The “road” to Barquisimeto is merely a casual track over the sand and gravel plains, but it serves its purpose, and one may make the journey in a strange vehicle, rather like a stage-coach in shape when seen from a distance, though without any outside seats, for the very good and sufficient reason that the apparently solid sides and top are of oilcloth and can be rolled up if desired. In leaving Tocuyo, _el Señor cochero_ tells us we must be ready to start at 4 a.m., reserving to himself the right to turn up at two or five as may suit him best. This brings us to Quíbor, a little town, whose chief trade is in the temperate fruits (quinces, &c.) of the Sanare Hills, at about eight, and we leave again after midday, arriving dusty and sore at Barquisimeto by 5.30. There are reported _minas_ of metal and coal round about Tocuyo, and the latter certainly exists, though, like the less authentic minerals, it has never been worked. If, in place of travelling to the capital of the State, we followed down the river from which Tocuyo takes its name, we should shortly find the cactus-covered hills replaced on the left bank by grass plains, the llanos of Carora, in the middle of which the town of the same name was founded in 1572. Like most of these more ancient towns of Venezuela, it contains many substantial buildings, and it is the market centre for the grazing lands surrounding it, where sheep as well as cattle are raised. From more remote districts come goats on the one hand, coffee and cane on the other, these last from the fertile valleys to the west. There are said to be outcrops of coal near by, a by no means improbable occurrence. A whim of ex-President Castro’s led to the expenditure of a considerable sum on the surveying and construction of a cart-road over the Sierra Empalada to San Timoteo, on the Lake of Maracaibo. It was manifestly impossible that such a scheme could succeed, involving, as it did, the use of a hundred miles of road over a range of hills instead of some sixty miles across the level to the Bolivar Railway terminus at Barquisimeto; at the present time much of the road has fallen into disuse, the remainder forming a standing monument to misplaced energy. In addition to the level road to Barquisimeto there is another which in some fifty miles brings us to Siquisique, the head of possible steam navigation on the Tocuyo River. Up to this point steamers were run for a short time, but the undeveloped country on either bank was not brought under cultivation as a result, and the produce of the rest failed to make the venture pay. Once again, want of population and of incentives to labour have proved the main drawbacks in a feasible project. The hills both north and south of the lower river produce, and are capable of producing more, wheat, coffee, and cocoa; downstream there are virgin forests of valuable timber, and on the north bank indications of petroleum over a wide area almost uninhabited and unexplored.