United States or Falkland Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We know not the height even of Cerro del Altar, between Tocuyo and Caranacatu; but we know by recent measures that the most inhabited spots are from 300 to 350 toises above sea-level. The limits of the mountainous land between Tocuyo and the valleys of Aragua are, the plains of San Carlos on the south, and the Rio Tocuyo on the north; the Rio Siquisique flows into that river.
It is a land the more interesting in a geognostical point of view, as no map has yet made known the mountainous ramifications which the paramos of Niquitao and Las Rosas send out towards the north-east. Between Tocuyo, Araure, and Barquisimeto, rises the group of the Altar Mountains, connected on the south-east with the paramo of Las Rosas.
In the province of Caracas, this culture is of very ancient date in the mountainous lands of Tocuyo, Quibor, and Barquisimeto, which connect the littoral chain with the Sierra Nevada of Merida. Wheat is still successfully cultivated there, and the environs of the town of Tocuyo alone export annually more than eight thousand quintals of excellent flour.
Till the second half of the eighteenth century the names of the great rivers Apure, Arauca, and Meta were scarcely known in Europe: certainly less than they had been in the two preceding centuries, when the valiant Felipe de Urre and the conquerors of Tocuyo traversed the Llanos, to seek, beyond the Apure, the great legendary city of El Dorado, and the rich country of the Omeguas, the Timbuctoo of the New Continent.
M. Boussingault, who passed through a part of the steppes of Venezuela long after me, is of opinion that the sandstone of the Llanos of San Carlos, that of the valley of San Antonio de Cucuta and the table-lands of Barquisimeto, Tocuyo, Merida and Truxillo belong to a formation of old red sandstone or coal. There is in fact real coal near Carache, south-west of the Paramo de las Rosas.
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? On this dividing ridge are built the towns of Nirgua, San Felipe el Fuerte, Barquesimeto, and Tocuyo.
The finest plantations of cacao are found in the province of Caracas, along the coast, between Caravalleda and the mouth of the Rio Tocuyo, in the valleys of Caucagua, Capaya, Curiepe, and Guapo; and in those of Cupira, between cape Conare and cape Unare, near Aroa, Barquesimeto, Guigue, and Uritucu.
Among the rivers which descend north-east toward the coast of Porto Cabello, and La Punta de Hicacos, the most remarkable are those of Tocuyo, Aroa, and Yaracuy. Were it not for the miasmata which infect the atmosphere, the valleys of Aroa and of Yaracuy would perhaps be more populous than those of Aragua.
The Spanish cattle came from Coro and Tocuyo into the plains. He was an inhabitant of the town of Tocuyo, and had long resided in New Grenada.
The littoral chain of Venezuela, of which the different ranges form the Montana de Paria, the isthmus of Araya, the Silla of Caracas and the gneiss-granite mountains north and south of the lake of Valencia, is joined between Porto Cabello, San Felipe and Tocuyo to the Paramos de las Rosas and Niquitao, which form the north-east extremity of the Sierra de Merida, and the eastern Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada.
Word Of The Day