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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The English And The Anglo-Americans Often
Seek To Make Purchases Of Vanilla At The Port Of La Guayra, But The
Merchants Procure With Difficulty A Very Small Quantity.
In the
valleys that descend from the chain of the coast towards the Caribbean
Sea, in the province of
Truxillo, as well as in the Missions of
Guiana, near the cataracts of the Orinoco, a great quantity of vanilla
might be collected; the produce of which would be still more abundant,
if, according to the practice of the Mexicans, the plant were
disengaged, from time to time, from the creeping plants by which it is
entwined and stifled.
The hot and fertile valleys of the Cordillera of the coast of
Venezuela occupy a tract of land which, on the west, towards the lake
of Maracaybo, displays a remarkable variety of scenery. I shall
exhibit in one view, to close this chapter, the facts I have been able
to collect respecting the quality of the soil and the metallic riches
of the districts of Aroa, of Barquesimeto, and of Carora.
From the Sierra Nevada of Merida, and the paramos of Niquitao, Bocono,
and Las Rosas,* (Many travellers, who were monks, have asserted that
the little Paramo de Las Rosas, the height of which appears to be more
than 1,600 toises, is covered with rosemary, and the red and white
roses of Europe grow wild there. These roses are gathered to decorate
the altars in the neighbouring villages on the festivals of the
church. By what accident has our Rosa centifolia become wild in this
country, while we nowhere found it in the Andes of Quito and Peru? Can
it really be the rose-tree of our garden?) which contain the valuable
bark-tree, the eastern Cordillera of New Granada* (* The bark exported
from the port of Maracaybo does not come from the territory of
Venezuela, but from the mountains of Pamplona in New Grenada, being
brought down the Rio de San Faustino, that flows into the lake of
Maracaybo. (Pombo, Noticias sobre las Quinas, 1814 page 65.) Some is
collected near Merida, in the ravine of Viscucucuy.) decreases in
height so rapidly, that, between the ninth and tenth degrees of
latitude, it forms only a chain of little mountains, which, stretching
to the north-east by the Altar and Torito, separates the rivers that
join the Apure and the Orinoco from those numerous rivers that flow
either into the Caribbean Sea or the lake of Maracaybo. On this
dividing ridge are built the towns of Nirgua, San Felipe el Fuerte,
Barquesimeto, and Tocuyo. The first three are in a very hot climate;
but Tocuyo enjoys great coolness, and we heard with surprise, that,
beneath so fine a sky, the inhabitants have a strong propensity to
suicide. The ground rises towards the south; for Truxillo, the lake of
Urao, from which carbonate of soda is extracted, and La Grita, all to
the east of the Cordillera, though no farther distant, are four or
five hundred toises high.
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