Near the edge of the forest on the Bolivar Railway is the station of Palma Sola, whence a branch is now being surveyed across the Aroa and up the Yaracuy Valley to San Felipe, a great boon to the agricultural interests of the State. There is a road from the town to Puerto Cabello, along which the merchandise now travels, but it is often impassable in the rains; the comparatively easy task of engineering a railway here to connect with the nearer port of Tucacas will probably enable it to be carried out profitably at the same time that it provides a cheap and rapid mode of transit for the coffee, cocoa, and hides of these rich agricultural and pastoral valleys. In the State of Yaracuy, but south of the watershed at the western extremity of the coastal cordillera, lies Nirgua, founded in 1628 in the picturesque alluvial plain of the Buria. Copper-mines have been known and worked here from very early times, but I believe they are quiescent now; there are also, it is said, deposits of sulphur in the neighbourhood. The fertile plains and the surrounding hills send to the markets of Nirgua coffee, cocoa, beans, sugar, alcohol, cotton, and wheat, a goodly list for one small town. Twenty miles away from Nirgua to the west in a straight line, though very much more by existing roads, is Yaritagua, the only other town of note in Yaracuy, connected by road with Barquisimeto. This is a good place for tobacco, and cigarettes used to be manufactured in considerable quantities from the local leaf; also it has its share of the ubiquitous coffee and sugar. A natural cart-road enables the produce of Yaritagua to be shipped through Barquisimeto, the route passing by the small town of Cabudare. A similar road connects Barquisimeto with Tocuyo rather more than forty miles to the south-west. Though the population of Tocuyo to-day is scarcely two-thirds that of Barquisimeto, it is the older town of the two, being founded by Carvajal in 1545. Its substantial, well-built houses bear witness to its former importance, and even now there is a continual stream of carts passing along the road to the capital, bearing not only coffee, sugar, and cocoa, which grow in the plantations of the valley near the town, but also wheat and temperate fruits from the hills. There are extensive potreros in the district, too, for raising sheep as well as cattle. The club building is a fine old mansion, comparable to any in Carácas, with a large patio and broad veranda.