The Aragua valleys form a basin, closed between granitic and calcareous mountain ranges of unequal height. Due to the land’s peculiar configuration, the small rivers of the Aragua valleys form an enclosed system and flow into a basin blocked off on all sides; these rivers do not flow to the ocean but end in an inland lake, and thanks to constant evaporation lose themselves, so to speak, in the air. These rivers and lakes determine the fertility of the soil and agricultural produce in the valleys. The aspect of the place and the experience of some fifty years show that the water-level is not constant; that the balance between evaporation and inflow is broken. As the lake lies 1,000 feet above the neighbouring Calabozo steppes, and 1,332 feet above sea-level, it was thought that the water filtered out through a subterranean channel. As islands emerge, and the water-level progressively decreases, it is feared the lake might completely dry out.
Lake Valencia, called Tacarigua by the Indians, is larger than Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland; its general form resembles Lake Geneva, situated at about the same altitude. Its opposite banks are notably different: the southern one is deserted, stripped of vegetation and virtually uninhabited; a curtain of high mountains gives it a sad, monotonous quality; in contrast, the northern side is pleasant and rural, and has rich plantations of sugar cane, coffee and cotton. Paths bordered with cestrum, azedaracs, and other perpetually flowering shrubs cross the plain and link the isolated farms. All the houses are surrounded by trees. The ceiba (Bombax hibiscifolius), with large yellow flowers, and the erythrina, with purple ones, whose overlapping branches give the countryside its special quality. During the season of drought, when a thick mist floats above the burning ground, artificial irrigation keeps the land green and wild. Every now and then granite blocks pierce through the cultivated ground; large masses of rocks rise up in the middle of the valley. Some succulent plants grow in its bare and cracked walls, preparing mould for the coming centuries. Often a fig tree, or a clusia with fleshy leaves, growing in clefts, crowns these isolated little summits. With their dry withered branches they look like signals along a cliff. The shape of these heights betrays the secret of their ancient origins; for when the whole valley was still submerged and waves lapped the foot of the Mariara peaks (El Rincón del Diablo) and the coastal chain, these rocky hills were shoals and islands.
But the shores of Lake Valencia are not famed solely for their picturesque beauties: the basin presents several phenomena whose interpretation holds great interest for natural historians and for the inhabitants. What causes the lowering of the lake’s water-level? Is it receding faster than before? Will the balance between the flowing in and the draining out be restored, or will the fear that the lake might dry up be proved justified?
I have no doubt that from remotest times the whole valley was filled with water. Everywhere the shape of the promontories and their steep slopes reveals the ancient shore of this alpine lake. We find vast tracts of land, formerly flooded, now cultivated with banana, sugar cane and cotton. Wherever a hut is built on the lake shore you can see how year by year the water recedes. As the water decreases, you can see how islands begin to join the land while others form promontories or become hills. We visited two islands still completely surrounded by water and found, under the scrub, on small flats between 4 and 8 toises above the water-level, fine sand mixed with helicites deposited by waves. On all these islands you will discover clear traces of the gradual lowering of the water.
The destruction of the forests, the clearing of the plains, and the cultivation of indigo over half a century has affected the amount of water flowing in as well as the evaporation of the soil and the dryness of the air, which forcefully explains why the present Lake Valencia is decreasing. By felling trees that cover the tops and sides of mountains men everywhere have ensured two calamities at the same time for the future: lack of fuel, and scarcity of water. Trees, by the nature of their perspiration, and the radiation from their leaves in a cloudless sky, surround themselves with an atmosphere that is constantly cool and misty. They affect the amount of springs by sheltering the soil from the sun’s direct actions and reducing the rainwater’s evaporation. When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere in America by European planters, with imprudent haste, the springs dry up completely, or merely trickle. River beds remain dry part of the year and are then turned into torrents whenever it rains heavily on the heights. As grass and moss disappear with the brushwood from the mountainsides, so rainwater is unchecked in its course. Instead of slowly raising the river level by filtrations, the heavy rains dig channels into the hillsides, dragging down loose soil, and forming sudden, destructive floods. Thus, the clearing of forests, the absence of permanent springs, and torrents are three closely connected phenomena. Countries in different hemispheres like Lombardy bordered by the Alps, and Lower Peru between the Pacific and the Andes, confirm this assertion.
Until the middle of the last century the mountains surrounding the Aragua valley were covered in forests. Huge trees of the mimosa, ceiba and fig families shaded the lake shore and kept it cool. The sparsely populated plain was invaded by shrubs, fallen tree trunks and parasitical plants, and was covered in thick grass so that heat was not lost as easily as from cultivated ground, which is not sheltered from the sun’s rays. When the trees are felled, and sugar cane, indigo and cotton are planted, springs and natural supplies to the lake dry up. It is hard to form a fair idea of the enormous amount of evaporation taking place in the torrid zone, especially in a valley surrounded by steep mountains where maritime breezes blow, and whose ground is completely flat as if levelled by water. The heat prevailing on the lake shore is comparable to that in Naples and Sicily.
Lake Valencia is full of islands, which embellish the countryside with the picturesque form of their rocks and by the kind of vegetation that covers them. Tropical lakes have this advantage over alpine ones. The islands, without counting Morro and Cabrera, which are already joined to the mainland, are fifteen in number. They are partially cultivated, and very fertile due to the vapours rising from the lake. Burro, the largest island, some 2 miles long, is inhabited by mestizo families who rear goats. These simple people rarely visit the Mocundo coast. The lake seems gigantic to them: they produce bananas, cassava, milk and fish. A hut built of reeds, some hammocks woven with cotton grown in neighbouring fields, a large stone on which they build their fires, and the ligneous fruit of the tutuma to draw water with are their sole household needs. The old mestizo who offered us goat’s milk had a lovely daughter. We learned from our guide that isolation had made him as suspicious as if he lived in a city. The night before our arrival some hunters had visited the island. Night surprised them and they preferred to sleep out in the open rather than return to Mocundo. This news spread alarm around the island. The father forced his young daughter to climb a very tall zamang or mimosa, which grows on the plain at some distance from the hut. He slept at the foot of this tree, and didn’t let his daughter down until the hunters had left.
The lake is usually full of fish; there are three species with soft flesh, which are not very tasty: the guavina, the bagre and the sardina. The last two reach the lake from streams. The guavina, which I sketched on the spot, was some 20 inches long and 3 to 5 inches wide. It is perhaps a new species of Gronovius’s Erythrina. It has silver scales bordered with green. This fish is extremely voracious and destroys other species. Fishermen assured us that a little crocodile, the bava, which often swam near as we bathed, contributed to the destruction of the fish. We never managed to catch this reptile and examine it close up. It is said to be very innocent; yet its habits, like its shape, clearly resemble the alligator or Crocodilus acutus. It swims so that only the tips of its snout and tail show: it lies at midday on deserted beaches.
The island of Chamberg is a granitic outcrop some 200 feet high, with two peaks linked by a saddle. The sides of the rock are bare; only a few white flowering clusia manage to grow there. But the view of the lake and surrounding plantations is magnificent, especially at sunset when thousands of heron, flamingo and wild duck fly over the water to roost on the island.
It is thought that some of the plants that grow on the rocky islands of Lake Valencia are exclusive to them because they have not been discovered elsewhere. Among these are the papaw tree of the lake (papaya de la laguna), and a tomato81 from Cura Island; this differs from our Solanum lycopersicum in that its fruit is round and small but very tasty. The papaw of the lake is common also on Cura Island and at Cabo Blanco. Its trunk is slenderer than the ordinary papaw, but its fruit is half the size and completely round, without projecting ribs. This fruit, which I have often eaten, is extremely sweet.
The areas around the lake are unhealthy only in the dry season when the water-level falls and the mud bed is exposed to the sun’s heat. The bank, shaded by woods of Coccoloba barbadensis and decorated with beautiful lilies, reminds one, because of the similar aquatic plants found there, of the marshy banks of our European lakes. Here we find pondweed (potamogeton), chara and cat’s-tails 3 feet high, hardly different from the Typha angustifolia of our marshes. Only after very careful examination do we recognize each plant to be a distinct species, peculiar to the New World. How many plants from the Strait of Magellan to the cordilleras of Quito have once been confused with northern temperate ones owing to their analogy in form and appearance!
Some of the rivers flowing into Lake Valencia come from thermal springs, worthy of special note. These springs gush out at three points from the coastal granitic chain at Onoto, Mariara and Las Trincheras. I was only able to carefully examine the physical and geological relations of the thermal waters of Mariara and Las Trincheras. All the springs contain small amounts of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The stink of rotten eggs, typical of this gas, could only be smelled very close to the spring. In one of the puddles, which had a temperature of 56.2 °C, bubbles burst up at regular intervals of two to three minutes. I was not able to ignite the gas, not even the small amounts in the bubbles as they burst on the warm surface of the water, nor after collecting it in a bottle, despite feeling nausea caused more by the heat than by the gas. The water, when cold, is tasteless and quite drinkable.
South of the ravine, in the plain that stretches to the lake shore, another less hot and less gassy sulphureous spring gushes out. The thermometer reached only 42 °C. The water collects in a basin surrounded by large trees. The unhappy slaves throw themselves in this pool at sunset, covered in dust after working in the indigo and sugar-cane fields. Despite the water being 12 °C to 14 °C warmer than the air the negroes call it refreshing. In the torrid zone this word is used for anything that restores your strength, calms nerves or produces a feeling of well-being. We also experienced the salutary effects of this bath. We had our hammocks slung in the trees shading this pond and spent a whole day in this place so rich in plants. Near this bãno de Mariara we found the volador or gyrocarpus. The winged fruits of this tree seem like flying beings when they separate from the stem. On shaking the branches of the volador, we saw the air filled with its fruits, all falling together. We sent some fruit to Europe, and they germinated in Berlin, Paris and Malmaison. The numerous plants of the volador, now seen in hothouses, owe their origin to the only tree of its kind found near Mariara.
While following the local custom of drying ourselves in the sun after our bath, half wrapped in towels, a small mulatto approached. After greeting us in a serious manner, he made a long speech about the properties of the Mariara waters, the many sick people who over the years have come here, and the advantageous position of the spring between Valencia and Caracas, where morals became more and more dissolute. He showed us his house, a little hut covered with palm leaves in an enclosure near by, next to a stream that fed the pool. He assured us that we would find there all the comforts we could imagine; nails to hang our hammocks, oxhides to cover reed beds, jugs of fresh water, and those large lizards (iguanas) whose flesh is considered to be a refreshing meal after a bathe. From his speech we reckoned that this poor man had mistaken us for sick people wanting to install themselves near the spring. He called himself ‘the inspector of the waters and the pulpero of the place’. He stopped talking to us as soon as he saw we were there out of curiosity – ‘para ver no más’ as they say in these colonies, ‘an ideal place for lazy people’.
On the 21st of February, at nightfall, we left the pretty Hacienda de Cura and set off for Guacara and Nueva Valencia. As the heat of the day was stifling we travelled by night. We crossed the village of Punta Zamuro at the foot of Las Viruelas mountain. The road is lined with large zamangs, or mimosa trees, reaching some 60 feet high. Their almost horizontal branches meet at more than 150 feet distance. I have never seen a canopy of leaves so thick and beautiful as these. The night was dark: the Rincón del Diablo and its dentated rocks appeared every now and then, illuminated by the brilliance of the burning savannahs, or wrapped in clouds of reddish smoke. In the thickest part of the brush our horses panicked when they heard the howl of an animal that seemed to be following us. It was an enormous jaguar that had been roaming these mountains for three years. It had escaped from the most daring hunters. It attacked horses and mules, even when they were penned in, but not lacking food had not yet attacked human beings. Our negro guide screamed wildly to scare off the beast, which he obviously did not achieve.
We spent the 23rd of February in the marquis of Toro’s house, in the village of Guacara, a large Indian community. The Indians live a life of ease because they have just won a legal case restoring lands disputed by whites. An avenue of carolineas leads from Guacara to Mocundo, a rich sugar plantation belonging to the Moro family. We found a rare garden there with an artificial clump of trees, and, on top of a granitic outcrop near a stream, a pavilion with a mirador or viewpoint. From here you see a splendid panorama over the west of the lake, the surrounding mountains and a wood of palm trees. The sugar-cane fields with their tender green leaves seem like a great plain. Everything suggests abundance, although those who work the land have to sacrifice their freedom.
The preparation of sugar, its boiling, and the claying, is not well done in Terra Firma because it is made for local consumption. More papelón is sold than either refined or raw sugar. Papelón is an impure sugar in the form of little yellowish-brown loaves. It is a blend of molasses and mucilaginous matter. The poorest man eats papelón the way in Europe he eats cheese. It is said to be nutritious. Fermented with water it yields guarapo, the favourite local drink.
The city of New Valencia occupies a large area of ground, but its population is of some 6,000 to 7,000 souls. The roads are very wide, the market place (plaza mayor) is disproportionately large. As the houses are few the difference between the population and the land they occupy is greater even than at Caracas. Many of the whites of European stock, especially the poorest, leave their town houses and live for most of the year in their cotton and indigo plantations. They dare to work with their own hands, which, given the rigid prejudices in this country, would be a disgrace in the city. The industriousness of the inhabitants has greatly increased after freedom was granted to business in Puerto Cabello, now open as a major port (puerto mayor) to ships coming directly from Spain.
Founded in 1555, under the government of Villacinda, by Alonso Díaz Moreno, Nueva Valencia is twelve years older than Caracas. Some justifiably regret that Valencia has not become the capital of the country. Its situation on the plain, next to a lake, recalls Mexico City. If you consider the easy communications offered by the Aragua valleys with the plains and rivers entering the Orinoco; if you accept the possibility of opening up navigation into the interior through the Pao and Portuguesa rivers as far as the Orinoco mouth, the Casiquiare and the Amazon, you realize that the capital of the vast Venezuelan provinces would have been better placed next to the superb Puerto Cabello, under a pure, serene sky, and not next to the barely sheltered bay of La Guaira, in a temperate but always misty valley.
Only those who have seen the quantity of ants that infest the countries of the torrid zone can picture the destruction and the sinking of the ground caused by these insects. They abound to such a degree in Valencia that their excavations resemble underground canals, which flood with water during the rains and threaten buildings. Here they have not used the extraordinary means employed by the monks on the island of Santo Domingo when troops of ants ravaged the fine plains of La Vega. The monks, after trying to burn the ant larvae and fumigate the nests, told the inhabitants to choose a saint by lot who would act as an Abogado contra las Hormigas. The choice fell on Saint Saturnin, and the ants disappeared as soon as the saint’s festival was celebrated.
On the morning of the 27th of February we visited the hot springs of La Trinchera, 3 leagues from Valencia. They flow more fully than any we had seen until then, forming a rivulet, which in the dry season maintains a depth of some 2 feet 8 inches of water. The carefully taken water temperature was 90.3 °C. We had breakfast near the spring: our eggs were cooked in less than four minutes in the hot water. The rock from which the spring gushes is of real coarse-grained granite. Whenever the water evaporates in the air, it forms sediments and incrustations of carbonate of lime. The exuberance of the vegetation around the basin surprised us. Mimosas with delicate pinnate leaves, clusias and figs send their roots into the muddy ground, which is as hot as 85 °C. Two currents flow down on parallel courses, and the Indians showed us how to prepare a bath of whatever temperature you want by opening a hole in the ground between the two streams. The sick, who come to La Trinchera to take steam baths, build a kind of framework with branches and thin reeds above the spring. They lie down naked on this frame, which, as far as I could see, was not very strong, perhaps even dangerous.
As we approached the coast the heat became stifling. A reddish mist covered the horizon. It was sunset but no sea breeze blew. We rested in the lonely farm called both Cambury and House of the Canarian (Casa del Isleño). The hot-water river, along whose bank we travelled, became deeper. A 9-foot-long crocodile lay dead on the sand. We wanted to examine its teeth and the inside of its mouth, but having been exposed to the sun for weeks it stank so bad we had to climb back on to our horses.
More than 10,000 mules are exported every year from Puerto Cabello. It is curious to see these animals being embarked. They are pulled down with lassos and lifted on board by something akin to a crane. In the boat they are placed in double rows, and with the rolling and pitching of the boat can barely stand. To terrify them, and keep them docile, a drum is beaten day and night.
From Puerto Cabello we returned to the Aragua valley, and stopped again at the Barbula plantation through which the new road to Nueva Valencia will pass. Weeks before we had been told about a tree whose sap is a nourishing milk. They call it the ‘cow tree’, and assured us that negroes on the estates drank quantities of this vegetable milk. As the milky juices of plants are acrid, bitter and more or less poisonous, it seemed hard to believe what we heard, but during our stay in Barbula we proved that nobody had exaggerated the properties of palo de vaca. This fine tree is similar to the Chrysophyllum cainito (broad-leafed star-apple). When incisions are made in the trunk it yields abundant glutinous milk; it is quite thick, devoid of all acridity, and has an agreeable balmy smell. It was offered to us in tutuma-fruit – or gourd – bowls, and we drank a lot before going to bed, and again in the morning, without any ill effects. Only its viscosity makes it a little disagreeable. Negroes and free people who work on the plantations dip their maize and cassava bread in it. The overseer of the estate told us that negroes put on weight during the period that the palo de vaca exudes milk. This notable tree appears to be peculiar to the cordillera coast. At Caucagua the natives called it the ‘milk tree’. They say they can recognize the trunks that yield most juice from the thickness and colour of the leaves. No botanist has so far known this plant.
Of all the natural phenomena that I have seen during my voyages few have produced a greater impression than the palo de vaca. What moved me so deeply was not the proud shadows of the jungles, nor the majestic flow of the rivers, nor the mountains covered with eternal snows, but a few drops of a vegetable juice that brings to mind all the power and fertility of nature. On a barren rocky wall grows a tree with dry leathery leaves; its large woody roots hardly dig into the rocky ground. For months not a drop of rain wets its leaves; the branches appear dry, dead. But if you perforate the trunk, especially at dawn, a sweet nutritious milk pours out.82
It was Carnival Tuesday, and everywhere people celebrated. The amusements, called carnes tollendas (or ‘farewell to the flesh’), became at times rather wild: some paraded an ass loaded with water, and whenever they found an open window pumped water into the room; others carried bags full of hair from the pica pica (Dolichos pruriens), which greatly irritates skin on contact, and threw it into the faces of passers-by.
From La Guaira we returned to Nueva Valencia, where we met several French émigrés, the only ones we saw in five years in the Spanish colonies. In spite of the blood links between the Spanish and French royal families, not even French priests could find refuge in this part of the New World, where man finds it so easy to find food and shelter. Beyond the Atlantic Ocean, only the United States of America offers asylum to those in need. A government that is strong because it is free, and confident because it is just, has nothing to fear in granting refuge to exiles.
Before leaving the Aragua valleys and its neighbouring coasts, I will deal with the cacao plantations, which have always been the main source of wealth in this area. The cacao-producing tree does not grow wild anywhere in the forests north of the Orinoco. This scarcity of wild cacao trees in South America is a curious phenomenon, yet little studied. The amount of trees in the cacao plantations has been estimated at more than 16 million. We met no tribe on the Orinoco that prepared a drink with cacao seeds. Indians suck the pulp of the pod and chuck the seeds, often found in heaps in places where Indians have spent the night. It seems to me that in Caracas cacao cultivation follows the examples of Mexico and Guatemala. Spaniards established in Terra Firma learned how to cultivate the cacao tree – sheltered while young by the leaves of the erythrina and banana, making chocolatl cakes, and using the liquid of the same name, thanks to trade with Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua whose people are of Toltec and Aztec origin.
As far back as the sixteenth century travellers have greatly differed in their opinions about chocolatl. Benzoni said, in his crude language, that it is a drink ‘fitter for pigs than humans’. The Jesuit Acosta asserts that ‘the Spaniards who inhabit America are fond of chocolate to excess…’ Fernando Cortez highly praised chocolate as being an agreeable drink if prepared cold and, especially, as being very nutritious. Cortez’s page writes: ‘He who has drunk one cup can travel all day without further food, especially in very hot climates.’ We shall soon celebrate this quality in chocolate in our voyage up the Orinoco. It is easily transported and prepared: as food it is both nutritious and stimulating.83