PROVINCE OF VARINAS.
Varinas, the next province of Caraccas, divides the territories of this government from those of the kingdom of New Granada.
It is bounded on the north by the provinces of Maracaybo and Venezuela, east by the plains of Caraccas and the Orinoco, west by Merida and New Granada, and south by Juan de los Llanos, or Casanare.
This province was formed in the year 1787, by separating the southern districts of Venezuela and Maracaybo, when it was also constituted a distinct government. The chief has the title of governor, and his functions are the same as those of Cumana and Maracaybo, in the civil, military and ecclesiastical departments.
In order to defend this new province, a militia was raised in 1803, and a garrison allotted to the city of Varinas, consisting of seventy-seven men. The chief products of this extensive country are tobacco, well known in the European markets, and cattle, sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo; and all the fruits of the torrid zone, find here a soil adapted to each; and their qualities are unrivalled.
The commodities of Varinas are exported chiefly by water to Guiana; the place of embarkation being at a spot called Tocunos, five leagues below the city.
The most remarkable features of this country are the extensive plains, of which it is mostly composed, and which are covered with a luxuriant herbage, feeding innumerable herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and droves of mules and horses; these are either used in the province, or exported by means of the Great Orinoco.
Varinas is intersected by numerous large and navigable rivers, which occasionally inundate and fertilize its plains. Of these, the Apure, the Portuguesa, the Guanarito, the Bocono, Guanapalo, the Arauca, the Capanaparo, the Sinaruco, and the Meta, are the most noted.
The Apure rises in one of the ridges that diverge from the eastern branch of the Andes in New Granada, in the province of Santa Fé; its length is 170 leagues, of which forty are from north-east to south-east, and the rest from west to east, where it joins the Orinoco by a number of mouths, after having received many very fine rivers, which will one day serve to render the carrying on of the trade from the eastern district of New Granada, and the countries bordering on the Atlantic extremely easy. These rivers are the Tinaco, San Carlos, Cojeda, Agua Blanca, Acarigua, Areyaruo, Hospicia, Abaria, Portuguesa, Guanare, Tucapido, Bocono, Masparro, La Yuca, the Santo Domingo, Paguay, Tisnados, &c., which all come either from the mountains of Granada, or those of Venezuela, and mingle their waters with the Apure, in the immense plains of Varinas.
The Santo Domingo, and Portuguesa, are the largest of these streams, almost the whole of which unite above Santiago, and form a great body of water, which enters the Apure twelve leagues below that place, and twenty leagues north of the Orinoco. This immense quantity of water gives such an impulse to the Apure, that it forces the Orinoco before it for the space of four miles, although the latter river is there a league in width. The shock of the meeting of these two noble rivers is so great, that it occasions a great agitation in the middle of the Orinoco, forming dreadful eddies and whirlpools, at which the most dextrous Indians shudder. For the space of three leagues after the stream of the greater river has regained its force, the waters of the Apure are still distinguishable by their bright and crystal appearance, after which they are lost in the muddy current of the Orinoco. The exportation of cattle by way of Guiana takes place along the banks of these two rivers, on account of the excellent pasturage which they every where afford. All the traders of the eastern portion of Caraccas, are induced by the easy means of conveyance afforded by so many confluent streams, to send their coffee, cotton and indigo to Guiana, instead of sending them on the backs of mules to Caraccas, or Porto Cavello, and traveling 300 miles in a country often almost impassable, from the inundations of the rivers.