Leaving the city of Caraccas, on their way to the Orinoco, our travellers slept the first night at the base of the woody mountains which close the valley toward the south-west. They followed the right bank of the Rio Guayra, as far as the village of Antimano, by an excellent road, partly scooped out of the rock. The mountains were all of gneiss or mica-slate. A little before reaching that hamlet they observed two large veins of gneiss in the slate, containing balls of granular diabase or greenstone, composed of felspar and hornblende, with garnet disseminated. In the vicinity all the orchards were full of peach-trees covered with flowers. Between Antimano and Ajuntas, they crossed the Rio Guayra seventeen times, and proceeded along the bottom of the valley. The river was bordered by a gramineous plant, the Gynerium saccharoides, which sometimes reaches the height of 32 feet, while the huts were surrounded by enormous trees of Laurus persea, covered by creepers. They passed the night in a sugar-plantation. In a square house were nearly eighty negroes, lying on skins of oxen spread on the floor, while a dozen fires were burning in the yard, at which people were cooking.

A great predilection for the culture of the coffeetree was entertained in the province. The young plants were chiefly procured by exposing the seeds to germination between plantain-leaves. They were then sown, and produced shoots better adapted to bear the heat of the sun than such as spring up in the shade of the plantations.