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Updated: June 12, 2025
The men Juan had brought with him were accustomed to the life of the llanos, and no time was lost in commencing the work for which they had come. The very next morning the whole party started off provided with lassoes, Juan and I accompanying them. The herds of wild horses were accustomed to come close up to the farm, so that we had not to go far before we fell in with a herd.
We found it difficult to inspire him with confidence; he at last consented to guide us to the farm of the Cayman, but without slackening the gentle trot of his horse. Our guides assured us that "they had already begun to be uneasy about us;" and, to justify this inquietude, they gave a long enumeration of persons who, having lost themselves in the Llanos, had been found nearly exhausted.
This stream, rising in the mountains of Venezuela, and passing amidst the Llanos, robbing the Orinoco of part of its waters, has already, before it reaches the Amazon, flowed for a course of one thousand five hundred miles. It is called the Negro from its black colour. It is here not less than nineteen fathoms deep, and three thousand six hundred paces broad.
In the rainy season, the horses that wander in the savannah, and have not time to reach the rising grounds of the Llanos, perish by hundreds. The mares are seen, followed by their colts,* swimming during a part of the day to feed upon the grass, the tops of which alone wave above the waters. The carcases of horses, mules, and cows, attract an innumerable quantity of vultures.
The country was no longer monotonously flat, as it had been whilst the river swept along through the llanos. Hills now rose up to right and left; great mountains loomed up dimly against the skyline; and the low, muddy banks gave way to towering limestone cliffs, their natural whiteness hidden by the luxuriant, clinging vegetation.
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.
Since we had reached the middle of the plains, the heat had increased to such a degree that we should have preferred travelling no more during the day; but we were without arms and the Llanos were then infested by large numbers of robbers who attacked and murdered the whites who fell into their hands. Nothing can be worse than the administration of justice in these colonies.
It was near this place that Jose de Iturriaga founded the Pueblo de Ciudad Real, which still figures on the most modern maps, though it has not existed for fifty years past, on account of the insalubrity of its situation. Beyond the point where the Orinoco turns to the east, forests are constantly seen on the right bank, and the llanos or steppes of Venezuela on the left.
The planters who inhabit the southern declivity of the chain of the coast see the steppes extend towards the south, as far as the eye can reach, like an ocean of verdure. They know by the accounts of travellers the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, which are also Llanos covered with fine grass, destitute of trees, and filled with oxen and horses become wild.
Hiding himself behind a tree, the hunter decoys the doe towards his place of concealment, when he easily shoots her with his poisoned arrow. The following is another device for approaching the deer in the open plains. These animals seem to have a peculiar fondness for the tall crane of the Llanos a large white bird, with long, slender legs, and at least five feet in height.
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