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From 36,000,000 to 40,000,000 lbs. of cacao are consumed in Europe annually; of which quantity nearly a third goes to France, whose consumption of it between 1853 and 1866 has more than doubled. In the former year it amounted to 6,215,000 lbs., in the latter to 12,973,534 lbs. Venezuela sends the finest cacaos to the European market, those of Porto Cabello and Caracas.
We lodged with a family who had excited the resentment of government during the revolution at Caracas in 1797. One of the sons, after having languished in a dungeon, had been sent to the Havannah, to be imprisoned in a strong fortress. With what joy his mother heard that after our return from the Orinoco, we should visit the Havannah!
The Council of Regency which had been established in Spain, instead of thanking Venezuela for her offer, declared the Venezuelans insurgents, rebels and traitors, and submitted the province of Caracas to a strict blockade. This decision on the part of the Council served to arouse the Venezuelans and to change the ends of the movement.
The intermediate zone is at the same height as the first strata of clouds which surround the surface of the earth; and the climate of this zone, the temperature of which is so mild, is essentially misty and variable. Notwithstanding the elevation of the spot, the sky is generally less blue at Caracas than at Cumana.
The Spaniards, in general, dislike a mixture of vanilla with the cacao, as irritating the nervous system; the fruit, therefore, of that orchideous plant is entirely neglected in the province of Caracas, though abundant crops of it might be gathered on the moist and feverish coast between Porto Cabello and Ocumare; especially at Turiamo, where the fruits of the Epidendrum vanilla attain the length of eleven or twelve inches.
The Rio Tuy, flowing from the mountains of Las Cocuyzas, runs first towards the west, then turning to the south and to the east, it takes its course along the high savannahs of Ocumare, receives the waters of the valley of Caracas, and reaches the sea near cape Codera.
Beyond the small village of Antimano the valley becomes much narrower. The neighbouring mountains, covered with forests, seem to spread humidity over the western extremity of the valley of Caracas. We passed the night before our arrival at Las Ajuntas at a sugar-cane plantation. In each apartment of the house were four slaves: it looked like a barrack.
This ground is the ancient shore of the great basin of the steppes, and it furnishes an interesting subject of research to the geologist. We there find trap-formations, probably more recent than the veins of diabasis near the town of Caracas, which seem to belong to the rocks of igneous formation.
The formal independence of the Argentine Republic was not declared until July 9, 1816, although the country had been self-governing for several years. The Patriot cause was ruined, however, by the earthquake of March 25, 1812, which almost destroyed the city of Caracas and several towns of importance. Twenty thousand people are supposed to have perished.
"Few men have lived such a beautiful life in the whirlpool of action; nobody has died a more noble death in the peace of his bed." His death was the end of Colombia. For twelve years his remains rested in Santa Marta, and then they were carried to Caracas, where they now lie in the Pantheon, between two empty coffins, that of Miranda on his right and that destined for Sucre on his left.
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