465 



is so common, that it has almost become wild. 

 Preserved apples and quinces, particularly 

 the latter*, are much used in a country, where 

 it is thought, that, to drink water, thirst must 

 previously be excited by sweetmeats. In pro- 

 portion as the environs of the town have been 

 cultivated with coffee ; and the establishment 

 of plantations, which dates only from the year 

 1795, has increased the number of agricultural 

 Negroes -j*; the apple and quince-trees scat- 

 tered in the savannahs have given place in the 

 valley of Caraccas to maize and pulse. Rice, 

 watered by means of small trenches, was for- 

 merly more common than now in the plain of 

 Chacao. I observed in this province, as in 

 Mexico and in all the elevated lands of the 

 torrid zone, that, where the apple-tree is most 

 abundant, the culture of the pear-tree is at- 

 tended with great difficulties. I have been 

 assured, that near Caraccas the excellent ap= 

 pies sold in the markets come from trees not 

 grafted. Cherry-trees are wanting. The olive- 

 trees, which I saw in the court of the convent 



* Duke de manzana y de membrillo. 



+ The consumption of eatables, and especially meat, is so 

 considerable in the towns of Spanish America, that at Ca- 

 raccas, in 1800, there were 40,000 oxen killed every year; 

 while at Paris, in the time of Mr. Necker, with a popula- 

 tion fourteen times as unreal, the number amounted only to 

 70,000. 



VOL. III. 2 H 



