NUEVA VALENCIA. 88 



branches and leaves, draw a great part of their nourishment 

 from the ambient air ; and the virgin soil augments its fer- 

 tility hy the decomposition of the vegetable substances 

 which progressively accumulate. It is not so in the fields 

 covered with indigo, or other herbaceous plants; where the 

 rays of the sun penetrate freely into the earth, and by the 

 accelerated combustion of the hydrurets of carbon and other 

 acidifiable principles, destroy the germs of fecundity. These 

 effects strike the imagination of the planters the more for- 

 cibly, as in lands newly inhabited they compare the fertility 

 of a soil which has been abandoned to itself during thou- 

 sands of years, with the produce of ploughed fields. The 

 Spanish colonies on the continent, and the great islands of 

 Porto-Eico and Cuba, possess remarkable advantages with 

 respect to the produce of agriculture over the lesser West 

 India Islands. The former, from their extent, the variety 

 of their scenery, and their small relative population, still 

 bear all the characters of a new soil; while at Barbadoes, 

 Tobago, St. Lucia, the Virgin Islands, and the French part 

 of St. Domingo, it may be perceived that long cultivation 

 has begun to exhaust the soil. If in the valleys of Aragua, 

 instead of abandoning the indigo grounds, and leaving them 

 fallow, they were covered during several years, not with 

 corn, but with other alimentary plants and forage; if among 

 these plants such as belong to different families were pre- 

 ferred, and which shade the soil by their large leaves, the 

 amelioration of the fields would be gradually accomplished, 

 and they would be restored to a part of their former fer- 

 tility. 



The city of Nueva Valencia occupies a considerable extent 

 of ground, but its population scarcely amounts to six or 

 seven thousand souls. The streets are very broad, the 

 market place, (plaza mayor,) is of vast dimensions; and, the 

 houses being low, the disproportion between the population 

 of the town, and the space that it occupies, is still greater 

 than at Caracas. Many of the whites, (especially the 

 poorest,) forsake their houses, and live the greater part of 

 the year in their little plantations of indigo and cotton, 

 where they can venture to work with their own hands; 

 which, according to the inveterate prejudices of that country, 

 would be a disgrace to them in the t^wn. 



VOL. ii. I) 



