the Rio 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 Farm of Barbula, near which, a new road to Valencia 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 of
this vegetable milk, consider it a wholesome aliment. All the milky
juices of plants being acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous, this
account appeared to us very extraordinary; but we found by experience
during our stay at Barbula, that the virtues of this tree had not been
exaggerated. This fine tree rises like the broad-leaved star-apple.*
(* Chrysophyllum cainito.) Its 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 did 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 of an agreeable and balmy smell. It was offered to us in
the shell of a calabash. We drank considerable quantities of it in the
evening before we went to bed, and very early in the morning, without
feeling the least injurious effect. The viscosity of this milk alone
renders it a little disagreeable. The negroes 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 grow
sensibly fatter during the season when the palo de vaca furnishes them
with most milk. This juice, exposed to the air, presents at its
surface (perhaps in consequence of the absorption of the atmospheric
oxygen) membranes of a strongly animalized substance, yellowish,