231 



Capitania General of Caraccas*, amounts to four 

 million eight hundred thousand piastres. So 

 important an object of commerce merits a 

 careful discussion; and I flatter myself, that, 

 from the great number of materials I have col- 

 lected on all the branches of colonial agriculture, 

 I shall be able to add something to the informa- 

 tion published by Mr. Depons, in his valuable 

 work on the provinces of Venezuela. 



The tree that produces the cacao is not at 

 present found wild in the forests of Terra Firma 

 to the North of the Oroonoko ; we began to 

 find it only beyond the cataracts of Atures and 

 Maypures. It abounds particularly near the 

 banks of the Ventuari, and on the Upper Oroo- 

 noko, between the Padamo and the Gehette. 

 This scarcity of wild cacao-trees in South 

 America, North of the latitude of 6°, is a very 

 curious phenomenon of botanical geography, 

 and yet little known. This phenomenon appears 

 so much the more surprising, as, according to 

 the annual produce of the harvest, the number 

 of trees in full bearing in the cacao-plantations 

 of Caraccas, Nueva Barcelona, Venezuela, 

 Varinas, and Maracaybo, is estimated at more 



* St. Thomas in New Guyana, or Angostura, Cumana, 

 Nueva Barcelona, La Guayra, Porto-CabeJlo, and Mara- 

 caybo. 



