138 
CATTLT? OP TITE LLAKOS. 
five pounds) of tasajo* or dried meat slightly salted. It 
is not from the advancement of agriculture, or the progres- 
sive eueroachmeuts on the pastoral lands, that the halos 
(herds aud flocks) have diminished so considerably within 
twenty years ; it is rather owing to the disorders of every 
kind that have prevailed, and the want of security for pro 
perty. The impunity conceded to the skin-stealers, and 
the accumulation of marauders in the savannahs, preceded 
that destruction of cattle caused by the ravages of civil 
war, aud the supjdies required for ti-oops. A verj- eon- 
siderablo number of goat-skins is exported to the island of 
Marguerita, Punta Araya, and Corolas ; sheep abound only 
in Carora and Tocuyo. The consumption of meat being 
Immense in this country, tlie diminution of animals has a 
greater influence here than in any other district on the 
well-being of the inhabitants. The town of Caracas, of 
which the population in my time was one-tenth of that ot 
Paris, consumed more than one-half the quantity of beet 
annually used in the capital of Prance. 
I might add to the productions of the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms of Venezuela the enumeration of the 
minerals, the working of which is worthy the attention o'f 
the government ; but having from my youth been engaged 
in the practical labours of mines, I know how vague and 
uncertain are the judgments formed of the metallic wealth 
of a country from the mere appearance of the rocks, and 
of the veins in their beds. The utility of such labours can 
be determined only by well directed experiments, by mean.s 
of shafts or galleries. All that has been done in researches 
of this kind, under the dominion of the mother-country, 
has left the question wholly undecided, and the most ex- 
aggerated ideas have been recently spread through Europe, 
concerning the riches of the mines of Caracas. The com- 
mon denomination of Columbia given to Venezuela and 
* Tlic bacii of the animal is cut in slices of moderate thickness. An 
ox or cow of the weight of 25 arrobas produces only 4 to 5 arrobas of 
tasajo or lasso. In 1792, the port of Barcelona alone exported 98,01/ 
arrobas to the island of Cuba. The average price is 14 reals, and varies 
from 10 to 18 (the real is worth about CJd. English). M. Urquinasa 
estimates the total e.vportation of Venezuela in 1809, at 200,000 arrobas 
of tasajo. 
