VICTOEIA—MAEACAI— VALENCIA. 113 



salubrious regions in Venezuela, and may one day send a branch to San Carlos, 

 in the Apure basin. 



The chief agricultural settlements in the republic have been founded in the 

 sierras round about Caracas. In 1843 Codazzi selected a valley of the coast range 

 towards the sources of the Tui (5,900 feet) for his colony of Tovar, all of whose 

 settlers were brought from the Black Forest. The speculation promised well at 

 first, but all hopes were dashed by the civil wars, and in 1870 the colony was 

 dispersed by the Venezuelan soldiery. Better success attended Tagacigua, another 

 group of agricultural villages, long known under the name of Guzman Blanco ; it 

 occupies some fertile valleys between the Tui basin and the llanos. 



The Aragua Valley, often called the " Valley " in a pre-eminent sense, is the 

 garden of Venezuela, a highly favoured land, where the fertile soil, abundant 

 waters, and an equable climate, less parching than that of the low-lying plains, 

 form an environment admirably suited for the development of plant and animal 

 life. On these plains flourish all tropical species, the cacao, sugar-cane, coffee, 

 banana, indigo, cotton, as well as maize and tobacco. In Humboldt's time wheat 

 was also cultivated, but this cereal has now been driven out of the market by the 

 northern corn-growing regions, and is consequently replaced by the far more 

 remunerative coffee- shrub. 



Since the beginning of the century the population of the Aragua Valley has 

 increased more than threefold, and here large towns ai'e numerous. Victoria, 

 in the east, occupies the site of the old Caracas Indian, mission, but it has little 

 importance, except as an agricultural centre. Ciuclad de Cura, formerly Villa de 

 Cura, standing at an altitude of 1,700 feet on, the divide between the Aragua 

 basin and that of the Guarico, flowing through the Apure to the Orinoco, may be 

 regarded as the chief gateway to the llanos. Here are equipped all the expe- 

 ditions destined for the regions watered by the rivers Portuguosa and Apure. 



Maracai — Valencia — Puerto Cabello. 



Maracai, on the northern side of the lagoon over against Ciudad de Cura, has 

 perhaps contributed more than any other place to the general prosperity of the 

 country. Its inhabitants, mainly of Basque origin, dispensed from the first with 

 the aid of slave labour, and since then it has always held the foremost position in 

 agricultural enterprise. Not far from its rich neighbour, Turmero, on the road 

 to Victoria, is seen a gigantic saman, a member of the mimosa family, whose 

 wide-spreading branches have a circumference of nearly 650 feet. At the advent 

 of the Conquistadores this tree was already held in veneration by the natives for 

 its great size and beauty. Near Maracai and Cura are the highly efficacious hot 

 springs of Onoto and Mariara, with respective temperatures of 112° and 147° Fahr. 



Vclencia, capital of the state of Carabobo, lies at the western extremity of the 



plain flooded by Lake Ticaragua. Founded in the middle of the sixteenth century 



before Caracas, Valencia occupies a more central position than the present 



capital, with which it often contended for the first rank. After the separation of 



9 



