These farms of the Llanos, built in the roughest and most primitive style, are surrounded by fences, intended not only to resist the rush of a herd of cattle, but the attack of human foes. The inclosures are formed of huge trunks of trees, driven close together into the ground. It would seem difficult to account for the way in which they are brought across the plain. This is done, however, during the inundation of the savannahs, when they are transported to the spot on rafts made of lighter wood,—the timbers themselves being composed of a species of acacia of extreme hardness, and from their nature capable of resisting the effects of alternation of climate for many years. Many of these corrals are sufficiently spacious to contain three thousand head of cattle.
When the animal is to be caught for slaughter, the horsemen go in chase, the one securing it by his lasso over its head and dragging it along, while the other urges it on with his garrocha till it reaches the slaughter-post. The first then secures the animal by a few turns of the lasso round it, while a matador strikes his dagger into the vertebras at the back of the head, when the animal drops as if struck by an electric spark.
These wild horsemen, when crossing a river, hesitate not to plunge in, in spite of the alligators which may be swarming on every side. While their clothes are carried across in a hide-formed canoe, put together at the moment, they dash into the stream without clothes or saddles, and then slipping from the backs of their horses, support themselves on the animals’ haunches with one hand, while they guide them by means of the halter with the other—their companions on the shore shouting, yelling, and shaking their ponchos, to drive the rest of the herd into the water. The caymans, alarmed by the uproar, keep at a distance; but the savage little caribes frequently attack them, and many thus fall.
Besides cattle, horses, and mules, vast numbers of hogs range over the plain,—the descendants of those introduced by the early settlers, and which are now, from their ferocity, and the formidable size of their tusks, considered foes worthy of the lances of the bold horsemen. These lances, generally used in hunting, have played no insignificant part in the hands of the Llaneros, as well as in those of some of the fierce tribes of the desert, during the civil wars which so long disturbed the country.
A profusion of fruits in a state of nature grow in the woods and plains. Among them are several species of wild guavas. Some are of exquisite flavour and aroma. One sort bears in rich profusion a number of brilliant scarlet, highly perfumed, and acidulous fruits. There are various kinds of custard apples, the inside a sweet and highly aromatic pulp filled with small seeds. Also the madroña, which resembles the lemon in shape and colour, and filled with a pulp enveloping several large nuts, the flavour not unlike strawberries. The tree which produces these fruits attains a height of sixty feet, and has a dense foliage of a brilliant green.
On a vine grows the monkey cacao bean, which these animals eagerly devour.
There are many leguminous trees, some bearing pods ten inches long, filled with rows of black beans enveloped in a snow-white and agreeably sweet pulp. Here also is the algarobo, or locust-tree of the New World; bearing pods filled with beans surrounded by a sweet farinaceous substance, of a highly nutritious quality.
Indeed, Venezuela is behind no other region of the world in the variety and quality of its natural productions.