Venezuela, fast rising into wealth and importance under the wise and
pacific policy of its president, Senor Dalla Costa, a man said to
possess a genius and an integrity far superior to the average of
South American Republicans--of which latter the less said the
better; to push back, if possible, across those Llanos which
Humboldt describes in his Personal Narrative, vol. iv. p. 295; it
may be to visit the Falls of the Caroni. But that had to be done by
others, after we were gone. My days in the island were growing
short; and the most I could do was to see at Aripo a small specimen
of that peculiar Savanna vegetation, which occupies thousands of
square miles on the mainland.

If, therefore, the reader cares nothing for botanical and geological
speculations, he will be wise to skip this chapter. But those who
are interested in the vast changes of level and distribution of land
which have taken place all over the world since the present forms of
animals and vegetables were established on it, may possibly find a
valuable fact or two in what I thought I saw at the Savanna of
Aripo.

My first point was, of course, the little city of San Josef. To an
Englishman, the place will be always interesting as the scene of
Raleigh's exploit, and the capture of Berreos; and, to one who has
received the kindness which I have received from the Spanish
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, a spot full of most grateful
memories. It lies pleasantly enough, on a rise at the southern foot
of the mountains, and at the mouth of a torrent which comes down
from the famous 'Chorro,' or waterfall, of Maraccas. In going up to
that waterfall, just at the back of the town, I found buried, in
several feet of earth, a great number of seemingly recent but very
ancient shells. Whether they be remnants of an elevated sea-beach,
or of some Indian 'kitchen-midden,' I dare not decide. But the
question is well worth the attention of any geologist who may go
that way. The waterfall, and the road up to it, are best described
by one who, after fourteen years of hard scientific work in the
island, now lies lonely in San Fernando churchyard, far from his
beloved Fatherland--he, or at least all of him that could die. I
wonder whether that of him which can never die, knows what his
Fatherland is doing now? But to the waterfall of Maraccas, or
rather to poor Dr. Krueger's description of it:--

'The northern chain of mountain