of nature in the torrid zone, it also reminds us of the numerous
causes which favour in those fine climates the careless indolence of
man. Mungo Park has made known the butter-tree of Bambarra, which M.
De Candolle suspects to be of the family of sapotas, as well as our
milk-tree. The plantain, the sago-tree, and the mauritia of the
Orinoco, are as much bread-trees as the rema of the South Sea. The
fruits of the crescentia and the lecythis serve as vessels for
containing food, while the spathes of the palms, and the bark of
trees, furnish caps and garments without a seam. The knots, or rather
the interior cells of the trunks of bamboos, supply ladders, and
facilitate in a thousand ways the construction of a hut, and the
fabrication of chairs, beds, and other articles of furniture that
compose the wealth of a savage household. In the midst of this lavish
vegetation, so varied in its productions, it requires very powerful
motives to excite man to labour, to rouse him from his lethargy, and
to unfold his intellectual faculties.

Cacao and cotton are cultivated at Barbula. We there found, what is
very rare in that country, two large cylindrical machines for
separating the cotton from its seed; one put in motion by an hydraulic
wheel, and the other by a wheel turned by mules. The overseer of the
farm, who had constructed these machines, was a native of Merida. He
was acquainted with the road that leads from Nueva Valencia, by the
way of Guanare and Misagual, to Varinas; and thence by the ravine of
Collejones, to the Paramo de Mucuchies and the mountains of Merida
covered with eternal snows. The notions he gave us of the time
requisite for going from Valencia by Varinas to the Sierra Nevada, and
thence by the port of Torunos, and the Rio Santo Domingo, to San
Fernando de Apure, were of infinite value to us. It can scarcely be
imagined in Europe, how difficult it is to obtain accurate information