Barcelona is a town of good appearance, with fairly well paved streets, and many houses of more than one storey, which show that there is not the same dread of earthquakes as at Cumaná. There are three fine churches and a well-equipped theatre. The sea near the town is shallow and has many shoals of sand, and is therefore unsuited to vessels of any size. Guanta, some 19 kilometres to the east, has an excellent natural harbour, and is now the port of Barcelona, connected with the city by a railway, which runs also to the coalmines at Naricual and Capiricual, another 19 kilometres distant. These furnish a useful bright burning coal of a later geological period than the British coal which is used on the railway and supplied to the Venezuelan steamers which ply from the Orinoco to the ports on the north coast. Briquettes are also manufactured with the coal and pitch brought from the north-east coast and Trinidad. The Barcelonians conduct the railway, the coalmine, and the briquette factory themselves, and are rather proud of their “home industries,” since in Venezuela most modern enterprises are conducted by foreigners.
The imports are mixed goods, chiefly from the United States and Holland, while the exports are mainly beasts, hides, horns, and coffee.
Aragua de Barcelona is better placed than Barcelona itself as a trade centre, and is growing in importance, becoming a serious rival to the older town. It is chiefly concerned with the cattle industry, but the inhabitants also make hammocks and various textile goods.
Maturín, the capital of Monágas, stands in the N.E. corner of the llanos, on the River Guarapiche, and from its situation it is likely, to grow considerably, in importance as the country develops. At first sight it does not produce a particularly favourable impression. The streets are not paved, but in front of the houses run narrow raised sidewalks often two feet or more above the roadway. It improves, however, on further acquaintance. There is not the air of decay and diminished importance which is badly evident in some parts of the country; the inhabitants are cheerful and sociable, and inclined to progress, and a fair amount of business appears to pass through the town.
There is probably no part of the llanos pleasanter than the country round Maturín. The grassy plain is well supplied with streams, which have generally cut their channels fairly deep, and are well wooded along their banks, and the climate is pleasant even for Europeans.
The death-rate, although there is no sanitation, is very low, under 12 per 1,000, or less than half the average rate for the republic, and lower than that of London.
Most of the trade of this part of the country is carried by schooners, which come from the sea up the Caño San Juan, to the point where the Rivers San Juan and Guarapiche join. Here there is an old guardship, where some Customs officials are stationed. The San Juan leads to Guanoco, where the Bermudez Asphalt Company carry on their business. A few miles up the Guarapiche stands the village of Caño Colorado, the headquarters of the Customs. The jungle is dense on both banks of the river, but on one side a narrow clearing has been made, just sufficient for a row of small houses, with a little back garden to each. Maturín is about thirty miles from here across country, but much farther by river. From the point at which the schooners stop the trade with Maturín is carried in bongos, which are propelled, like punts, by long poles. Planks are fixed on the two sides of the boats, and the crews, standing on these, plant their poles firmly, and then walk towards the stern. When they can go no farther, they pull out the poles and run towards the bows. The river is narrow and very swift, so that coming down stream is very easy, but going up so much way is lost between the strokes, that the men, when they pull up their poles, have to rush forward again as fast as they can. It takes three days to get from Caño Colorado up to Maturín like this, and the men are able to work almost continually during the day. Once out of sight of the houses, they generally strip completely, only throwing on some light covering on reaching one of the few settlements on the river. The exercise develops every muscle of the body and limbs, and the men engaged in it are as fine a set of athletes as any artist or anatomist could wish to see. Although the river is so wild, and human habitations so few and far apart, this scene is quite lively at intervals as groups of these bongos come along, and “man overboard,” a frequent event, is always the cause of much merriment.
The country round Maturín is dotted here and there with villages, as well as with isolated cottages. The larger cattle-owners often live in the towns but have here and there small houses for their employees. A typical casita is simplicity itself. Upright posts, tree-trunks with their branches trimmed off, are planted firmly in the ground, six feet or more apart, and cross-pieces are tied to them, at a height of about eight feet. The rafters of the roof, lighter poles, are also tied on, and palm-leaves form a most efficient thatch, throwing off the heaviest rain, and lasting for years. At one end of this roofed enclosure a small space is rendered more private, to serve as the retiring-room of the inhabitants. A few light trunks or branches are tied horizontally across the uprights, about a foot apart, and either palm-leaves are tied to these, the bedroom walls, in fact, being thatched like the roof, or a more solid mud wall is constructed on the wooden framework. The soil itself is the floor. The traveller seeking a night’s shelter slings his hammock to some of the uprights in the outer room, having no walls around him, but a roof over his head. A small fire is kept going in a corner of the outer room for cooking purposes. In the simpler cases very little furniture is required: a log or two to sit on; a few bowls of different sizes made of gourds cut in half, serving as cups or plates; an iron pot on the fire; an upright log, stuck in the ground with a bowl-shaped hollow at the top serves as a sort of mortar, in which maize, &c., may be ground; and another somewhat similar device, with a wooden lever for crushing sugar-cane, the juice running out below into the gourd placed to receive it.
It is easy to set up a home of this sort; the site once selected, the materials for house and furniture are always at hand, and the whole thing can be done in a few days.
The traveller, of course, always carries his own hammock, rolled up tight in a sausage-shaped bag carried across the saddle, either before or behind the rider. On arrival at one of these homesteads he can almost invariably count on a civil reception, and without further preliminaries slings his hammock, which then serves him as chair as well as bed. Sometimes he may chance on a spot where food is scarce at the moment, but generally the good people will find something for him. A sancoche made of a fowl stewed in its own juices, cassava in thin cakes, sprinkled with a few drops of water to soften it, some beans, and some roast plantains (cooking bananas) form a menu which, even if it does not appeal to an epicure, proves both tasty and satisfying after a long day in the saddle. Houses of this type are generally inhabited by one family only, who are looking after the flocks and herds of some wealthy owner or are in a very small way of business themselves.