CHAPTER XIII
THE LLANOS
Monágas, Anzoátegui, Guárico, Cojedes, Portuguesa, Zamora, and Apure
The great plains—An ocean without water—Bancos and mesas—Drought and flood—A living floor—Streams which flow upwards—Heat—Cattle and horses—Imported butter—Methods of milking—Civil wars—Future prospects—A mean annual temperature of 91° F.—Barcelona—History—The massacre of the Casa Fuerte—Survivors—Guanta—Coal of Naricual—Aragua de Barcelona—Maturín—Low death-rate—Caño Colorado—Bongos—Athletic boatmen—Casitas—Travelling on the Llanos—an hato—Areo—An ancient cotton-press—The men of Urica—Churches and wayside shrines—A gruesome monument—Calabozo—Barbacoas—Ortiz—Zaraza and Camaguan—San Carlos—Barinas—Guanare—Past prosperity and future prospects.
The llanos of northern South America form one of the remarkable great plains of the world. They stretch from the Orinoco Delta in the east right to the Cordillera of the Andes in the west.
The foothills and highlands on the south side of the coastal range limit them in the north, and where the continuity of the mountain chain is broken, near Barcelona, they reach the coast itself.
The Orinoco constitutes their southern boundary as far west as its junction with the Apure. Beyond this point the course of the Orinoco is from south to north instead of from west to east, and out west of this the great plains stretch away to the south far beyond the southern boundary of Venezuela. In fact, formerly the settlers in the Venezuelan llanos, who knew of the Argentine pampas and their cattle industry away somewhere to the south of them, but had vague notions of geography and no knowledge of the high country in central South America, believed that the llanos went right away south to Patagonia.
The stretches of plain from the south of Cumaná, Barcelona, and Carácas down to the Orinoco are called the llanos of Cumaná, Barcelona, and Carácas respectively, while the extreme west corner is known as the llanos of Barinas.
Near the northern and western limits of this great plain there is a gradual passage from the foothills and the adjoining broken country to the plain, but once away in the interior the flatness of the llanos is remarkable. There are neither the undulations of rolling prairie-lands nor the sandhills and ridges of the desert. The mountains can, of course, be seen for a considerable distance, and to fully realise the curious effect of the llanos it is necessary to be out of sight of them.
In some places nothing, not even a tree, can be seen in any direction but the flat plain, covered with short grass; the traveller has the illusion of being on the ocean stretching in every direction to the horizon, and it is very easy to get lost if he leaves a beaten track.
The llanos are not, however, absolutely level; there are flat banks of slight elevation (a few feet) called bancos, only to be observed at their edges, and extending for miles, and also mesas, convexities gently, almost imperceptibly, rising to a very moderate height, and yet sufficiently important to form water divides.