From East To West, On A Line Of Twelve Leagues In Extent, We Passed La Victoria, San Mateo, Turmero, And Maracay, Containing Together More Than 28, 000 Inhabitants.

The plains of the Tuy may be considered as the eastern extremity of the valleys of Aragua, extending from Guigne, on the borders of the lake of Valencia, as far as the foot of Las Cocuyzas.

A barometrical measurement gave me 295 toises for the absolute height of the Valle del Tuy, near the farm of Manterola, and 222 toises for that of the surface of the lake. The Rio Tuy, flowing from the mountains of Las Cocuyzas, runs first towards the west, then turning to the south and to the east, it takes its course along the high savannahs of Ocumare, receives the waters of the valley of Caracas, and reaches the sea near cape Codera. It is the small portion of its basin in the westward direction which, geologically speaking, would seem to belong to the valley of Aragua, if the hills of calcareous tufa, breaking the continuity of these valleys between Consejo and La Victoria, did not deserve some consideration. We shall here again remind the reader that the group of the mountains of Los Teques, eight hundred and fifty toises high, separates two longitudinal valleys, formed in gneiss, granite, and mica-slate. The most eastern of these valleys, containing the capital of Caracas, is 200 toises higher than the western valley, which may be considered as the centre of agricultural industry.

Having been for a long time accustomed to a moderate temperature, we found the plains of the Tuy extremely hot, although the thermometer kept, in the day-time, between eleven in the morning and five in the afternoon, at only 23 or 24 degrees. The nights were delightfully cool, the temperature falling as low as 17.5 degrees. As the heat gradually abated, the air became more and more fragrant with the odour of flowers. We remarked above all the delicious perfume of the Lirio hermoso,* (* Pancratium undulatum.) a new species of pancratium, of which the flower, eight or nine inches long, adorns the banks of the Rio Tuy. We spent two very agreeable days at the plantation of Don Jose de Manterola, who in his youth had accompanied the Spanish embassy to Russia. The farm is a fine plantation of sugar-canes; and the ground is as smooth as the bottom of a drained lake. The Rio Tuy winds through districts covered with plantains, and a little wood of Hura crepitans, Erythrina corallodendron, and fig-trees with nymphaea leaves. The bed of the river is formed of pebbles of quartz. I never met with more agreeable bathing than in the Tuy. The water, as clear as crystal, preserves even during the day a temperature of 18.6 degrees; a considerable coolness for these climates, and for a height of three hundred toises; but the sources of the river are in the surrounding mountains. The house of the proprietor, situated on a hillock, of fifteen or twenty toises of elevation, is surrounded by the huts of the negroes.

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