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Those who are married provide food for themselves; and here, as everywhere else in the valleys of Aragua, a small spot of ground is allotted to them to cultivate. They labour on that ground on Saturdays and Sundays, the only days in the week on which they are free. They keep poultry, and sometimes even a pig.
Like many birds of these desert places, they fear so little the approach of man, that children often catch them in their hands. In the valleys of Aragua, where they are very common, we have seen them perch upon the hammocks on which we were reposing, in open day.
Twenty-two years later, Boussingault explored the valley of Aragua. For some years previous, the inhabitants had observed that the waters of the lake were no longer retiring, but, on the contrary, were sensibly rising. Grounds, not long before occupied by plantations, were submerged.
If in consequence of great earthquakes, or other causes equally mysterious, ten very humid years should succeed to long droughts; if the mountains should again become clothed with forests, and great trees overshadow the shore and the plains of Aragua, we should more probably see the volume of the waters augment, and menace that beautiful cultivation which now trenches on the basin of the lake.
The Llanos of Nueva Barcelona comprise those of Aragua, Pariaguan, and Villa del Pao. Between Mijagual and the Cano de la Hacha, we find some real tumuli, called in the country the Serillos de los Indios. They are hillocks in the shape of cones, artificially formed of earth, and probably contain bones, like the tumuli in the steppes of Asia.
"These clear and positive facts suggested numerous explanations, all assuming a subterranean outlet, which permitted the discharge of the water to the ocean. Humboldt disposed of these hypotheses, and did not hesitate to ascribe the diminution of the waters of the lake to the numerous clearings which had been made in the valley of Aragua within half a century."
During the twenty-two years which had elapsed, the valley of Aragua had been the theatre of bloody struggles, and war had desolated these smiling lands and decimated their population.
I may be permitted to add the result of some experiments which I attempted to make on the juice of the Carica papaya during my stay in the valleys of Aragua, though I was then almost destitute of chemical tests.
Since that period the northern part of the Llanos has been considerably peopled; and the road leading from the valleys of Aragua by Calabozo to San Fernando de Apure and Cabruta is much frequented.
Since the increase of agricultural industry in the valleys of Aragua, the little rivers which run into the lake of Valencia can no longer be regarded as positive supplies during the six months succeeding December.
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