COFFEE-PLANTATIONS. 167 
covered by creepers. They passed the night in a 
sugar-plantation. In a square house were nearly 
eighty negroes, lying on skins of oxen spread on the 
floor, while a dozen fires were burning in the yard, 
at which people were cooking. 
A great predilection for the culture of the coffee- 
tree was entertained in the province. The young 
plants were chiefly procured by exposing the seeds 
to germination between plantain-leaves. They were 
then sown, and produced shoots better adapted to 
bear the heat of the sun than such as spring up in 
the shade of the plantations. The tree bears flowers 
only the second year, and its blossoms last only 
twenty-four hours. The returns of the third year are 
very abundant; at an average each plant yielding 
a pound and a half or two pounds of coffee. Hum- 
boldt remarks, that although it is not yet a century 
since the first trees were introduced at Surinam 
and in the West Indies, the produce of America 
already amounts to fifteen millions of ate ee or 
£2,437,500 sterling. 
On the 8th February the travellers set out at 
sunrise, and after passing the junction of the two 
small rivers, San Pedro and Macarao, which form 
the Rio Guayra, ascended a steep hill to the table- 
land of La Buenavista. The country here had a 
wild appearance, and was thickly wooded. The 
road, which was so much frequented that long files 
of mules and oxen met them at every step, was 
cut out of a talcose gneiss, in a state of decom- 
position. Descending from that point, they came 
upon a ravine, in which a fine spring formed several 
cascades. Here they found an abundant and diver- 
sified vegetation, consisting of arborescent ferns, 
