Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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They Only Know That Of The Young Cattle,
Which Are Branded Every Year With A Letter Or Mark Peculiar To Each
Herd.
The richest proprietors mark as many as 14,000 head every year;
and sell to the number of five or six thousand.
According to official
documents, the exportation of hides from the whole capitania-general
of Caracas amounted annually to 174,000 skins of oxen, and 11,500 of
goats. When we reflect, that these documents are taken from the books
of the custom-houses, where no mention is made of the fraudulent
dealings in hides, we are tempted to believe that the estimate of
1,200,000 oxen wandering in the Llanos, from the Rio Carony and the
Guarapiche to the lake of Maracaybo, is much underrated. The port of
La Guayra alone exported annually from 1789 to 1792, 70,000 or 80,000
hides, entered in the custom-house books, scarcely one-fifth of which
was sent to Spain. The exportation from Buenos Ayres, at the end of
the eighteenth century, was, according to Don Felix de Azara, 800,000
skins. The hides of Caracas are preferred in the Peninsula to those of
Buenos Ayres; because the latter, on account of a longer passage,
undergo a loss of twelve per cent in the tanning. The southern part of
the savannahs, commonly called the Upper Plains (Llanos de arriba), is
very productive in mules and oxen; but the pasturage being in general
less good, these animals are obliged to be sent to other plains to be
fattened before they are sold. The Llano de Monai, and all the Lower
Plains (Llanos de abaxo), abound less in herds, but the pastures are
so fertile, that they furnish meat of an excellent quality for the
supply of the coast. The mules, which are not fit for labour before
the fifth year, are purchased on the spot at the price of fourteen or
eighteen piastres. The horses of the Llanos, descending from the fine
Spanish breed, are not very large; they are generally of a uniform
colour, brown bay, like most of the wild animals. Suffering
alternately from drought and floods, tormented by the stings of
insects and the bites of the large bats, they lead a sorry life. After
having enjoyed for some months the care of man, their good qualities
are developed. Here there are no sheep: we saw flocks only on the
table-land of Quito.
The hatos of oxen have suffered considerably of late from troops of
marauders, who roam over the steppes killing the animals merely to
take their hides. This robbery has increased since the trade of the
Lower Orinoco has become more flourishing. For half a century, the
banks of that great river, from the mouth of the Apure as far as
Angostura, were known only to the missionary-monks. The exportation of
cattle took place from the ports of the northern coast only, namely
from Cumana, Barcelona, Burburata, and Porto Cabello. This dependence
on the coast is now much diminished. The southern part of the plains
has established an internal communication with the Lower Orinoco; and
this trade is the more brisk, as those who devote themselves to it
easily escape the trammels of the prohibitory laws.
The greatest herds of cattle in the Llanos of Caracas are those of the
hatos of Merecure, La Cruz, Belen, Alta Gracia, and Pavon. The Spanish
cattle came from Coro and Tocuyo into the plains. History has
preserved the name of the colonist who first conceived the idea of
peopling these pasturages, inhabited only by deer, and a large species
of cavy.* (* The thick-nosed tapir, or river cavy (Cavia capybara),
called chiguire in those countries.) Christoval Rodriguez sent the
first horned cattle into the Llanos, about the year 1548. He was an
inhabitant of the town of Tocuyo, and had long resided in New Grenada.
When we hear of the innumerable quantity of oxen, horses, and mules,
that are spread over the plains of America, we seem generally to
forget that in civilized Europe, on lands of much less extent, there
exist, in agricultural countries, quantities no less prodigious.
France, according to M. Peuchet, feeds 6,000,000 large horned cattle,
of which 3,500,000 are oxen employed in drawing the plough. In the
Austrian monarchy, the number of oxen, cows, and calves, has been
estimated at 13,400,000 head. Paris alone consumes annually 155,000
horned cattle. Germany receives 150,000 oxen yearly from Hungary.
Domestic animals, collected in small herds, are considered by
agricultural nations as a secondary object in the riches of the state.
Accordingly they strike the imagination much less than those wandering
droves of oxen and horses which alone fill the uncultivated tracts of
the New World. Civilization and social order favour alike the progress
of population, and the multiplication of animals useful to man.
We found at Calabozo, in the midst of the Llanos, an electrical
machine with large plates, electrophori, batteries, electrometers; an
apparatus nearly as complete as our first scientific men in Europe
possess. All these articles had not been purchased in the United
States; they were the work of a man who had never seen any instrument,
who had no person to consult, and who was acquainted with the
phenomena of electricity only by reading the treatise of De Lafond,
and Franklin's Memoirs. Senor Carlos del Pozo, the name of this
enlightened and ingenious man, had begun to make cylindrical
electrical machines, by employing large glass jars, after having cut
off the necks. It was only within a few years he had been able to
procure, by way of Philadelphia, two plates, to construct a plate
machine, and to obtain more considerable effects. It is easy to judge
what difficulties Senor Pozo had to encounter, since the first works
upon electricity had fallen into his hands, and that he had the
courage to resolve to procure himself, by his own industry, all that
he had seen described in his books.
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