CALABOZO—CATTLE. 195 
cienda, Don Miguel Cousin. The town, which is 
situated between the Guarico and the Urituco, has 
a population of 5000. The principal wealth of the 
inhabitants consists of cattle, of which it was com- 
puted that there were 98,000 in the neighbouring 
pastures. MM. Depons estimates the number in the 
plains, extending from the mouths of the Orinoco to 
the Lake of Maracaybo, at 1,200,000 oxen, 180,000 
horses, and 90,000 mules; and in the Pampas of 
Buenos Ayres, it is believed that there are 12,000,000. 
of cows and 3,000,000 of horses, not including cat- 
tle which have no acknowledged owner. In the 
Llanos of Caraccas, the richer proprietors of the great 
hatos, or cattle-farms, brand 14,000 head every 
year, and sell 5000 or 6000. The exportation from 
the whole capitania-general amounts annually to 
174,000 skins of oxen and 11,500 of goats, for the 
West India Islands alone. This stock was first in- 
troduced about 1548 by Christoval Rodriguez. They 
are of the Spanish breed, and their disposition is so 
gentle that a traveller runs no risk of being attacked 
or pursued by them. The horses are also descended 
from ancestors of the same country, and are gene- 
rally of a brown colour. There were no sheep in the 
plains. 
Humboldt remarks, that when we hear of the 
prodigious numbers of oxen, horses, and mules, 
spread over the plains of America, we forget that 
in. civilized Europe the aggregate amount is not less 
surprising. According to M. Peuchet, France feeds 
6,000,000 of the large horned class; and in the 
Austrian monarchy, the oxen, cows, and calves, are 
estimated by Mr Lichtenstein at about 13,400,000. 
At Calabozo, in the midst of the Llanos, the tra- 
