240 
DELICIOUS ATMOSPHERE. 
decrement of heat, the table-land of Cocollar being less 
elevated than the site of the town of Caracas. 
As far as the eye could reach, we perceived, from this 
elevated point, only naked savannahs. Small tufts of scat- 
tered trees rise in the ravines ; and notwithstanding the 
apparent uniformity ol vegetation, great numbers of curious 
plants* are found here. We shall only speak of a superb 
lobehaf with purple flowers ; the Brownea eoccinea, which is 
upwards of a hundred feet high ; and above all, the pejoa, 
celebrated in the country on account of the delightful and 
aromatic perfume emitted by its leaves when rubbed be- 
tween the fingers.* But the great charms of this solitary 
place were the beauty and serenity of the nights. The pro- 
prietor ot the farm, who spent his evenings with us, seemed 
to enjoy the astonislunent produced on Europeans newly 
transplanted to the tropics, by that venial freshness of the 
air which is felt on the mountains after sunset. In those 
distant regions, where men yet feel the full value of the 
gifts of nature, a land-holder boasts of the water of his 
spring, the absence of noxious insects, the salutary breeze 
that blows round bis hill, as we iu Europe descant on the 
conveniences of our dwellings, and the picturesque effect of 
our plantations. 
Our host had visited the new world with an expedition 
which was to form establishments for felling wood for the 
Spanish navy on the shores of the gulf of Paria. In the 
vast forests of mahogany, cedar, and brazil-wood, which 
border the Caribbean Sea, it was proposed to select the 
* Cassia acuta, Andromeda rigida, Casearia bypericifolia, Myrtus lonH- 
folia, Buettneria saBcifolia, Glycine picta, G. pratensis, G. gibba, OxUis 
umbrosa, Malpigbia caripensis, Cepbtelis salicifolia, Stylosanthes angnsti- 
folia, Salvia pseudococcinea, Eryngium f'oetidum. We found a second 
time tills last plant, but at a considerable height, in the great forests of 
bark trees surrounding the town of Loxa, in the centre of the Cordilleras. 
T lobelia speotabilis. 
t It is the Gualtheria odorata. The pejoa is found round the lake of 
Cocollar, which gives birth to the great river Guarapiche. We met with 
the same shrub at the Cuchilla de Guanaguana. It is a subalpine plant, 
which forms at the Silla de Caracas a zone much higher than in the 
province ot Cumana. The leaves of the pejoa tiave even a more agreeable 
smell than those of the Myrtua pimenta, but they yield no perfume when 
rubbed a few hours after their separation from the tree. 
