(* Or "farewell to
flesh." The word carnival has the same meaning, these sports being
always held just before the commencement of Lent.) Some led an ass
loaded with water, and, where-ever they found a window open, inundated
the apartment within by means of a pump. Others carried bags filled
with hairs of picapica;* (* Dolichos pruriens (cowage).) and blew the
hair, which causes a great irritation of the skin, into the faces of
those who passed by.
From Guacara we returned to Nueva Valencia. We found there a few
French emigrants, the only ones we saw during five years passed in the
Spanish colonies. Notwithstanding the ties of blood which unite the
royal families of France and Spain, even French priests were not
permitted to take refuge in that part of the New World, where man with
such facility finds food and shelter. Beyond the Atlantic, the United
States of America afford the only asylum to misfortune. A government,
strong because it is free, confiding because it is just, has nothing
to fear in giving refuge to the proscribed.
We have endeavoured above to give some notions of the state of the
cultivation of indigo, cotton, and sugar, in the province of Caracas.
Before we quit the valley of Aragua and its neighbouring coast, it
remains for us to speak of the cacao-plantations, which have at all
times been considered as the principal source of the prosperity of
those countries.
