TEERITOET AND POPULATION. 137 



nnion of Venezuela and New Grenada has also placed in the 

 hands of one people the greater part of the quinquina 

 exported from the New Continent. The temperate moun- 

 tains of Merida, Santa Fe, Popayan, Quito, and Loxa, 

 produce the finest qualities of this febrifugal bark hitherto 

 known. I might swell the list of these valuable productions 

 by the coffee and indigo of Caracas, so long esteemed in 

 commerce; the sugar, cotton, and flour of Bogota; the ipeca- 

 cuanha of the banks of the Magdelena ; the tobacco of 

 Varinas ; the Cortex Angosturae of Caroni ; the balsam of 

 the plains of Tolu ; the skins and dried provisions of the 

 Llanos ; the pearls of Panama, Rio Hacha, and Marguerita ; 

 and finally, the gold of Popayan, and the platinum, which is 

 nowhere found in abundance but at Choco and Barbacoa : 

 but coniormably with the plan I have adopted, I shall confine 

 myself to the old Capitania- General of Caracas. 



Owing to a peculiar disposition of the soil in "Venezuela, 

 the three zones of agricultural, pastoral, and hunting-lift 

 succeed each other from north to south along the coast in 

 the direction of the equator. Advancing in that direc- 

 tion, we may be said to traverse, in respect to space, 

 the different stages through which the human race haa 

 passed in the lapse of ages, in its progress towards cul- 

 tivation, and in laying the foundations of civilized society. 

 The region of the coast is the centre of agricultural in- 

 dustry ; the region ot the Llanos serves only for the pas- 

 turage of the animals which Europe has given to America, 

 and which live there in a half-wild state. Each of those 

 regions includes from seven to eight thousand square 

 leagues ; further south, between the delta of the Orinoco, 

 the Cassiquiare, and the Eio Negro, lies a vast extent of 

 land as large as France, inhabited by hunting nations, 

 ("\vred with thick forests and impassable swamps. The 

 productions of the vegetable kingdom belong to the zones 

 at each extremity ; the intermediary savannahs, into which 

 <>x rn, horses, and mules were introduced about the year 

 ^, afford food for some millions of those animals. At 

 i ime when I visited Venezuela, the annual exportation 

 IViMn thence to the West India Islands amounted to 30,000 

 mules, 174,000 ox-hides, and 140,000 arrobas (of twenty. 



