66 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



by the coast range. At Caripito it is no longer llano, but cleared 

 jungle and second-growth forest, the land cultivated and very weedy, 

 less interesting than the llanos. 



Returning to San Tome, Miss Luces and I were taken by motor 

 to Ciudad Bolivar on the Orinoco. The country became more and 

 more desolate, with some thorn bush and cactus as we neared the 

 river. Our school books tell of rich land "watered by rivers." The 

 Orinoco, like the Sao Francisco of Brazil, does not water the land 

 through which it flows. The land along the Orinoco, the deepest river 

 in the world, was dry to the very brink. It was low water, the banks 

 of fine silt rising 50 feet above the water, bare save for a few 

 patches of a sedge, and some Reimar'ochloa brasiliensis and Eragrostis 

 hypnoides — grasses. 



We returned to Caracas overland, about 600 kilometers, taking 

 2 days over roads deep in loose sand and full of gullies. There were 

 much thorny bush, tall cactuses, and palm barrens (Copernicia 

 tcctonim). 



Venezuela was formerly a cattle country, with large export trade, 

 but cattle raising has been to a great extent abandoned. Venezuela 

 has very extensive oil fields. There are oil wells around Maracaibo 

 and in the lake itself, and the whole east, between the Coast Range 

 and the Orinoco, is rich in oil. The law requires the oil companies 

 to employ three Venezuelans to one foreigner, and to provide 

 the camps with good water, electric light, and sanitation. No wonder 

 people left uncertain cattle raising to work for the oil companies, 

 with water, schools, and some of the larger ones provided with 

 hospitals. Venezuela has a small population, less than 5,000,000, in- 

 cluding the Indians south of the Orinoco, so that the demand for 

 workers at oil camps has almost depopulated the interior. The result 

 is that a great deal of food has to be imported and living is exceed- 

 ingly expensive. Both the oil companies and the federal government 

 are interested in establishing farming and cattle raising on modern 

 methods. 



In spite of the drought my visit was interesting and profitable, 

 many little-known grasses being collected, 1 1 previously unknown for 

 the country, and 1 undescribed. In my report to the Minister of Agri- 

 culture I said that Venezuela needed a specialist in grasses and sug- 

 gested that Miss Zoraida Luces, who had begun the study of grasses 

 by herself, be sent to study grasses in the Grass Division of the 

 United States National Herbarium for a year. The suggestion was 

 favorably received, and Miss Luces reached Washington in Sep- 

 tember and is now engaged in a work on the genera of grasses of 

 Venezuela. 



