MÉRIDA: LOOKING SOUTH FROM UNIVERSITY.
Calabozo, the chief town in the State of Guárico, and the seat of a bishopric, founded in 1730 by the Guipuzcoana Company, is a town of some importance to-day. There is a good grazing country round it, and it has a trade in cattle, mules, hides, cheese, and other things. It is a hot place, but has not the reputation of being unhealthy. Its communications are liable to be cut off by floods in the wet season. It has always been specially noted in the records of travellers for the electric eels which abound in its neighbourhood. Humboldt, when visiting Calabozo, offered a fair price for a number of these creatures. Horses were cheap at that time, and some of the inhabitants obtained the desired specimens by driving a number of horses into a pond infested with them, and prevented their escape by surrounding the pond armed with sticks. When the gymnoti had exhausted their energies on the unfortunate horses, they were able to secure them without risk. Several of the horses died, either directly from the attacks of the eels or, more probably, from drowning during the temporary paralysis caused by the electric shocks.
Among the other principal towns in Guárico is Barbacoas, pleasantly situated in a raised plain east of the Guárico, with woods to the north of it and a fertile plain to the south.
At Ortiz, founded by the cacique of that name, Bolivar was nearly killed on April 16, 1818. This town and Guayabal, which was founded by the Capuchins in 1758, were both burnt by the Spaniards during the war.
Zaraza, on the River Unare, and Camaguan, on the Portuguesa, are also of some importance; the latter was built by the Capuchins in the seventeenth century. Inundations from the Portuguesa, the Apure, and the Apurito have formed a considerable lake near Camaguan, which appears to be permanent; the Rivers Unare and Apurito are navigable to the neighbourhood of these towns in the wet season.
In the State of Cojedes, the town of San Carlos was formerly a flourishing place, but has now a very reduced population, and many formerly fine buildings are going into decay. The same sad state of things obtains at Barinas, on the River San Domingo, in the State of Zamora; its neighbourhood was formerly a famous tobacco district. Barinas is at the extremity in this direction of the telegraph service of Venezuela. Near it, at Pedraza, are some ruins, traces of an earlier Indian civilisation.
In the State of Portuguesa the chief town is Guanare, founded in 1593 by Francisco de Leon. Besides the usual cattle and live-stock industries, coffee and cocoa are grown in the neighbourhood.
The western part of the country was settled by the Spaniards earlier than the east, but about the towns of the western llanos there appears to be a melancholy air of past prosperity and of arrested development. They have suffered much from wars and political troubles, also from cattle plagues. Their inhabitants now depend chiefly on their cattle, mules, hides, &c.; in some places coffee, cocoa, and tobacco are grown, and there are a few simple manufactures, hammocks, straw hats, earthenware goods, sugar, cheese, &c., being the chief.
Nevertheless, the western llanos undoubtedly possess great resources and convenient outlets. To the north they can communicate with Barquisimeto, Puerto Cabello, and other towns, whilst the streams on which they are situated are all tributaries of the Orinoco, or of its main feeders, thus putting them into communication with Ciudad Bolivar. If good government continues, and capital is attracted, there must come to this great territory a degree of prosperity far greater than it has enjoyed in the past, or than its present inhabitants probably even dream of.