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 mountains, covered nearly everywhere with dense forests, is intersected at various angles by numbers of valleys presenting the most lovely character.  Generally each valley is watered by a silvery stream, tumbling here and there over rocks and natural dams, ministering in a continuous rain to the strange-looking river-canes, dumb-canes, and balisiers that voluptuously bend their heads to the drizzly shower which plays incessantly on their glistening leaves, off which the globules roll in a thousand pearls, as from the glossy plumage of a stately swan.

’One of these falls deserves particular notice—­the Cascade of Maraccas—­in the valley of that name.  The high road leads up the valley a few miles, over hills, and along the windings of the river, exhibiting the varying scenery of our mountain district in the fairest style.  There, on the river-side, you may admire the gigantic pepper-trees, or the silvery leaves of the Calathea, the lofty bamboo, or the fragrant Pothos, the curious Cyclanthus, or frowning nettles, some of the latter from ten to twelve feet high.  But how to describe the numberless treasures which everywhere strike the eye of the wandering naturalist?