183 



three of which had already been born in Ame- 

 rica ; and two had died of the bite of the coral, 

 a venomous serpent very common on the banks 

 of the lake. These camels have hitherto been 

 employed only in the conveyance of the sugar- 

 canes to the mill. The males, stronger than the 

 females, carry from forty to fifty arrobas. A 

 wealthy landholder in the province of Varinas, 

 encouraged by the example of the Marquis del 

 Toro, has allotted a sum of 15,000 piastres for 

 the purpose of bringing fourteen or fifteen camels 

 at once from the Canary islands. Such enter- 

 prises are so much the more laudable, as it is 

 presumed these beasts of burden may be em- 

 ployed in the conveyance of merchandize across 

 the burning plains of Casanare, from the Apure 

 and Calabozo, which in the season of drought 

 resemble the deserts of Africa. I have already 

 observed in another place * how much it were 

 to be wished, that the Conquist adores, from the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century, had peopled 

 America with camels, as they have peopled it 

 with horned cattle, horses, and mules. Where- 

 ever there are immense distances to cross in un- 

 inhabited lands ; wherever the construction of 

 canals becomes useless, because they require too 

 great a number of locks (as in the isthmus of 



* Essai Politique sur la Nouv. Espagne, vol. i, p. 23; 

 vol. ii, p. 689. 



