CHAPTER XX - JOURNEY ACROSS THE LLANOS TO NEW BARCELONA

Summary

It was night when our travellers for the last time crossed the bed of the Orinoco. They intended to rest near the little fort of San Rafael, and in the morning begin their journey over the Llanos of Venezuela;, with the view of proceeding to Cumana or New Barcelona, whence they might sail to the island of Cuba and thence again to Mexico. There they purposed to remain a year, and to take a passage in the galleon from Acapulco to Manilla.

The botanical and geological collections which they had brought from Esmeralda and the Rio Negro had greatly increased their baggage; and as it would have been hazardous to lose sight of such stores, they journeyed but slowly over the deserts, which they crossed in thirteen days. This eastern part of the Llanos, between Angostura and Barcelona, is similar to that already described on the passage from the valley of Aragua to San Fernando de Apure; but the breeze is felt with greater force, although at this period it had ceased. They spent the first night at the house of a Frenchman, a native of Lyons, who received them with the kindest hospitality. He was employed in joining wood by means of a kind of glue called guayca, which resembles the best made from animal substances, and is found between the bark and alburnum of the Combretum guayca, a kind of creeping plant.