File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972200708).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo17amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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TRAVEL NOTES IN WESTERN VENEZUELA 19 and given over to cactus and thorny shrubs, but humid in the south and clothed in heavy for- est. The sierras rise abruptly from the edge of this plain and to great heights. From tlie southern end of the lake the Andes seem an impassable wall with their forested slopes and fogbound crests. And indeed the trails that sidewind deep gorges and climb lofty ridges, only to drop again to the roaring stream, find passes in the barren paramo some fourteen thousand feet above the sea. The transi- tions from one type of environ- ment to another are sudden and startling. A direct but little used trail for Merida leaves the unhealth- ful lake port of Bobures, passes through small savannahs and stretches of dripping forest to Torondoy, a coffee center, and then ascends the Torondoy River to its very source in the paramo of Mucumpate. In the coffee region the mountain-sides liave been cleared of forest and only the widespreading bucari trees retained as shade for the tender shrubs. In February these bucari trees are masses of vermilion blossoms. Leaving Torondoy we soon find that the valley has become too dry for coffee, perhaps be- cause the high ridges to seaward rob the winds of their rain. Small huts of mud and thatch cling to the steep slopes, and irregular fields of maize differ- ing in age and condition make an odd patchwork of dull color.- on the mountain-sides. The brighter green of plantains
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Open liouM- is krj.t in the desert by the Parajuano and Goajiro Indians. Tlie peninsulas that flank the Gulf of JMaracaibo are exceedingly arid. Tlie Goajiro Indians in- habit the western one, and those groups living in the interior are almost untouched by civilization. The Parajuano Indians may once have inhabited the eastern peninsula. The old man wears the apron of olden times. He belongs to the Parajuano tribe

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