CARACAS.
to Andres Bello, a great poet and publicist; and to the eminent surgeon and physician, Dr. Vargas, one of the Presidents of the Republic.
The climate of Caracas has often been called a perpetual spring. "What can we conceive to be more delightful than a temperature which in the day keeps between 20° and 26°,[9] and at night between 16° and 18°, which is equally favorable to the plantain, the orange tree, the coffee tree, the apple, the apricot, and corn? José de Oviedo y Baños, the historiographer of Venezuela, calls the situation of Caracas that of a terrestrial paradise, and compares the Anauco and the neighboring torrents to the four rivers of the Garden of Eden."[10]
The hotels, Sullivan describes as being as good as any in Europe. "You might travel from one end of Old Spain to the other without finding anything to be compared to them, either as regards cleanliness or the civility of the landlords." But as here I am at home, you are most cordially invited to our mansion at the end of the Calle del Comercio, where you may verify for yourself the truth of the statements concerning the climate and productions of this fertile valley. We may at once enter the garden, which occupies nearly the whole square, where, after our rough ride, we can refresh ourselves with the fruits of the season.
Here, as you perceive, you find growing side by side the refreshing orange and the luscious apple, the pomegranate and the peach; the banana, the citron, the guava, the sapodilla, and papaw tree, all of them eminently tropical fruits, with the pear, the grape-vine, and other productions of temperate regions. Unsurpassed by any, not even by the famous Mangosteen of the Spicy Islands, you have here the delicious Chirimoya, or cherimoyer, as pronounced by Anglo-Saxons, and which I can only liken to lumps of flavored cream ready to be frozen, suspended from the branches of some fairy tree amidst the most overpowering perfume of its flowers; for it is in bearing all the year round, as indeed are most of the fruit trees you see about this garden, and consequently you may at all times enjoy the advantage of refreshing the inner as well as the outer man with a "wilderness of sweets." Markham,[11] who has tasted both the chirimoya and mangosteen in their native habitat, gives the preference decidedly to the former, and says of it: "He who has not tasted the chirimoya fruit has yet to learn what fruit is." "The pineapple, the mangosteen and the chirimoya," says Dr. Seeman, "are considered the finest fruits in the world. I have tasted them in those localities in which they are supposed to attain their highest perfection-the pineapple in Guayaquil, the mangosteen in the Indian Archipelago, and the chirimoya on the slope of the Andes, and if I were called upon to act the part of a Paris, I would without hesitation assign the apple to the chirimoya. Its taste indeed surpasses that of every other fruit, and Haenke was quite right when he called it the masterpiece of nature."
The numerous varieties of hot-house grapes, which in your variable climate of the north require so much skill and attention to perfect their growth, here thrive without the least care, and the vines which you see struggling here and there among the trees for some kind of support, proceed from cuttings which I brought over six years ago from one of the best regulated establishments in Connecticut.
Here, too, the stately Mauritia-palm of the Orinoco, the date-palm of the burning Sahara, the royal-palm of Cuba (Oredoxa Regia), and the oil-palm of Africa (Eleis guinensis) commingle their majestic crowns with the dense foliage of the mango tree of India, the aromatic cinnamon tree of Ceylon, the bread-fruit tree of Otaheite, and the sombre pines and cypress of northern regions, forming the most effective protection to the shade-loving magnolia and the delicate violet of your native woods.
Swarms of tiny and brilliant humming-birds flutter amid masses of highly-scented orange blossoms that perfume the air around us. Any one unacquainted with that bijou of the feathered tribe, would mistake it at first sight for some of the metallic-colored beetles which dispute with them the nectar of the fragrant flowers, so brilliant is the lustre shed by both. "For that peculiar charm which resides in flashing light combined with the most brilliant colors, the lustre of precious stones, there are no birds, no creatures that can compare with the humming-birds. Confined exclusively to America-whence we have already gathered between three and four hundred distinct species, and more are continually discovered-these lovely little winged gems were to the Mexican and Peruvian Indians the very quintessence of beauty. By these simple people they were called by various names, signifying 'the rays of the sun,' 'the tresses of the day-star,' and the like."[12]
You may have noticed in your conservatories at home a well known creeper called the passion-flower, on account of a fancied similarity in the arrangement of its inflorescence with the instruments of torture employed in the martyrdom of the Saviour, such as the crown of thorns, the three nails, the hammer, and even the spots of sacred blood round the pillar of agony. The plants of this genus are general favorites with northern horticulturists only on account of the beauty and delicious aroma of their flowers, for they bear no fruit with you; but here, this constitutes their principal merit, especially that of the granadilla, which you may perceive intertwining its graceful vines amongst yonder arbor set up for its support. Huge watermelon-like fruits hang from its delicate tendrils as if suspended by a thread; cut open one of them; you will find it filled with a nectarian juice, which, when crushed in the mouth, regale your palate with the compound flavor of the strawberry and the peach. Other varieties of passion-flower-of which there are many though less pretentious in size than the granadilla-bear fruit equally rich in flavor. Unfortunately, not all fructify in the same locality, as they require different degrees of temperature, and maybe of atmospheric pressure, also, to ripen their fruit, which they cunningly obtain for themselves by "squatting" of their own accord higher up or lower down the mountains, as the case may be.
I could still point out to you many other delicious fruits in this garden were they in season, such as the tuna or Indian-fig, borne by the nopal, a species of cactus, on the fleshy, downy stems of which the cochineal insect is reared for those most valuable crimson and scarlet dyes "which far outshine the vaunted productions of ancient Tyre;" and the pitahaya, of the same family of plants, notable for the size and effulgence of its flowers. "It begins to open as the sun declines, and is in full expanse throughout the night, shedding a delicious fragrance, and offering its brimming goblet, filled with nectarious juice, to thousands of moths, and other crepuscular and nocturnal insects. When the moon is at the full in those cloudless nights whose loveliness is only known in the tropics, the broad blossom is seen as a circular dish nearly a foot in diameter, very full of petals, of which the outer series are of a yellowish hue, gradually paling to the centre, where they shine in the purest white. The numerous recumbent stamens surround the style, which rises in the midst like a polished shaft, the whole growing in its silvery beauty under the moonbeams, from the dark and matted foliage, and diffusing its delicious clove-like fragrance so profusely that the air is loaded with it for furlongs round."[13]
I well remember one night when a distinguished foreigner, General Devereux, who rendered the patriot cause so marked a service by bringing over the Irish Legion to assist this country in her struggle for independence, honored me with a visit while keeping bachelor's hall in this-to me then-earthly paradise. The Queen of Night was shining in all her glory, and the air redolent with the perfume of many exquisite flowers, among others that of the pitahaya just described, while the stillness that reigned around the spot, added to my youthful dreams of fairy lands I had lately visited across the seas, made me feel a particular pride about our mansion in the capital. Although the old hero was perfectly blind-as will be recollected by many who knew him in the United States where he resided afterwards-I could not resist the wish to invite him to take a stroll about the garden. As we passed close to the flowers of the pitahaya, the gallant old soldier stopped suddenly, and seizing me by the hand with an emotion that made me feel the deepest sympathy for the blind man, said: "How happy you must be here, my young friend, surrounded as you are by plants that shed such heavenly perfume!" But when we passed a bower of English honeysuckles, which was my special favorite, as I had planted it with my own hands, his emotions were indeed those of a man who felt as though everything on earth was lost to him-sweet home, friendly associations, the world itself in fact, and that he was only a wandering spirit in a strange sphere.
This, my good companion, reminds me too that such, more or less, is my own situation in this my native land, subject as it has been for years to political convulsions more disastrous to the peacefully inclined,...
