410 
PltEVALEJTT DISEASES. 
coffee, and the establishment of plantations (which dates 
only from the year 1795) has increased the number of 
agricultural negroes,* the apple and quince-trees scattered 
in the savannahs have given place, in the valley of Caracas, 
to maize and pulse. .Rice, watered by means of smali 
trenches, was formerly more common than it now is in the 
plain of Chacao. I observed in this province, as in Mexico 
and in all the elevated lands of the torrid zone, that, where 
the apple-tree is most abundant, the culture of the pear- 
tree is attended with great difficulty. I have been assured, 
that near Caracas the excellent apples sold in the markets 
come from trees not grafted. There are no cherry-trees. 
The olive-trees which I saw in the court of the convent 
of San Felipe de JSTeri, were large and fine ; but the luxu- 
riance of their vegetation prevented them from bearing 
fruit. 
If the atmospheric constitution of the valley be favour- 
able to the different kinds of culture on which colonial 
industry is based, it is not equally favourable to the health 
of the inhabitants, or to that of foreigners settled in the 
capital of Venezuela. The extreme inconstancy of the wea- 
ther, and the frequent suppression of cutaneous perspira- 
tion, give birth to catarrhal affections, which assume the 
most various forms. A European, once accustomed to the 
violent heat, enjoys better health at Cumana, in the valley 
of Aragua, and in every place where the low region of the 
tropics is not very humid, than at Caracas, and in those 
mountain-climates which are vaunted as the abode of per- 
petual spring. 
Speaking of the yellow fever of La Guayra, I mentioned 
the opinion generally adopted, that this disease is propa- 
gated as little from the coast of Venezuela to the capital, 
as from the coast of Mexico to Xalapa. This opinion is 
founded on the experience of the last twenty years. The 
contagious disorders which were severely felt in the port 
of La Guayra, were scarcely felt at Caracas. I am not 
convinced that the American typhus, rendered endemic on 
* The consumption of provisions, especially meat, is so considerable 
in the towns of Spanish America, that at Caracas, in 1800, there were 
40,000 oxen killed every year: while in Paris, in 1793, with a population 
fourteen times as great, the number amounted only to 70,000. 
