COFFEE PLANTATIONS. 



143 



observed two large veins of gneiss in the slate, con- 

 taining balls of granular diabase or greenstone, com- 

 posed of felspar and hornblende, with garnet dis- 

 seminated. In the vicinity all the orchards were 

 full of peach-trees covered with flowers. Between 

 Antimano and Ajuntas, they crossed the Rio Guayra 

 seventeen times, and proceeded along the bottom of 

 the valley. The river was bordered by a gramineous 

 plant, the Gynerium saccharoides, which sometimes 

 reaches the height of 32 feet, while the huts were 

 surrounded by enormous trees of Laurus persea, 

 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 plaintain-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 yield- 

 ing a pound and a half or two pounds of coffee. 

 Humboldt 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 pias- 

 ters, or 2,437,500Z. sterling. 



On the 8th February the travellers set out at sun- 

 rise, 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 appear- 

 ance, and was thickly wooded. The road, which 

 was so much frequented that long files of mules and 



