Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 108 of 332 - First - Home
The Impunity Conceded To The Skin-Stealers
And The Accumulation Of Marauders In The Savannahs Preceded That
Destruction Of Cattle Caused By The Ravages Of Civil War And The
Supplies Required For Troops.
A very considerable number of goat-skins
is exported to the island of Marguerita, Punta Araya and Corolas;
sheep abound only in Carora and Tocuyo.
The consumption of meat being
immense in this country the diminution of animals has a greater
influence here than in any other district on the well-being of the
inhabitants. The town of Caracas, of which the population in my time
was one-tenth of that of Paris, consumed more than one-half the
quantity of beef annually used in the capital of France.
I might add to the productions of the vegetable and animal kingdoms of
Venezuela the enumeration of the minerals, the working of which is
worthy the attention of the government; but having from my youth been
engaged in the practical labours of mines I know how vague and
uncertain are the judgments formed of the metallic wealth of a country
from the mere appearance of the rocks and of the veins in their beds.
The utility of such labours can be determined only by well directed
experiments by means of shafts or galleries. All that has been done in
researches of this kind, under the dominion of the mother-country, has
left the question wholly undecided and the most exaggerated ideas have
been recently spread through Europe concerning the riches of the mines
of Caracas. The common denomination of Columbia given to Venezuela and
New Grenada has doubtless contributed to foster those illusions. It
cannot be doubted that the gold-washings of New Grenada furnished, in
the last years of public tranquillity, more than 18,000 marks of gold;
that Choco and Barbacoa supply platinum in abundance; the valley of
Santa Rosa in the province of Antioquia, the Andes of Quindiu and
Gauzum near Cuenca, yield sulphuretted mercury; the table-land of
Bogota (near Zipaquira and Canoas), fossil-salt and pit-coal; but even
in New Grenada subterranean labours on the silver and gold veins have
hitherto been very rare. I am far, however, from wishing to discourage
the miners of those countries: I merely conceive that for the purpose
of proving to the old world the political importance of Venezuela, the
amazing territorial wealth of which is founded on agriculture and the
produce of pastoral life, it is not necessary to describe as
realities, or as the acquisitions of industry, what is, as yet,
founded solely on hopes and probabilities more or less uncertain. The
republic of Columbia also possesses on its coast, on the island of
Marguerita, on the Rio Hacha and in the gulf of Panama pearl fisheries
of ancient celebrity. In the present state of things, however, fishing
for these pearls is an object of as little importance as the
exportation of the metals of Venezuela. The existence of metallic
veins on several points of the coast cannot be doubted.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 108 of 332
Words from 56308 to 56813
of 174507
