THE PALO BE VACA, OB COW- THEE 
4.7 
is clothed with trees of thick foliage that project their vast 
shadows upon the brown and rocky ground. On going out 
jf the town we visited an aqueduct that had been just 
finished. It is five thousand varas long, and conveys the 
waters of the Bio Estevan by a trench to the town. ' This 
work has cost more than thirty thousand piastres ; but its 
waters gush out in every street. 
We returned from Porto Cabello to the valleys of Aragua, 
and. stopped at the Earm of Barbula, near which, a new 
road to V alencia is in the course of construction. We had 
heard, several weeks before, of a tree, the sap of which is 
a nourishing milk. It is called ‘the cow-tree’ ; and we were 
assured that the negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully 
aii ve Sf table consider it a wholesome aliment. 
- the milky juices of plants being acrid, bitter, and more 
or less poisonous, this account appeared to us very extraor- 
< mary ; but we found by experience during our stay at 
Barbula, that the virtues of this tree had not been exag- 
gerated. This fine tree rises like the broad-leaved star- 
apple. I* 3 oblong and pointed leaves, rough and alternate, 
are marked by lateral ribs, prominent at the lower surface, 
and parallel. Some of them are ten inches long. We 
aid not see the flower: the fruit is somewhat fleshy, and 
contains one and sometimes two nuts. When incisions are 
made in the trunk of this tree, it yields abundance of a 
glutinous milk, tolerably thick, devoid of all acridity, and 
l an tT e f ble iT 1 , balrr ‘? T smelL 14 w as offered to us in 
the sheH of a calabash We drank considerable quantities 
0t “ 111 the evening before we went to bed, and very early 
without leciing the least injurious effect, 
-me viscosity of this milk alone renders it a little disagree- 
i 1 ° ^groes and the free people who work in the 
plantations drink it, dipping into it their bread of maize or 
cassava. The overseer of the farm told us that the negroes 
t,iow sensibly fatter during the season when the valo de 
vaca furnishes them with most milk. This juice, exposed to 
e a y c > presents at its surface (perhaps in consequence of 
e absorption of the atmospheric oxygen) membranes of a 
s rongly animalized substance, yellowish, stringy, and resem- 
m g cheese. These membranes, separated from the rest ol 
* Chrysopkyllum cainito. 
