Book Descriptions:

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838 Excerpt: ...the commencement of the valleys of Aragua. Viewed from the height, the valley appeared perfectly flat; and with the sharp and ridgy mountains rising almost perpendicularly round it, it is like a vast amphitheatre, with its eastern wall thrown down, through which the city of Valencia is dimly seen. After descending some sharp and beetling hills, whose rocky points are grey with age, the road passes over a number of steep and naked gravel hills, and soon after crosses a small river, when it enters what may be termed the valley, but which in reality assumes the appearance of a large grassy plain. Galloping along this plain, which was cracked and fissured with the sun, we soon arrived at some pulperias, where we stopped to feed our horses. The pulperia is a sort of South American posting-house, a place that contains in itself the two businesses of shop and tavern; a sort of partnership between a German gasthoff and an English huxter's shop; not formed, however, until both the said concerns had been sometime bankrupt, and all the movables, in consequence thereof, carried away. The pulperia generally consists of a longish building of two rooms, both on the ground floor, and surmounted by a thatched roof, which expanding at the sides, forms a sort of corridor. One of these rooms is appropriated to the family, the other is the store or shop, in which all the good things are huddled together. In most cases it has a square window, through which persons receive what they require, for there is no room inside to sit or stand, should such a thing be ever desirable in a country where generally no other canopy is wanted than that of heaven, excepting as a protection from the sun. At the end of the house there is usually a large shed, in which the horses are tied until they...




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