From Puerto Cabello we returned to the Aragua valley, and stopped again at the Barbula plantation through which the new road to Nueva Valencia will pass. Weeks before we had been told about a tree whose sap is a nourishing milk. They call it the 'cow tree', and assured us that negroes on the estates drank quantities of this vegetable milk. As the milky juices of plants are acrid, bitter and more or less poisonous, it seemed hard to believe what we heard, but during our stay in Barbula we proved that nobody had exaggerated the properties of palo de vaca. This fine tree is similar to the Chrysophyllum cainito (broad-leafed star-apple). When incisions are made in the trunk it yields abundant glutinous milk; it is quite thick, devoid of all acridity, and has an agreeable balmy smell. It was offered to us in tutuma-fruit - or gourd - bowls, and we drank a lot before going to bed, and again in the morning, without any ill effects. Only its viscosity makes it a little disagreeable. Negroes and free people who work on the plantations dip their maize and cassava bread in it. The overseer of the estate told us that negroes put on weight during the period that the palo de vaca exudes milk. This notable tree appears to be peculiar to the cordillera Coast At Caucagua the natives called it the 'milk tree'. They say they can recognize the trunks that yield most juice from the thickness and color of the leaves. No botanist has so far known this plant.

The Pimichín landing-stage is surrounded by a small cacao plantation. The trees are very robust and loaded with fruit all year round. When you think that the cacao tree is native to the Parima jungle, south of latitude 6, and that the humid climate of the Upper Orinoco suits this precious tree far more than the Caracas and New Barcelona air, which each year gets drier, then one regrets that this beautiful part of the world is in monks' hands as they discourage agriculture. We spent the night in a recently abandoned hut. An Indian family had left behind fishing tackle, earthen jars, mats woven with palm-tree petioles: all the household goods of these carefree people who are indifferent to property Large amounts of mani (a mixture of the resins moronobea and Amyris caraìa) lay in piles around the hut. This is used by Indians to pitch their canoes and to fix the bony ray spines on to their arrows. We found several jars filled with a vegetable milk, which is used as a varnish, called in the missions leche para pintar (milk for painting). They coat their furniture with this viscous juice. It leaves it a fine white; it thickens in contact with air to appear glossy. The more we study vegetable chemistry in the torrid zone the more we shall discover in remote spots still accessible to European trade, and already half prepared by the plants themselves, products that we believed belonged to the animal kingdom. These discoveries will be multiplied when, as the political state of the world now seems to show, European civilization flows towards the equinoctial regions of the New World.