La Victoria
10 degrees 13 minutes 35 seconds, the magnetic dip 40.8 degrees, the
intensity of the forces equal to 236 oscillations in ten minutes of
time, and the variation of the needle 4.4 degrees north-east.
We proceeded slowly on our way by the villages of San Mateo,
Turmero, and Maracay, to the Hacienda de Cura, a fine plantation
belonging to Count Tovar, where we arrived on the evening of the
fourteenth of February. The valley, which gradually widens, is
bordered with hills of calcareous tufa, called here tierra blanca.
The scientific men of the country have made several attempts to
calcine this earth, mistaking it for the porcelain earth proceeding
from decomposed strata of feldspar. We stayed some hours with a
very intelligent family, named Ustariz, at Concesion. Their house,
which contains a collection of choice books, stands on an eminence,
and is surrounded by plantations of coffee and sugar-cane. A grove
of balsam-trees (balsamo* (* Amyris elata.)) gives coolness and
shade to this spot. It was gratifying to observe the great number
of scattered houses in the valley inhabited by freedmen. In the
Spanish colonies, the laws, the institutions, and the manners, are
more favourable to the liberty of the negroes than in other
European settlements.
San Mateo, Turmero, and Maracay, are charming villages, where
everything denotes the comfort of the inhabitants.
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