604 
PLANTATIONS OF THE COAST. 
.Valencia. We have found shrubs of eight or ten feet hicn 
entwined with bignonia and other ligneous creepers. The 
exportation of cotton from Caracas, however, is yet of small 
importance. It amounted at an average at La Guayra 
scarcely to three or four hundred thousand pounds in a 
year ; but including all the ports of the Capitania-general, it 
arose, on account of the flourishing culture of Cariaco, Nueva 
Barcelona, and Maracaybo, to more than 22,000 quintals. 
The cotton of the valleys of Aragua is of fine quality, being 
inferior only to that of Brazil ; for it is preferred to that of 
Carthagena, St. Domingo, and the Caribbee Islands. The 
cultivation of cotton extends on one side of the lake from 
Maracay to Valencia; aud on the other from Guayca to 
Guigue. The large plantations yield from sixty to seventy 
thousand pomids a year. 
During our stay at Cura we made numerous excursions 
to the rocky islands (which rise in the midst of the lake of 
Valencia,) to the warm springs of Mariara, and to the lofty 
granitic mountain called El Cucurucho de Coco. A dan- 
gerous and narrow path leads to the port of Turiamo and 
the celebrated cacao-plantations of the coast. In all these 
excursions we were agreeably surprised, not only at the pro- 
gress of agriculture, but at the increase of a free laborious 
population, accustomed to toil, aud too poor to rely on the 
assistance of slaves. White and mulatto farmers had every- 
where small separate establishments. Our host, whose 
father had a revenue of 40,000 piastres, possessed more 
lands than he could clear; he distributed them in the 
valleys of Aragua among poor families who chose to apply 
themselves to the cultivation of cotton. He endeavoured 
to surround his ample plantations with freemen, who, 
working as they chose, either in their own land or in the 
neighbouring plantations, supplied him with day-labourers 
at the time of harvest. Nobly occupied on the means best 
adapted gradually to extinguish the slavery of the blacks in 
these provinces, Count Tovar flattered himself with the 
double hope of rendering slaves less necessary to the land- 
holders, and furnishing the freedmen with opportunities of 
becoming farmers. On departing for Europe he had par- 
celled out and let a part of the lands of Cura, which extend 
towards the west at the foot of the rock of Las Viruelas. 
