Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/561

Rh The chief wealth of Venezuela consists in products of the soil, natural and cultivated. There are many coffee and cacao plantations in the mountain valleys near the coast, and coffee to the value of fourteen million dollars is exported yearly, which is double the value of all other exports. Among the other cultivated articles are manioc, sugar, cocoanuts, maize (Indian corn), tobacco, wheat, cotton, indigo, sweet potatoes, and melons. Canoes which ascend the upper Orinoco and its branches to the forested region of the southeast bring down rubber, vanilla and tonka beans, fruits, gums, and drugs. The forests are also rich in cabinet and dye woods, useful fibers, from which cordage and hammocks are made, and a variety of other products. The deadly arrow poison called urari by the natives is made in the district south of the Orinoco.

The central plains of the republic form a vast grazing range which supports millions of horned cattle, horses, and asses. These herds are subject to great vicissitudes; they were reduced to a small fraction of their normal size by the war for independence, and again by the civil wars ending in 1863, while vast numbers of horses and asses were destroyed by a murrain which broke out in 1843. Their numbers have, however, been restored, and the stock has been improved recently. Sheep and goats are bred in the mountainous district of the northwest, whence goatskins (known as Curaçoa kid) are largely exported.

The animal life of the forest is varied and abundant. The howling ape makes his presence known morning and evening to -all within earshot, and fifteen other simians are met with. The representatives of the cat tribe include the jaguar, puma, and ocelot. There are also harmless bears living on fish and honey, the ant-eater, the cavy, the cuchi-cuchi, the tapir, various species of deer, and the slothful sloth, which, as Reclus says, "after devouring the foliage of a cecropia, utters long, plaintive cries at having to climb another." Myriads of birds of brilliant plumage vie with the tropical flowers to enliven the somberness of the forest. The waterfowl are no less numerous; it is said that a regiment, encamped near the confluence of the Apure River with the Orinoco, lived for a week on wild duck without appreciably reducing their numbers. One of the curiosities of Venezuelan bird life is the guacharo, a night-flying fruit-eater which inhabits caves in certain of the coast districts. Its fat yields a much-prized table oil.

Both the salt and fresh waters of the country abound in fish. Sixty-pound turtles are abundant in the large rivers, but will not long continue so unless the taking of their eggs is limited. Three species of alligators are found in the rivers and lakes, while the manatee and porpoise enter the Orinoco from the ocean. The