56 VALENCIA AND PUEKTO CABELLO. 



the tropics. It is one of the numerous causes which in 

 southern climes tend to encourage the careless indolence 

 of the people. We can imagine but few more beautiful 

 sights, or a more inviting reti*eat upon a sultry day, than 

 that of a grove of cocoa-nut jjalms, and, as we recall the 

 many hours of " luxurious ease " spent beneath their cool- 

 ing shades, we cannot but exclaim with the poet *. 



" Oh stretched amid these orchards of the sun, 

 Give me to drain the cocoa's milky bowl, 

 And from the palm to draw refreshing wine ! " 



Distant from our hacienda not over half a mile was 

 the sea, whither we frequently resorted. Fringing the 

 shore was a belt of mangrove-trees, whose aerial roots in- 

 terlacing form an impenetrable thicket, that is submerged 

 at every rise of the tide. This submarme lattice-work is 

 covered witli shell-fish, clinging to its branches, and with 

 sea-weeds, drifted thither by the waves, while crabs and 

 mollusks in infinite numbers here shelter themselves from 

 the violence of an open sea. Thus mangrove-forests, by 

 deposits from the waves among their tangled net-work of 

 roots, cause a gradual encroachment of the land upon the 

 ocean ; but this increase of territory results in tlieir own 

 destruction ; for, as tlie shore recedes, and their roots are 

 no longer washed by the tides, the trees perish, and mark 

 by their partially-buried trunks the ancients limits of the 

 ocean. The deleterious properties possessed by this sub- 

 marine vegetation, accompanied with the noxious exhala- 

 tions that usually arise from marshy ground covered with 

 forest, esj^ecially in a heated climate, render these regions 

 along the coast exceedingly unhealthy. The stifling heat 

 of these arid j^laius seemed to us almost insupportable, 

 after having enjoyed the cool and delightful atmosphere 

 of the valleys among the Cordilleras. The amount of 

 rain that falls annually is much less than at Valencia, 



