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in proportion as the country is longer cleared, 

 it becomes more denuded of trees, drier, and 

 more exposed to the winds. These physical 

 changes are adverse to the production of cacao- 

 trees. Thus the plantations, diminishing in the 

 province of Caraccas, accumulate in some sort 

 toward the east, on a newly cleared and virgin 

 soil. New Andalusia alone produced in 1799 

 from eighteen to twenty thousand fanegas of 

 cacao, at forty piastres the fanega in time 

 of peace, five thousand of which* were smug- 

 gled to the island of Trinidad. The cacao of 

 Cumana is infinitely superior to that of Guaya- 

 quil. The best is produced in the valley of 

 San Bonifacio ; as the best cacao of New Bar- 

 celona, Caraccas, and Guatimala, is that of 

 Capiriqual, Uritucu, and Soconusco. 



We had to regret, that the fevers prevalent 

 at Cariaco hindered us from prolonging our 

 stay there ; we were not yet sufficiently season- 

 ed, and the planters themselves, to whom we 



* The places where the culture is the most abundant are 

 the valleys of Rio Carives, Carupano, Irapa, celebrated for 

 it's thermal waters, Chaguarama, Cumacatar, Caratar, Santa 

 JRosalia, San Bonifacio, Rio Seco, Santa Isabela, Patu- 

 cutal. In 1792, in all this space they reckoned only four 

 hundred and twenty-eight thousand cacao-trees : in 1799, 

 there were, from official documents, that I procured, near 

 a million and a half. The fanega of cacao weighs one hun- 

 dred and ten pounds. 



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