Venezuela

by Leonard V. Dalton

The third great tract, the north-eastern spur of the Andes, divides itself naturally into three parts—the Caribbean Hills, along the shores of the sea of the same name; the Segovia Highlands, linking the former to the higher mountains of western Venezuela; and the Cordillera of Mérida, or the Venezuelan Andes. The total area occupied by these mountain and hill tracts is about 41,800 square miles.

The Caribbean Hills give to the Venezuelan coast its splendid and almost unique aspect, for, save for the interruption near Barcelona, the range extends without much decrease in average height from west of longitude 68° to the east end of the peninsula of Paria, less than 62° west of Greenwich. Two main lines of elevation are plainly discernible in the Carácas region, known as the Serrania Costanera and the Serrania Interior; they continue throughout the range, but are less distinct in the Cumaná Hills. The greatest elevation of the outer line is reached near Carácas itself, a considerable area west of the city rising to over 6,500 feet, while to the east are the famous peaks of La Silla (de Carácas) and Naiguatá (8,620 feet and 9,100 feet respectively). In the inner range the greatest elevation is round Mount Turimquiri, south of Cumaná; the eastern portion of the coast range, in the peninsulas of Araya and Paria, does not rise above 3,200 feet. On the northern side the complex is drained only by mountain torrents falling rapidly throughout their short courses to the sea, while on the south are the head-waters of the Orinoco tributaries. Between the two ranges, however, we have longitudinal valleys with rivers of more or less importance—the Aragua, flowing westwards from Carácas into the lake of Valencia or Tacarigua, which overflows into the Paito, a tributary of the Portuguesa; and the Tuy, with its affluent the Guaire, flowing eastwards to the sea south of Cape Codera. In the Cumaná Hills we have the Manzanares and other smaller streams emptying their waters into the Gulf of Cariaco, and on the east the Lake of Putucual, though small, is similar in situation to that of Valencia, and its overflow forms the River San Juan, which empties into the Gulf of Paria, forming virtually part of the Orinoco drainage. The lower slopes of all these ranges, and the valleys, are clothed with rich forests, excepting the dry, barren coasts near Carácas, while the heights are bare, save for grass and a few small temperate trees.

Between the western extremity of the Caribbean Hills and the northern spurs of the Venezuelan Andes there is an elevated region, which, though subject to variations of level, possesses the main features of a tableland, and this type of surface extends in a broad belt northward through the States of Lara and Falcón. Their main extent is in the State of Lara, whose capital, Barquisimeto, had as its original name, before any territorial limits were defined round it, Nueva Segovia; it seems appropriate, therefore, to distinguish this area as the Segovia Highlands.

The level of most of the area so designated ranges from 1,500 to 3,500 feet, but the plateau type is best developed in the Barquisimeto region, the dry, barren plains of which, with their cactus vegetation, suggest by their general features the dry bed of an ancient lake, in whose waters the small scattered hills formed islands, while the Andine spurs to the south and the Sierra de Aroa and similar mountain masses north of Barquisimeto, constituted its limits. Beyond the latter, and north of the Tocuyo River, while the larger part of the area maintains its more or less uniform elevation, three well-defined ranges rise from the plateau, in the Cordilleras of Baragua, Agua Negra, and San Luis; the last named is the largest, and extends for 110 miles parallel to the Coro coast, overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela. Practically the whole of this region is drained by the Tocuyo and its tributaries, the other rivers rising merely on its outer edges and falling direct to the sea; from this generalisation should be excepted a small area round Barquisimeto, in the catchment area of the river of the same name, which contributes its waters to the volume of the Portuguesa, and so enters the Orinoco. The Tocuyo, whose principal affluents are the Carora and the Baragua on its left bank, rises in the Andes and flows for some 330 miles in a northerly direction, changing to easterly in the lower river, before it empties itself into the Caribbean. While the southern part of this area is barren, all the lower slopes of the northern hills are forest clad and fertile, with llanos in the Carora Valley and grass-covered summits above.

To the south we have the Venezuelan Andes, stretching for some 300 miles south-westward to the Colombian frontier, and forming the highest land in the whole country.

There are two main divisions of this mountain group, the Portuguesa chain south of Barquisimeto, and the Cordillera of Mérida constituting the more important and higher part. The Portuguesa chain reaches its greatest elevation (13,100 feet) in the south near the sources of the Tocuyo, the northern portion rising only to about 5,000 feet. A slight break in the mass is caused by the valley of the Boconó, beyond which the Cordillera of Mérida begins with peaks of nearly 13,000 feet on the north, rising to their maximum in the centre, where the summits of the Sierra Nevada of Mérida have an elevation of about 16,400 feet, and the top of the highest of all, La Columna, is 16,423 feet above sea-level. Southwards the elevations decrease again, until on the borders of Colombia the watershed is less than 5,000 feet above the sea. The streams of this chain, with its steep outer flanks so characteristic of the Andes, naturally belong for the most part to the catchment area of the Orinoco or the Maracaibo Lake, but there is a succession of longitudinal valleys within the chain which may be considered as pertaining more particularly to the Andes. The chief of these rivers are the Motatán, which, rising north of Mérida, flows northwards through Trujillo to the Lake of Maracaibo; the Chama, whose sources are in the same snows that supply the Motatán, though the stream flows southward past Mérida, bending then sharply northward to reach the south shore of the lake opposite the mouth of the Motatán; and the Torbes, flowing south-westward by San Cristobal, and turning there to the east to fall into the Uribante, a tributary of the Apure. Every type of vegetation occurs within this Andine tract, varying according to the geology of the ground and its elevation. At some points there are fertile valleys with tropical flora, others with temperate cereals; sometimes bare mountain slopes and hot gorges supporting only cactus and acacia, and little of these; sometimes grass-clad slopes and summits, with the peculiar heather-like and resinous plants of the “páramos,” and, lastly, the eternal snows of the peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

North of the mountain region of Venezuela lies what may be considered as the coastal plain, including the alluvial area of the Lake of Maracaibo, the Coro and Paraguana lowlands, and such few tracts of flat ground as may be found along the coast, with the numerous islands in the Caribbean which belong to Venezuela. The area of this division may be estimated as about 27,800 square miles. The lake has many points of similarity to the Delta, both in hydrography and general character. The southern part has innumerable rivers comparable to the caños, with open lagoons and swamps, bordered by dense forests more or less inundated in the rains. On the east and west shores to the north there are stretches of higher ground between the swamps, and frequent grass plains like the Llanos; the western side is bounded by the Sierra de Perija, forming the frontier of Colombia. Chief of the rivers traversing these plains are the Motatán and Chama, already mentioned as rising in the Andes, the Escalante, and the Catatumbo; the mouths of all are of a deltaic character, and all are navigable to a greater or lesser extent. The largest and most important is the Catatumbo, which, with its great tributary, the Zulia, rises in Colombia.

The Coro and Paraguana lowlands form a stretch of open, sandy, more or less barren and low hills, extending from the neighbourhood of the port of Maracaibo along the coast to Coro, and into the Paraguana peninsula; with them may be grouped the islands, which are similar in character, except Margarita, whose mountains resemble those of the Caribbean chain, though the open, cactus-covered lower ground is a repetition of the western coast (and Curaçao).

The climate of the 394,000 square miles naturally varies greatly according to latitude, elevation, and vegetation. The Guayana region, here also, stands by itself, both from its southern position and comparatively uniform elevation, so that over a wide area the temperature and rainfall are more or less the same. Naturally in those parts of Guayana where mountain ridges rise above the general level of the plateau the temperature is lower than the average, but these must constitute a small part of the whole. There is a marked difference in the meteorological conditions in the various river-valleys of the Orinoco basin, where the “white-water”—i.e., the swiftly flowing but muddy streams, with rocky beds—are always accompanied by a clear sky overhead, and mosquitoes and crocodiles abound; on the “black water”—the deep and slow rivers—the sky is continually clouded, but the air is free from mosquitoes. The Orinoco represents the former type, the Rio Negro the latter. The rainy season in Guayana begins in April and lasts till November; the remaining four months are fairly dry.