The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-11-10

AAAE &"AALhAAAAE VI 14a GgE anu A4H4Ek5E ~
begin life on their own account.
Naturally the rOmestic arrangements
Of a hato are extremely simple. the
expense and difficulty OF transporting
things so far from the worlds centers
OF civilization rendering elaborate fur
nishing quite OUT of the question.
! HammOcks of woven grass. suspended
! from hooks or wooden pegs driven into
! the posts that sustain the roof, are tine
universal beds and lounges. Raw-hide
! upholsters the chairs and carpets the
/ floors of mOther-earth. BulI-hOrns and
deer antlers answer well for hat racks.
wardrobes and closets: caIabash
gourds, big and little, serve a variety of
! household uses in lieu Of tinware and
breakable creckery. With little labor
on the part of the ranchman there is
always abundance of beef, pork, game,
! fish. terrapin, turtles. milk, cheese. GER
tain fruits, nuts and vegetables.
Strange to say, where fresh meat
abounds, the favorite article of con-
sumption is tasajo Gerked beef).-pre-
pared by cutting fresh beef into long,
shaving-lik like strips, rubbing them thor
oughly with salt and drying in the sun
Tasajo cannot actually spoil" but
soon becomes tougher than leather and
more odoriferous than limberger; and
the stronger and tougher it is, the
more it is relished by the typical lane
70. The universal breed of the plains
is arepas,-a close kin to the tortilla of
Mexico and Central America. The
making of it requires several days and
a variety of operations, and is much
more trouble than to make the Wen
ma bread. First the corn must be
hulled by laborious pounding in wooden
mortars, adding handful of salt and
little water Next the grain must be
carefully separated from the chaff,
washed several times and then boiled
over slow fire, taking particular pains
that it does not become "mushy." FL
nally the mixture is ground between
two stones, then patted into thin fiat
cakes between the palms of the hands
and baked in shallow pans. The result
does not justify the labor to the taste
of the unsophisticated. resembles
pretty good chicken-food while warm
and fresh, but after a few hours be-
comes too tough for the digestion Of an
ostrich. Everywhere in rural Venez-
uela one longs for civilized bread. In
the cities one may buy French bread,
imported, or made in Caracas bakeries,
but hotels and private families cannot
make their own, even If they wished to
do so, because there is not house in
the country provided with such north
ern essentials as chimneys, stoves or
ovens.
Another favorite article of Llano diet
is called queso de manos,-literally
hand cheese" Milk is brought to
curd in the usual manner and then the
curd is boiled in its own whey. When
the proper consistency is obtained the
stuff is pulled in the hands until cold,
precisely like molasses candy. Then
salt is sprinkled on, it Is rolled into fiat
cakes and hung in nets suspended from
the ceiling, to ..'ripen,'" amid the taran-
tulas and scorpions. When ready to be
eaten it will separate into layers, like
parchment, yet retain all the flavor Of
the milk There are no dairy maids in
Venezuela, the wild cattle requiring the
strength and courage of men to- man
age them. Although the particularly
domesticated cows rejoice under such
fancy names as, Flor del Campo"
(Flower of the field"), La Estrella"
(the starr, etc, every one must be
MIXED by main force by the united eff
forts of two or three experienced
rancheros; and then not a drop of milk
will the animal yield until the calf has
been allowed the first chance.
The Llaneros of Venezuela, like the
Garchos of Argentina, spend most of
their lives on horseback, in these re-
gions Of magnificent distances. They
are the Arabs and the Cossacks of the
new world; the models of Victor Hugo's
word-picture: He forms but one per-
son with the horse. He would not fight
but on horseback. He lives on horse
back; trades, buys and sells on horse
back; eats, drinks and sleeps on horse
back Ramon Poez, the celebrated
Venezuelan author, says of them:
Cast upon the wild and apparently
interninable plain, the domain Of saw
age beasts and poisonous reptiles, their
lot is to pass all their lives in perpetual
struggle, not only with the primitive
possessions Of the land, but with the
elements themselves, often as fierce as
they are grand From April to Au-
gust rains fall so heavily that in some
of the districts the whole face Of the
earth remains shallow lake during
most of the year. Cattle and horses are
in the pools or perish in quag-
mires or are eaten by alligators, or de-
voured piece-rneal by tiny caribe fish.
The latter voracious little cannibals in
fest the aff1uents of the Orinoco and are
sure death to any creature of whatso-
ever size which they attack in num-
bers. Baron Humboldt called them
the greatest scourge Of the Orinoco re-
gion, because on account of them no
body dares battle in the rivers, and fire.
quent bathing is rendered doubly neces-
sary by reason of singing dust, mo-
squito bites and general irritation Of
the skin. The Warun Indians, who live
the flooded lands of the great
delta of the OrinocO, in huts raised on
posts above the water, are the only be-
Ings who find any use for the ravenous
caribe fish. Having no dry ground in
which to bury their dead, they have
adopted the custom of preserving the
bones of their deceased relatives sus-
pended from the roofs of their houses
The skeleton is prepared by plunging
the corpse in the water, fastened to one
end of a strong rope, the other end tied