Of the
Indian chief, and the new inhabitants of San Fernando had to suffer
all the evils of scarcity. Canoes were sent at a great expense to New
Grenada, by the Meta and the Vichada, in search of flour. The
provision arrived too late, and many Spaniards and Indians perished of
those diseases which are produced in every climate by want and moral
dejection.
Some traces of cultivation are still found at San Fernando. Every
Indian has a small plantation of cacao-trees, which produce abundantly
in the fifth year; but they cease to bear fruit sooner than in the
valleys of Aragua. There are some savannahs and good pasturage round
San Fernando, but hardly seven or eight cows are to be found, the
remains of a considerable herd which was brought into these countries
at the expedition for settling the boundaries. The Indians are a
little more civilized here than in the rest of the missions, and we
found to our surprise a blacksmith of the native race.
In the mission of San Fernando, a tree which gives a peculiar
physiognomy to the landscape, is the piritu or pirijao palm. Its
trunk, armed with thorns, is more than sixty feet high; its leaves are
pinnated, very thin, undulated, and frizzled towards the points.
