age 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.

PART FOUR, CHAPTER TWO.

GUIANA.

A wide belt of low land borders the ocean side of Guiana on the
north-east of the continent, where white men dwell, in houses elevated
on piles of timber, among sugar-estates and cotton-plantations, tall
windmills, and numerous canals crowded with shipping, which would
present a thoroughly Dutch scene were it not for the stately cocoa-nut
and cabbage-palms rising amid them, the dark-skinned labourers, the blue
sky, and burning heat. The province is, however, for the most part a
region of rugged mountains, dense forests, open savannahs, broad
streams, cataracts, waterfalls, and rapids; where the yet untamed
savage, making war on his neighbours, and sunk in the grossest
barbarism, lives as his predecessors have done for centuries past.

Through the centre of the territory flows the Essequibo, the largest
river between the Amazon and the Orinoco. Its source is among the same
mountains which give birth to some of the tributaries of those mighty
rivers, the one running to the north, the other to the south; thus
adding to the wonderful network which unites the waters of South
America.

It was through this region that the gallant Raleigh, and many bands of
Spanish adventurers in succession, in spite of the most terrific dangers
and difficulties, fought their way amid hostile natives in search of the
far-famed El Dorado. Among the first bands was that led by the
celebrated Philip Von Huten. They had heard that in the interior of the
country there existed a golden region, surpassing even the wildest
descriptions of that of Peru. It was said that some of the royal race
of the Incas, escaping from their Spanish invaders, had established a
new dynasty amid the mountains, on the shores of a beautiful lake, the
sands of which contained gold in prodigious quantities. The houses of
his capital were covered with plates of gold. The vessels of the royal
p