The cattle may be seen dotted about the plain, and near to the homesteads a few horses are grazing, tethered so that they may be at hand when wanted. There is none of the continuous work, laborious cultivation of the soil, constant attention to the live stock, &c., which we are accustomed to connect with farming at home. The farm hands spend a good deal of their time loafing about, chatting, smoking, and playing their guitars and maracas. At other times there is plenty of bustle and activity; they rush for their horses and gallop off to collect the cattle, or such of them as may be required, and drive them into the enclosure, where they are lassooed one at a time, and milked, or fastened to the post in the middle to be branded, or have hurts attended to, as the case may be. The amount of comfort to be found in these farms, and the amount of skill and energy displayed in their exploitation varies a good deal from place to place, depending mainly, after all, on the tastes and character of the owner, but partly on circumstances. In many cases absolute slackness and indifference prevail, the cattle are almost entirely left to shift for themselves, and the human beings are content to exist miserably rather than bestir themselves. There are some estates, again, where the owner is a wealthy, educated, and perhaps a travelled man, which are managed on far better lines than the average. Maturín has a creditable record from the War of Independence, a Spanish army having been twice repulsed, and finally almost completely destroyed there. At Areo, a day and a half west of Maturín, there is in the open space by the church a huge wooden screw press, like a giant letterpress, which the inhabitants say was used by the Spaniards to press cotton. At Urica, farther west, the inhabitants are somewhat interesting. They have the reputation of having been of a brave and warlike disposition from the earliest times, and fought desperately in the War of Independence. There is something in their appearance, and a general suggestion of freedom and independence in their manner, in their very gait, which can scarcely fail to strike the traveller, even if he be unacquainted with their history. At the little village of Curataquiche, near Barcelona, are the ruins of the Mission of St. Joseph; the walls of one end of the church, and a bit of the adjoining enclosure, very solidly built in stone, are all that remain of a once important mission. The church bells have been preserved, and are hung to a large wooden trestle on the village green.