Dried,

There is a very pretty pearl-coloured corn called maiz cariaco, of smaller cob and grain than the ordinary maize, and not to be confounded with the Guinea corn. It is nearly all starch. pounded, and sifted, it is made into a variety of cakes which melt deliciously in the mouth. Blancmange and other preparations for invalids are made from the flour.

Tobacco is brought chiefly from Pun Ceres and Aragua. The latter place produces as fine a quality as best Havannah. The Pun Ceres tobacco is packed in bales covered with casipo or wild plantain leaves. The best Aragua is twisted like rope, and put up in small cylindrical parcels called rollos; the one is sold by weight, the other is measured out by the yard.

Sugar is chiefly what is called clay-sugar, and made up in cones of from 2 to 4 lbs. These are called papelones. A bit of papelone, with a bit of cheese, followed up by a bit of cassavae bread, is travelling food when cooking is not convenient.

The cotton brought into Maturin is opened, aired, and further cleansed; then packed and

Dearness of Salt.

115

pressed in an ordinary screw-press all of wood, and home-made; and then sewn up in bales for exportation.

Cassavae bread not only is the staff of life to all in the state of Nueva Andalucia, of which the city and district of Maturin form a part, but it is also largely exported to Trinidad. So is starch, both of cassavae and Indian arrowroot, exported in large quantities; and also bags of peas and of ginger. Tasajo, the salted dried beef, is in every house, and forms a part of the necessary stock for travellers. This is also exported to Trinidad. It is pleasant and highly nutritious.

Salt comes from Cumana to Maturin, and is protected by a duty so high that it amounts to the prohibition of foreign salt. But it is of the coarsest and dirtiest. It is measured out in cups, and retailed in ordinary times at 2 cents the cup; but the price, owing to the unsteadiness of supplies, is very fluctuating. During the war it rose to 10 cents, and in the last weeks it could with difficulty be procured for love, but not for money.

Wheat flour, when sold in Trinidad for $9 and $10 the barrel, obtains in Maturin the price of $19 and $20. Wheaten bread is consequently very dear here. It is purchased only by the more affluent foreigners as necessary food, by all others it is used as cakes are, as a luxury.

The customary price of a milch cow with her calf is 8 pesos or $6:40. Turkeys, large and fat, are 50 cents each. A turkey-cock, whose fluttering calls forth the opposed strength of a man, is sold for a peso of 80 cents; the highest price for a fowl is a shilling; young game cocks are sold at a peso; pigs vary, according to size, from one to six pesos. The breed of dogs is large; they are fed on the offals of the carniceria or slaughter-house, which the butchers gladly dispense gratuitously. But offals in Maturin include the heart, liver, and lights of cattle.

One might well imagine that a horn of the goat that suckled Jupiter, the famed Amalthean Cornucopia, had found its temple in the heart of this city, whence flow so abundantly earth's choicest gifts.

CHAPTER XIII.

INFLUENCES.

ALFONSO was a lad of about eighteen years. A part of his grandmother's house was occupied as a shop for the sale of drugs, the property of an Italian physician, who also owned the tejeria or tile-factory. The lad was employed in the dispensing of medicines and the selling of drugs. His father, who bore the character of being vacillating and erratic in his disposition, had left the town for many years, and contributed nothing to the support of his family.

Alfonso was intelligent and inquiring. I was drawn towards him by his tractable disposition, and the proper and thoughtful remarks he often made during our conversations. His mind was cast in a religious mould, and I was glad to teach him, as far as I was able, to have a just conception of God's revealed will. His acquaintance

with Materia Medica assisted us in the inquiries after Him who made nature; his knowledge of physical diseases led us to the study of moral depravity, and to the contemplation of Him whose blood alone can cleanse the soul from defilement. "In contemplation of created things,

By steps we may ascend to God.”—MILTON.

But I studiously abstained from saying anything to make him dissatisfied with his own creed. And when he spoke to me of my own heresy, as he considered it, I explained to him the true nature of heresy, and cleared myself of the charge without needless and uncharitable reflections. In accounting for the diversity of Christian sects, I said that no man could get to Maturin without travelling; but there were more ways than one, depending in a great measure upon the point of starting; that it was also optional to travel to the city by way of the river or on land, care being taken to pursue the right tract or course. So may we not assume it to be quite possible safely to journey towards heaven, albeit at the risk of greater difficulties and dangers by the way, either