CARACAS. THE CAPITAL OF VENEZUELA.

THE voyage from New York to Venezuela is one of the most delightful in the world, and gives the traveller not only a nine days’ taste of the sea, but shows him a glimpse of tropical America, and affords him an opportunity to study the peculiar life and customs of our Spanish-American neighbors. A splendid fleet of steamers—the “Red D” line, owned by Messrs. Boulton, Bliss & Dallett, of New York, and sailing under the American flag—furnish as comfortable transportation facilities as can be found on any ocean, and the journey can be made in thirty days, eighteen of which will be spent at sea and at the ports of the Antilles, and the remainder at the capital and chief cities of Venezuela.

If the whole coast of South America had been explored for the worst place in twenty thousand miles to build a city, there could not have been found one with greater natural disadvantages, which human ingenuity cannot overcome, than La Guayra, the seaport of Caracas, capital of Venezuela. It is a town of about six thousand inhabitants, stretched along a rocky beach for about two miles. Five hundred feet from the water the Venezuelan range of the Andes Mountains begins, and rises almost perpendicularly to the height of five and six thousand feet. One hundred feet from the houses the bottom of the sea slopes off into a hundred fathoms of water, and a mile out it is said to be two thousand feet deep. There is not the slightest excuse for a harbor, nor the slightest protection for vessels, which always lift their anchors and get out of the way when indications of a storm are seen. The anchor lies on the sloping rock at the bottom of the sea, but it has to be lifted every few hours, or the shifting sand will bury it beyond recovery. The surf always runs very high when a strong breeze is blowing, and under these circumstances vessels are expected to load and unload. Two wharves, or moles, have been built at an acute angle, with the narrow point open, and into this the lighters are steered, where they are comparatively easy while shifting cargoes. The vessels always stay out far enough to avoid the surf, but rise and fall, tip and rock with the swells that go under them with the motion that the billows of the ocean give.

Clinging to the little ledge between the surf and the foot of the rocks the town stands. There is only one street along which the warehouses are situated, with a rather imposing custom-house and the invariable plaza, or park, in which stands an equestrian statue of Guzman Blanco, the “boss” of Venezuela. There is said to be a statue of Guzman in every town in the republic, erected by his orders, but at the expense of the Government, while he was President. There are three of them at the capital.

The guide-books and geographies say that La Guayra is the hottest and most unhealthy place in the world; that it is hotter than Cairo, or Madras, or Abushar, or Aden, or Yuma; but the United States consul says that this is an absurd and inexcusable falsehood, and represents the city as being a most attractive summer resort. Humboldt says yellow-fever is born there, and that it is the chief distributing point for the plague; the consul says that there is only occasionally a case of fever of a mild type, which is often mistaken for genuine yellow-jack, and people ordinarily recover from it. Humboldt says, too, that in his time this was a famous place for tidal waves; that a lookout was always stationed at the fort, which sits in a crevice in the mountains above the town, to watch for them, and when one was seen coming a gun was fired to warn the vessels, which pulled in their anchors and put out to sea to escape being dashed against the mountains. He also says that it was the worst place for barnacles (teredo navalis) in the world, and that vessels were totally ruined by lying at anchor there; but Mr. Bird says these stories are all humbug, and while it might have been so in Humboldt’s time, the conditions are totally different now.

WAITING FOR THE NEW YORK STEAMER.

Above the city, among the rocks, are the ruins of old Spanish forts which have been the scenes of the most terrific conflicts, and the ravines have run with blood from the carnage until the sea has been as red as a sunset. In the days of the buccaneers La Guayra was a favorite place for fighting, and there being no harbor, the pirate kings were always cruising after the galleons which came there to load with treasures for the King of Spain. Upon the top of a high bluff overlooking the town is an immense castle, which was at one time the residence of the Captain-general of the Spanish colonies, and is haunted by all sorts of legends and romantic traditions. It is now in ruins, and the underground tunnel which formerly connected it with the Military Barracks, four miles away, has caved in at many places.

To readers of that remarkable novel, “Westward, Ho!” by Charles Kingsley, this castle has a romantic interest, as it was here where the Rose of Devon was carried by her Spanish lover, and where she was sought and found by Aymas and Frank Leigh. But things are different nowadays. The great American house of Boulton, Bliss & Dallett have their headquarters there, control the trade, send vessels to New York every ten days without molestation laden with coffee, and the only blood that flows is shed by the fleas.

I have thus far neglected to give due credit to the tropical flea, to whose industry, enterprise, and assiduous solicitude all travellers in Spanish-America are indebted for a great deal of diversion. At first his attentions are somewhat annoying, and there is a general disposition to conceal acquaintance with him; but when every man, woman, and child in a company is constantly scratching, it becomes difficult to ignore conditions that are common and conspicuous, and everybody admits, first with blushes and then with brazen shamelessness, that he’s got ’em. There is no use of trying to conceal the fact. They are as common and as plenty as flies in the basement kitchen of a city boarding-house, and the Venezuela coat-of-arms would more truly represent the condition of the country if it showed a man vainly trying to scratch in seven places at once instead of a wild horse dashing over the pampas. They are little black insects, which will get into your clothing in the most unaccountable manner. You find them in your shoes and under your shirt-collar; you wake up in the night and think you have somehow wandered into a plantation of nettles; or, when you become a little more accustomed to it, dream regularly that you are lying on the prickly side of a cactus. To rub the flesh with brandy does some good, but the better way is to grin and bear it. The pests are bad enough in Mexico; they are worse in the West Indies; but in Venezuela—the less said the better.

IN THE SUBURBS OF LA GUAYRA.

Between La Guayra and Caracas rises a mountain called La Silla (The Saddle), from the shape of its summit, eight thousand six hundred feet above the sea, and there are three roads between the two cities. The shortest is a trail nine miles long, through a ravine, which was used by the Indians at the time of the discovery by Columbus, but it is impassable for quadrupeds, and dangerous for any but expert and experienced mountaineers. Then there is an old wagon-road, steep and rough, for twenty-two miles, which was constructed by the Spaniards after the Conquest. The third is a tramway, narrow gauge, built along shelves which have been excavated in the side of the mountains by English engineers and English capital. The train goes slowly, and there is almost always a track-walker with a spade upon his shoulder in sight. It would not do to run up or down the grades in the night, or at a speed greater than ten miles an hour; hence it requires two hours and a half to make the journey, than which there is no more interesting in the world. The grade averages one hundred and ninety-seven feet to the mile, the highest altitude passed being four thousand six hundred feet; and one does not know which to admire the most—the difficulties nature has placed in the way of man, or the manner in which man has overcome them.

Humboldt, who came up the wagon-road, which runs almost parallel with the tramway for most of the distance, said that the only mountain scenery which equals it is that of the Island of Teneriffe, where a fragment of the alpine grandeur rises from the bosom of the sea. But one can scarcely imagine a picture more imposing or impressive than is represented here. Almost under the equator, with the ocean continually in view, and the mountains rising into the clouds all around you, the little engine puffs and pants like a restless stallion as it climbs around in the crevice that has been dug for the track. The road is solidly constructed, as English railways always are, has all the modern appliances for safety, and has been running so far without an accident; but if anything should break, if the engineer should lose control of the train for an instant, there would be no need of an inquest—there would be nothing for a coroner’s jury to sit upon.

Two hundred and fifty years ago that king of buccaneers, Sir Francis Drake, paid a visit to Caracas under circumstances worthy of notice. It was before the forts had been built around La Guayra; in fact, it was owing to the adventure of Sir Francis that the Spaniards put them there. This Mr. Drake, as all know who are familiar with the doings of Queen Elizabeth’s time, was a Britain bold, and had a little affair with the Spanish Armada. Having disposed of the enemies of the virgin Queen in the waters around home, he started

STILL MORE SUBURBAN.

out on a cruise for gold and glory, with “Westward, Ho!” inscribed upon the pennant that flew at the royal top-gallant of his main-mast. Mr. Drake was a gentleman of great valor, and his antipathy to the Spaniards and Catholics was pronounced. He started out from Plymouth with a gallant fleet, and when he came across a Spanish galleon or a Spanish town in the colonies he “went for it then and there.” The Rev. Charles Kingsley has described the voyage, which continued around the globe, in a most fascinating manner. He followed in the wake of Sir Francis two hundred years after, and his descriptions of South American scenes and scenery are unsurpassed.

Drake’s capture of Caracas was considered the boldest of all his achievements. It was in 1595 that he stood in with his squadron at La Guayra, and the inhabitants, when they realized the presence of the man who had devastated the West Indies, abandoned their homes and fled to the mountains, carrying the news of the arrival of the terrible Englishman. The Alcaldes of Caracas assembled all the men in the country who could carry arms, from the ages of sixteen to seventy, and marched down the wagon-road along which the railway runs, to stay the invader. Half way down they prepared an ambush and lay in wait to annihilate him. Drake landed at La Guayra with seventy men, captured a fellow named Villalpando, who, by gifts of treasure, agreed to guide him up the old, dangerous, and abandoned Indian trail. So, while the gallant Alcaldes with all the men of Caracas were marching down one road Sir Francis was marching up another, which they thought he would not dare to climb. Neither met an enemy, and while the Spaniards were lying in ambush Sir Francis was hanging the traitorous Villalpando in what is now the Plaza Bolivar, drinking the wine from the Spanish cellars, ravishing the women, and plundering the houses of the citizens. But one old hidalgo, named Alonzo de Ledeoma, who remained behind, denounced the invaders from the threshold of his plundered house, declared them to be cravens, and dared the bravest of the Englishmen to meet him in single combat. Sir Francis and his crew jeered at the brave old man, and told him to send for his fellow-citizens who had gone down the mountain-road; but he insisted on fighting them alone, and was accommodated. They killed him as tenderly as they could, set fire to the city, and then, laden with all the portable property of value in Caracas, marched down the ravine to La Guayra again, and sailed away with a million dollars’ worth of treasure, captured without the loss of a single man.

The city of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, as well as its metropolis, and according to geographies one of the most delightful places of residence in the world, lies in a narrow valley between two high ranges of mountains, which lift their heads nearly nine thousand feet on one side, and something over six thousand on the other. To one standing in the centre of the city it seems to be entirely surrounded by peaks, to lie in a pocket or deep depression; but from the top of “Calvary,” a hill which used to be a cemetery, but is now a park, one can see two roads that lead out, two passes through the mountains whence the river comes and whither it flows. The natural beauties of the place are very marked, and make it plain why Venezuelans are proud of their chief city. There is an old gentleman at Caracas, Mr. Middleton by name, who for over fifty years has been in the diplomatic service of Great Britain. He has served at Paris, at Madrid, at Mexico, at Buenos Ayres, at Brazil, and his last station was as Minister to Venezuela. When the age came which required him to be placed upon the retired list he would not go back to England, but wished to remain there, where, he says, it is but a step to Paradise. “I have been here since 1869,” he remarked; “I have seen this country in war and in peace, and have experienced two earthquakes, the last of which killed three hundred people, but there is no place on earth possessing so many natural and climatic attractions. All I ask is to end my days in this eternal spring.”

But, speaking of earthquakes, Caracas is a favorite place for them. The town was entirely destroyed in 1812, and more or less of it has been shaken down at intervals since. The residents are quite sensitive on the subject, and insist that more lives are lost in the United States by fires and cyclones and railroad accidents than in Venezuela by earthquakes. They talk of the great fires in Boston and Chicago as being infinitely more to be dreaded than the earthquake of 1812, which shook every building from its foundation, and buried twenty thousand people in the ruins. There is no doubt a constant danger from volcanic fires, but the people are not subjected to some of the ills we are heir to.

The present Government, under the inspiration of Guzman Blanco, is making earnest efforts to secure immigrants, and is offering the most alluring inducements to settlers upon the public lands. Venezuela is not thickly populated. It has more territory than France, Spain, and Portugal together, and is about one-seventh as large as the United States. The population in 1884 was 2,121,000, with only a slight increase for ten years. The country could sustain a population of 100,000,000, for the soil is exceedingly rich, and produces two crops a year without fertilization or irrigation.

There are three zones, three climates within the limits of Venezuela—from cold too intense to be endured by man to the greatest degree of heat known to the earth’s surface. Although the capital is only ten degrees north of the equator, the temperature is delightful, and it is easy to realize the truth of the statement that Caracas enjoys a perpetual spring. The thermometer, which stands about sixty degrees at midnight, rises to seventy-five or eighty at noon, but there is always a fresh breeze blowing either from the ocean or from the snow-capped Andes to the south-west.

There was no printing-press in Venezuela until after the triumph of Bolivar, and the colonies were not encouraged in the arts or the sciences or any form of industry. The most profitable crops of sugar and coffee were kept a monopoly for the crown of Spain, and the people found it to their advantage to produce no more than they needed for their own sustenance, as every ounce of surplus was seized by the Government. Then, after independence was established, the rulers of the country imitated their former oppressors and kept the people down, robbing them in every possible way, until revolution after revolution was the result, and local wars followed each other so rapidly that the country was deluged with blood. Discontent was universal, and discontent always results in conspiracies and revolutions. Bolivar the Liberator (pronounced Bo-leè-var), the Washington of the country, was driven into exile, and died in poverty in a neighboring country. But Bolivar is honored there now, and the public

ON A COFFEE PLANTATION.

veneration is even greater, if possible, than that shown for Washington and Lincoln in the United States. He died of a broken heart in Santa Marta, Colombia, and was originally buried there, but ten years after his death Paez, the man who overthrew the Liberator and drove him into exile, thought it would be a popular thing to bring his bones home. This was done with great ceremony, and they were buried in the cathedral fronting Plaza Bolivar, upon which his equestrian statue stands. But his heart is in Colombia still. It was removed from the body, and remains in an urn in the Santa Marta cathedral.

In the museum of the University, in a beautiful room kept as sacred as the Holiest of Holies, is a collection of relics as precious to the people as fragments of the true cross. There are Bolivar’s clothing, his saddle, his spurs, his boots, and books, and every little memento of him that could be gathered up, including the coffin in which his remains were originally buried. There are paintings representing his past achievements on earth and his present glory in heaven, where he is surrounded by cherubim and seraphim covering his head with laurels. The most precious of all the relics is a portrait of Washington, sent to Bolivar in 1828 by George Washington Parke Custis, with this inscription: “This picture of the Liberator of North America is sent by his adopted son to him who acquired equal glory in South America.”

When Guzman Blanco turned an old cathedral into a pantheon for the burial of distinguished dead, the remains of Bolivar were for a third time removed, and finally deposited in a beautiful marble tomb. Upon it is a statue of the hero, represented as standing with a military cloak around him—a noble and dignified face. On one side is a statue of “Plenty,” scattering corn from a tray; on the other a representation of “Justice.” The inscription on the monument is:

SIMON BOLIVAR.

Cineres hic condit; honorat grata et memor patria.

1852.

There is another, an equestrian statue to Bolivar, in the centre of the city, surrounded by a park called by his name, upon which fronts “The Yellow House,” as the residence of the President is called, and several of the Federal palaces. The standard coin of the country is called by his name, and is of a value equal to the franc of France. The coins and paper-money bear his portrait as well as his name, and a pathetic attempt is made by the people to show after his death the gratitude they should have paid to the starving exile.

Not far from the statue of Bolivar stands a heroic figure in bronze, with no inscription upon its pedestal but the name “Washington.” It was erected to celebrate the centenary of Bolivar’s birth, and its dedication was accompanied by a ceremony which has never been equalled in magnificence on the southern continent—a tribute to the man who “filled one world with his benefits and all worlds with his name.” There are shops and stores, hotels and streets named after Washington, and his memory is reverenced as much as at home. But this people, so instinctively republican, so patriotic and appreciative of freedom, never knew what liberty was until within the last ten years. Since then the priests have been dethroned and the schools have been made free.

ON A BACK STREET.

Guzman Blanco may be a tyrant, but he has produced results which are blessing the people. Until he became President the Church ruled the people as it formerly ruled Mexico, but, like Juarez in the latter country, he went to radical and excessive measures to overthrow its tyranny. He confiscated Church property, drove out the nuns and Jesuits, seized the convents, turned them into hospitals and schools, and made the most venerable monastery a pest-house for lepers and small-pox. He deprived the Church of the right to hold or acquire property, seized the cemeteries, and opened them to the burial of the dead of whatever faith. He even went so far as to expel the archbishop because the latter refused to sing a Te Deum when a monument to the man who did all this was erected. With such audacity and by such means has Guzman Blanco deprived the Church of its former power and prestige. His opponents, like those of Juarez and Diaz in Mexico, are chiefly Churchmen (Bourbons), but as he exercises no mercy when his will is violated, they are in a state of the most abject submission.

The schools of Venezuela are supported by the Federal Government from the revenues of the Post-office and a trade license system. Formerly the mails now handled by the railroads were carried by Indian runners over the mountains from the coast, and so from Caracas inland still farther, as is the case yet where there are no railroads. A runner carries a package weighing about sixteen pounds strapped upon his back. His clothing is sufficient, as he leaves a city, to preserve the last requirement of decency. When he gets alone, however, he deposits his fig-leaf in some convenient place, and rapidly “walks in maiden meditation, garment free,” until he approaches his destination, when he finds the uniform belonging to that end of the post-route, and dons it for remaining courtesies. These runners are faithful, prompt, serviceable, and of great endurance.

At the post-office you can get two sorts of stamps. The proceeds from foreign postage go into the general treasury. Another stamp is used for local postage, for letters addressed to persons within the town or State, and is required upon commercial paper, upon all deeds, mortgages, leases, contracts, notes, receipts, certificates, etc. The proceeds of its sale are devoted to the support of the schools, which are free to all, but are usually attended by the children of the lower classes. The negroes are particularly eager to learn, and the average attendance of the blacks is very much greater than that of white children, and out of proportion of the population. The ratio of illiteracy is greater among the whites than among the negroes, and people are beginning to complain that servants and laborers are being spoiled by education.

There is a Telephone Exchange, with four hundred and seventy-five subscribers, with branch lines to La Guayra and other cities. The instrument is very popular in all the tropical countries, where any method by which physical exertion may be avoided receives both public and private approbation. The Spaniard shouts “Oyez, oyez!” (Hear ye, hear ye!) when he goes to the telephone, the same words that are used by bailiffs to open courts of law in the United States, and it sounds quite odd not to hear the familiar “Holloa!” after the bell jingles. The telephone is extensively used in private houses; and as the etiquette of the country prohibits ladies from shopping or going upon the streets without an escort, they find Mr. Bell’s invention a great convenience. They visit with their friends and gossip over the wire, order their meats and groceries from the market, and direct the storekeepers to send up samples of the goods they want to buy. The electric light is quite common also, the Opera-house being illuminated by it, as well as the President’s palace, or “Yellow House,” as it is called, in imitation of our President’s mansion at Washington, and other public buildings. The Opera-house is subsidized by the Government during the season. There is always a good company here. Performances are given twice a week, and the subsidy received by the present management is forty thousand dollars for the season, with free use of the house and scenery, which belongs to the Government. We attended a presentation of “Robert le Diable,” and it was as well rendered as the average operatic performance in the United States. The theatre is a magnificent building of stone, standing in a plaza or park; and although the interior is rather bare of decorations, and the attempt to secure the greatest amount of coolness gives it a barn-like air, in its equipments and arrangement the house is equal to any in New York. The attendance was rather small, or looked so in the great auditorium, which seats two thousand five hundred people, and the President, who is said to be a constant devotee of the opera, was absent.

When Guzman Blanco drove out the nuns and monks he made good use of their property. One monstrous Carmelite monastery, covering an entire block, was confiscated, remodelled, and turned into a university, which is supported by the Government and attended by the youth of Venezuela professionally inclined. Science, law, medicine, and all the ologies but theology are taught here, and the schools are well managed and of a high grade. Attached to the university is a public library and museum, under the care of Professor Ernst, a distinguished German scientist. This institution is supported by the revenues of a coffee plantation confiscated from the monks and now belonging to the Government.

Across a small park from the university, in which stands the inevitable statue of Guzman Blanco, is what is known as the “Palacio Federal,” bearing the inevitable marble tablet to keep before the minds of the people that it was erected by that “illustrious American.” It is the largest, handsomest, and most useless building in Caracas, and one of the finest in South America. Like all the rest of the improvements it stands upon confiscated ground, where once was a convent, the oldest and largest in the country, whose massive walls were stanch enough to endure the great earthquake of 1812. Guzman had a great time pulling it down, but he is a man of enormous will and energy, and when he resolves upon anything it is as good as done.

The Palacio Federal is the Capitol of Venezuela. It covers an entire square of about two acres, built around a circular park in which are fountains, statuary, and beautiful flowers, and which is reached by grand archways on either side. Owing to an earthquake tendency in these parts the buildings in Caracas are never more than two stories high, and

INTERIOR COURT OF A CARACAS HOUSE.

seldom more that one. This is the tallest structure in the city, having two full stories, with a wide balcony stretching around the interior walls. At one end is a lofty elliptical-shaped room, two hundred feet long, and from forty to one hundred in width, without a pillar. This is the place where official balls and receptions are held, and the Venezuelans are much given to that sort of thing. There is no carpet, the floor being of inlaid woods of different colors, and there has been no attempt at frescoing, and the walls and ceilings are of the most ghastly white, so that the furniture of gilt, and upholstered in the most gorgeous brocades and satins, has a somewhat startling effect. It is arranged, as all Venezuelan furniture is, in rows along the walls. This room is used as a national portrait-gallery also, and there is a collection of about sixty pieces, as good as one often finds and better than we have at Washington, representing the notable men in the history of the republic. On one side is a heroic portrait of Bolivar, and on the other one of Guzman Blanco, looking as grand and proud as if he had made the world. Guzman was the author and creator of this gorgeousness, and the people are not apt to forget it; but he was strictly impartial in making the collection of portraits, and if the men whose faces look down upon us were to meet in the room where their portraits face each other with fraternal cordiality, there would be such a carnival of blood and bruises as has never been seen since the celebrated encounter of the Kilkenny cats.

In one of the wings of the Palacio Federal sits the Supreme Court of the country, and in the other are the offices of the Interior and War Departments, while at the opposite end of the building are the halls of the National Legislature, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies—two lofty, barn-like rooms, each about sixty feet square, and entirely destitute of decoration, except the never-ending portraits of Bolivar and Guzman. The members sit in ordinary cane-seated office-chairs, without desks or tables, the presiding officers being placed in little coops perched very high up on the walls, with a shelf for the tribune on one side, and another for the clerk on the other.

Congress meets on the 20th of February of each year. The Upper House is composed of two senators from each State, elected by a direct vote of the people, and serving for four years. The Lower House has one representative for each twenty-five thousand population, elected for two years, also by a direct vote of the people. The first duty of Congress when it assembles is to elect from its own members a council of sixteen, and this council selects a President of the republic, with two Vice-Presidents from its members, by ballot. The Council is perpetual, and supposed to be always in session, their constitutional duty being to serve as a check upon the President. They can veto his acts, but he cannot veto theirs. They have power to enact legislation during the Congressional recess, which is known as Decrees of the Council, and is supposed to be reviewed by Congress at the following session. The Council elects the Federal judiciary and confirms the appointments of the President, thus sharing in the executive as well as the legislative power of the Government, and, to a certain extent, in the judicial, as they have the authority to remove as well as appoint judges.

Such is the constitutional form of government in Venezuela; but if common rumor is worthy of belief, its exercise is somewhat mythical. Guzman Blanco is supposed to carry Congress, Council, President, and courts all under his own hat. He nominates senators and members of Congress, and his candidates are invariably elected. He makes out a list of candidates for the Council, and they are chosen. Then the man whom he names is made President. There is a constitutional provision prohibiting the re-election of a President, so that Guzman can serve in that capacity every alternate two years, the intervening time being filled by some friend of his choice, who is said to be entirely subject to his will.

The official residence of the President faces the central plaza, or Plaza Bolivar, and is known as the Yellow House, but is not at present occupied, being too small to contain the family of General Crespo, who has seven children. Guzman Blanco never occupied it, for the same reason, as he has nine children. The Yellow House is a gaudy affair of two stories, with only twelve rooms, including four official parlors, a magnificent state dining-room, servants’ quarters, and all that sort of thing. Official dinners are given there nowadays, and occasionally the President receives foreign ambassadors in the parlors.

The city of Caracas is a Federal district, like the city of Washington, with a governor appointed by the President. His office is in a memorable room, corresponding to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was formerly the chapel of an old convent, confiscated like the rest, and the remainder of the building is used for the police headquarters, the municipal court, and other local authorities.

SPANISH MISSIONARY WORK.

This narrow little room which the Governor occupies is the same in which the Declaration of Venezuelan Independence was signed, and upon its walls hangs a picture commemorating the event. Strangely enough, beside this painting of the decree of Liberty hangs a heavy gilt frame containing the banner Pizarro carried in the conquest of Peru—the rarest and most interesting relic in all South America. It is about four feet square, of heavy pink silk, faded almost to white, embroidered with gold by the fair hands of Queen Isabella herself, the design being the combined escutcheons of Aragon and Castile, and it is still in an excellent state of preservation. It is with the keenest irony of contrast that this age-begrimed banner should hang in the room where the first voice was raised against the tyranny it represented; here, beside the voice, scarcely legible now to the eye, but to the mind speaking with mighty force the long story of Spanish oppression, and illustrating the first feeble and unsuccessful protest. This banner was the emblem of cruelty, avarice, and lust, and under its dainty folds more crimes were committed in the name of Christ and civilization than an eternity of perdition could adequately punish.

WOMAN’S CHIEF OCCUPATION.

Of equally striking significance in the room where this banner hangs exists a permanent rebuke and protest against the religion in whose name these crimes were committed. The Government refuses to recognize the authority of the Romish Church even in the sanctity of marriage, and a civil ceremony is essential to legitimate wedlock. The bride and groom may go to the church afterwards, but they must come here first, and in the presence of the civil magistrate make the vows to love, honor, and obey until death do them part, or their issue will have no right of inheritance. The Church has threatened to excommunicate, but the decree of Congress is inexorable, and the archbishop has finally yielded submission. When a couple want to be married, the groom goes to the Governor or his deputy and secures a license, notice of which is given for two weeks in a printed form, which is tacked upon a bulletin-board beside the entrance to the office. Banns are also required to be published for the same period in the official newspaper. Then, if no one appears with cause by which the two should not be united, the bridal-party comes to the office of the Governor, and there make their vows and sign the contract which makes them man and wife.

The following is the form of marriage contract:

“Parish Tribunal, Caracas, Ja. 18th, 1885.

“This day have appeared before me, presiding over this tribunal, Serapio Antonio Gutierez and Felipa Rivas, and declared that they are unmarried: that he is twenty-five years of age and that she is fifteen; that she is a resident of this parish, and that he is a resident also; that his occupation is that of a merchant, and that her occupation is that peculiar to the home. They declare that they have not changed their places of residence during the last six months, and that they desire to enter into marriage.

“In performance of the foregoing announcement, which has been advertised for fifteen days, as the law directs, in the most public places of this city, and no one having appeared to deny their right to become husband and wife, they therefore on this day agree to become such, and have taken upon them the vows required and recognized by the law. Therefore, this day, at seven o’clock in the evening, assembled with them in the municipal palace, I, General Basidio Gabante, President of the Eastern Federal District, by order of the Governor and President of the Municipal Council, in the presence of Felipe Aguerra, an engineer, citizen of this Republic, and Luis R. Tores, merchant and citizen of the Republic, have declared the evidence of their free will and right to matrimony sufficient under the law.

“Then was read to them, as above named, section thirteen of the law of the Republic, which explains and sets forth the reciprocal rights and duties of the husband and wife. Immediately thereafter I asked Serapio Antonio Gutierez the question, ‘Do you wish to take Felipa Rivas as your wife?’ who then answered in a distinct voice, ‘Yes; I want her, and take her thus.’ Then I asked Felipa Rivas, ‘Do you take Serapio Antonio Gutierez to be your husband?’ who in the same manner answered, ‘Yes; I want him, and take him thus.’

“Addressing myself to both, I said, ‘You are now joined in matrimony, perpetual and indissoluble, and you are required to support and assist each other, and provide each other, and the children that may be born to you, with the necessaries of the home, and be to each other a comfort and a blessing.

“The above, having been properly witnessed, was signed by the married couple in my presence, and immediately entered in the book of civil registry.

“SERAPIO ANTONIO GUTIEREZ.
“FELIPA RIVAS.

“Felipe Aguerra, Engineer. } Witnesses.
“Luis R. Tores. }

“Julio Baez Pumar, Clerk. Basidio Gabante, Prefect.”

A BODEGA.

Under a glass cylinder, on a stand beneath the banner of Pizarro, is a large book bound in scarlet plush, with heavy gold clasps and hinges, in which the contracts are kept and the record of Venezuelan wedlock preserved. All the Catholics go at once to the church from the municipal palace, and repeat their vows, with the benediction of the priest, but this is not essential. At this same office the record of births and deaths is also kept in the strictest manner. Formerly, as in Cuba, the legitimacy of a child and permission to bury the dead could be acknowledged by the Church alone, but the republic has confiscated all the cemeteries, and opened the gates to those of every faith, Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic.

The Government is very exacting in many respects. One day a little boy was stolen. The only clew was given by some children, who saw their playmate seized by a man who drove away with him in a hack. Every hackman in the city was arrested and thrown into prison; every coach was seized, with its horses and harness, and notice given by the police authorities that not a wheel should be turned in the streets until the child was found. These summary measures made every coach-owner a detective, and finally the hackman who was engaged in the abduction confessed, and the child was recovered without the payment of the ransom demanded.

The police arrangements in Caracas are excellent; there are no robberies or murders, and one seldom sees an intoxicated man upon the streets. Liquor is sold at nearly all the groceries, or bodegas, as they are called, and the aguardiente which the common people use is the most vicious sort of fire-water; but the punishment of offenders is extreme, and those who have not sufficient self-control to drink moderately are taken in charge by their friends at the first sign of intoxication. There are several street-car lines in Caracas, and the conductors carry a horn, which they blow upon approaching a street-crossing, as is the practice in Mexico. The cars are all open, and are small, being capable of holding not more than twelve or fourteen people.

The burial of prominent men is attended with great pomp and ceremony, and it is customary to have those who are present at the funeral sign a testimonial to the worth of the dead, or pass a series of resolutions setting forth their merits and distinguished traits. These tributes are placed in the coffin, in order that in case the remains should ever be disinterred, posterity would know the character of him whose bones they handled. When a member of the family dies, it is customary to drape the furniture and pictures of the parlor in mourning, and to let it remain so for a full year.

A GLASS OF AGUARDIENTE.

The etiquette governing the habits of the ladies is the same that exists in Mexico and other Spanish-American countries, it not being proper for them to appear alone upon the streetsor in public places. They go to mass accompanied by a colored woman as a duenna, who carries a chair for her mistress to sit upon during service, there being no seats or pews in the churches. In the evening women are seen in large numbers upon the streets, and at the plaza where the band plays they swarm in gayly dressed crowds. The ladies of Venezuela are said by travellers to rank next to those of Peru for beauty, although it would be as much as a man’s life is worth to intimate such a thing to the brothers and lovers of Caracas, who very naturally and properly concede nothing in this respect to “the daughters of the sun,” as the Peruvians are called. The Venezuela girl has more animation, more vivacity than her sister across the Cordilleras, and perhaps more intelligence, for she possesses more liberty of thought and action than the ladies in other countries of Spanish America, and more attention is paid to her education. The climate of Caracas is similar to that of Lima, and although the city is almost under the equator, it has an altitude of eight thousand feet, and is surrounded by snow-clad mountains which temper the heat of the tropics and make a temperature like that of June the whole year round. The ladies have therefore the same clear, rich complexion of an olive tint, and the same great “melting eyes.” Their features are usually of artistic perfection and their figures Venus-like. They have no national costume, but dress in the latest Paris styles. The milliners and modistes of Caracas go to Paris twice a year, and the wives and daughters of the rich men of the country order their dresses there. There is more society than in Peru, and during the winter season Caracas is very gay. At the opera the boxes are invariably filled with ladies as handsomely dressed and as highly bejewelled as can be seen at the Metropolitan Opera House or the Academy of Music in New York.

There are a large number of American families in Caracas, and several Venezuelan gentlemen have married in the United States. One of the loveliest girls in Venezuela is the granddaughter of “Josh Billings”—the late Henry W. Shaw. Twenty years ago or more a merchant at Caracas named Señor Don Santana sent his son to Poughkeepsie to be educated, and while he was there he met and married the daughter of Mr. Shaw. The young man has succeeded to the business of his father, and is now at the head of one of the largest mercantile houses in the republic.

Mrs. Guzman Blanco is the handsomest woman in the

A VENEZUELA BELLE.

country. She is a tall, slender brunette, with brilliant eyes and complexion and a sylph-like figure. Her husband worships her, and she is said to be the only person in the land to whom the Dictator’s iron will has ever yielded. She is quite as famous for her loveliness of disposition as for her personal attractions, and her charity and generosity are proverbial. Every artist in Venezuela has painted her portrait a number of times, and in the room which Guzman Blanco uses as an office there are seven pictures of her, in various costumes and attitudes, and two busts in marble. Mrs. Guzman Blanco is the leader in fashion as well as society, and all her dresses are made by Worth. Each spring and fall, when they are received from Paris, the ladies of Caracas are invited to examine them. In a room adjoining the chamber are a number of large glass-cases, like those in a modiste’s shop, in which her treasures always hang; and whenever a reception is given by the Dictator this wardrobe is open to visitors—a new and novel idea, but one which gives the ladies of Venezuela great pleasure. Mrs. Guzman Blanco was in New York with her husband a couple of years ago, where her beauty attracted much attention.

The Venezuelans are the most courteous people that can be imagined. Impoliteness is unpardonable. The clerk with whom you deal over his counter expresses his wish that you may live long and prosper, and thanks you gratefully for giving him the pleasure of showing his goods, whether you purchase anything or not. When a gentleman meets a lady, be she his sweetheart or his grandmother, he always says he “is lying at her feet,” and he would rather be shot than pass before her. They are not the semi-barbarians some people in the northern continent suppose. They have accomplishments which ought to make the rest of America ashamed. Usually they are able to speak three or four different languages, have refined tastes in art and music, and, while they lack ingenuity, and usually do things in the hardest way, are nevertheless possessed of the keenest perceptive faculties, and seem almost to read your thoughts. It is not difficult to make known your wants, even if you cannot understand a word of their language. They do not allow smoking in the street-cars and public places, as in Mexico and Havana, and although it is the privilege of the masculine gender to stare at the feminine with all the eyes they have, the men are never rude, and ask the pardon of a beggar when they refuse to give him alms.

But the people always put the locks upon the wrong door, and wrong side up. When they build a house, it seems as if they studied the most difficult mode of construction. They erect solid walls first, and then chisel out cavities for the timbers to rest in. There are no stoves or chimneys, and charcoal is the only fuel. Gas is produced at four dollars and a half per thousand feet, from American coal which costs twenty dollars a ton. There is no glass in the windows, but a grating of iron bars keeps out intruders, and heavy wooden shutters shut out the air and light. Such blinds as are common in North America would be the most admirable protection, but no one has ever introduced them, and the people will continue to swelter behind solid shutters until the end of time.

THE LOWER FLOOR OF THE HOUSE.

The rooms of houses are not plastered, but the joists are all exposed. The floors are of tile, and paper is pasted upon the walls, which are of cement and stone. In the court of every house are the most beautiful flowers. Tuberoses grow on great trees, and the oleander is as common as the lilac in New England. The parks look like the botanical gardens of the North, and in the evening are always thronged with gentlemen and ladies until a late hour.

Guzman Blanco, the uncrowned king of Venezuela, the man whose authority is more absolute in this republic than is that of any king in Europe in his own dominions, is a native of Caracas, where he was born fifty-five years ago. His father was the private secretary of Bolivar, and at one time a member of his cabinet. He died only a short time since, and his funeral was a pageant which was surpassed in the history of the country only by the demonstration at the removal of Bolivar’s remains. He was active in the affairs of State almost until his death; now an exile, now a minister, vibrating between the extremes of power and poverty, as the party to which he was attached was up or down; and under this confusion, in the atmosphere of revolution, young Guzman was educated. He added the name of Blanco—that of his mother—to his baptismal name, to distinguish him from his father, and became Guzman Blanco; but he is more often called General Guzman by the people nowadays. When a mere boy he became a soldier, and had his ups and downs until the year 1874, when he led a successful revolution against the existing authority and became President. Since that year several attempts have been made to overturn him, but none has succeeded, and being a man to win friends as well as to acquire power, his political strength has grown with years until his authority is now absolute.

There is, and always will be, a difference in opinion as to his personal character and motives. That he is vain and imperious is admitted, and that many of his acts would not be tolerated by such a people as those who live in the United States cannot be questioned; but, conceding everything his enemies may say as true, it is nevertheless a fact that since Guzman Blanco has been ruler over this republic it has prospered and had peace—something it never had before. There have been varied and extensive improvements; the people have made rapid strides in progress; they have been given free schools and released from the bondage of the Church; the credit of the Government has been improved, its debts reduced, and the interest to its creditors is for the first time in history paid promptly, in full and in advance. The moral as well as the mental and commercial improvement of the people has been the result of his acts, and as long as he lives their lives and property will be safe.

A man under whose influence such progress has been made can be pardoned for the delinquencies of which Guzman Blanco is accused; and while his vanity is amusing, it nevertheless, in the forms it takes, illustrates the pride he feels in his achievements, and the realization of the importance of his career in the history of his republic.

Upon the pedestal of one of the five statues he has erected to his own memory appear the words:

TO   THAT   ILLUSTRIOUS   AMERICAN,

THE PACIFICATOR AND REGENERATOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF VENEZUELA,

GENERAL ANTONIO GUZMAN BLANCO.

In these words the purpose and ambition of the man appear. To be the “Pacificator and Regenerator” where Bolivar was the Liberator is worthy the ambition of any man; and he who will erect a statue of Washington as the ideal his people should carry in their minds cannot be without a good motive somewhere in his consciousness. Future historians, when they look back upon the career of Guzman Blanco, will be more generous than contemporaneous critics, and will forget that he erected these statues to himself.

There are three statues to Guzman now standing in Caracas, but nobody would believe it if the number of tablets erected in his honor were told. You can scarcely look in any direction without being officially informed in letters carved in enduring marble that this, that, or the other thing was done by the order of, or under the administration of, that illustrious American, etc.

One night all these statues and many of the tablets were pulled down. It is a curious story, and the United States has what the play-bills call a contemporaneous human interest in the affair, for the casus belli was a Boston girl.

Guzman, when he was President, had a nephew of whom he was very fond, and who was made by him the commander-in-chief of the Venezuelan army. He was engaged to an American girl, whose parents lived in Caracas then, but now in Boston. For some reason the girl’s father and the President had a violent quarrel, and the former was notified that it would be to his welfare to leave the country. In these Spanish-American countries a man who values his life never awaits a second invitation of this sort, and the Boston gentleman, with his family, took the next steamer. They were accompanied to La Guayra by the young general, who made no secret of his sympathy with the father of his fiancée, and expressed his views of the President’s tyranny in a very emphatic manner. Guzman sent for the young man, and advised him to hold his tongue and let the girl go. The passionate lover gave his uncle some very plain words, which ended in his being offered a choice between his commission in the army and his North American sweetheart. He broke his sword over his knees, threw the severed blade at Guzman’s feet, and tore off his epaulettes. That night all the statues of Guzman fell down. It was discovered that the bronze had been sawed where the feet met the pedestals, and a rope used to tumble them over. Of course the young general was suspected, and he followed his girl to Boston to escape his uncle’s wrath. The romance ended in a marriage, as all good love stories do, and after residing in Boston the couple returned to Caracas, where they now live—she one of the most attractive and accomplished ladies in the city, and he an exporter of coffee and chocolate. Guzman has never forgiven him, and some of his friends think his life is not safe there, but he laughs at their timidity.

AN OLD PATIO.

Guzman’s private residence is the finest in Venezuela, and a full-length portrait of James G. Blaine adorns his parlor. That apartment is very handsomely decorated and upholstered, the work having been done by artists imported from Paris; but there is such a vivid brilliancy in the frescoing, the fabrics, and the furniture that one wishes these tropical people who have so much money had a little more refinement of taste.

One of the most striking incidents in the career of this extraordinary man was his defiance of the Pope. To realize its full significance, it must be understood that Venezuela has always been a Catholic country; that there was not a Protestant church in the whole country; that Guzman was himself born and baptized a Catholic, and that under the Constitution the archbishop was a member of the National Council. Guzman first suppressed all the monasteries and nunneries of the country, and confiscated their property, which was converted into houses of useful education. Then, in 1876, he sent to Congress a message, in which he said:

“I have taken upon myself the responsibility of declaring the Church of Venezuela independent of the Roman Episcopate, and ask that you further order that parish priests shall be elected by the people, the bishop by the rector of the parish, and the archbishops by Congress, returning to the uses of the primitive Church founded by Jesus Christ and His apostles. Such a law will not only resolve the clerical question, but will be besides a grand example for the Christian Church of republican America, hindered in her march towards liberty, order, and progress by the policy, always retrograde, of the Roman Church, and the civilized world will see in this act the most characteristic and palpable sign of advance in the regeneration of Venezuela.

“Guzman Blanco.”

To this the Congress replied:

“Faithful to our duties, faithful to our convictions, and faithful to the holy dogmas of the religion of Jesus Christ, of that great Being who conserved the world’s freedom with His blood, we do not hesitate to emancipate the Church of Venezuela from that Episcopacy which pretends, as an infallible and omnipotent power, to absorb from Rome the vitality of a free people, the beliefs of our consciences, and the noble aspirations and destinies which pertain to us as component parts of the great human family. Congress offers to your Excellency and will give you all the aid you seek to preserve the honor and the right of our nation, and announces now with patriotic pleasure that it has already begun to elaborate the law which your Excellency asks it to frame.”

This declaration of independence caused a great sensation in the Catholic Church, and excommunication was threatened to all who failed in their allegiance to the Vatican; but neither the Government nor the people were to be intimidated, and the Pope has since tried diplomatic measures to restore union with the Mother Church. There has been a nuncio there for several years, and he resides there still, but is making no progress.

Macuto is the Newport of Venezuela—the summer, or rather the winter resort of the wealthy and aristocratic, who find the temperature of Caracas trying upon their constitutions, and seek sea-air, sea-bathing, and flirtations under the palms. It is six miles from La Guayra, and is reached by a tramway, over which a little dummy engine goes shrieking every half hour, and by a broad boulevard which would furnish as delightful a drive as that upon the beach at Long Branch were it not for the dust, which is almost hub-deep, and nearly suffocates one. La Guayra, as I have stated, has the blissful reputation of being the hottest place on earth, shut in as it is by mountains on all sides but the west, and blistering not only in the direct heat but in that reflected from the rocks, which is a great deal more oppressive—a pocket which no air except the west wind, the hottest of all, can reach. But Macuto is around the corner, one might say—around a point of rocks, and upon a little peninsula that stretches out from the beach, where it can catch not only all the breezes that ruffle the sea, but the winds that come from the mountains, down a ravine through which flows a beautiful stream as cool as one in the Adirondacks.

It was Guzman Blanco, of course, who found out this little settlement of fishermen, built the seawall to protect the peninsula, made the boulevard from the city, built the railroad, brought plenty of fresh water from the mountains, and built bath-houses there; so that the people of La Guayra can in twelve minutes leave the hottest place on earth for one where the air is always fresh and cool, where yellow-fever never comes, and where a good salt-water bath can be had for the sum of six cents in Venezuela money.

The bathing arrangements are quite odd. The sharks are so numerous that it is dangerous to bathe in the surf, and nobody cares to have his legs bitten off; so a semicircular pen of piling has been erected, at government expense, reaching about a hundred feet into the sea. Through this piling the surf beats fiercely. The pen is divided in the centre by a high wall, one side being for the ladies and the other for the gentlemen. At the shore end is a miniature castle of stone, likewise divided into two rooms, with a row of benches around the wall, and hooks over them on which to hang clothes. Everybody bathes au naturel; bathing-dresses are unknown. You pay five cents for a ticket, and ten cents for a sheet, which is used as drapery and as a towel, and then undress. The attendant hands you the sheet when you are stripped, and, concealing your nakedness with that protection, you climb down the stone stair-way, hang your sheet over the railing, and plunge in. The water is glorious, warm and salty, so dense that it will almost bear you on the surface, and deep enough to swim and dive. When you have had enough of it, you climb up the stairs, seize your sheet and throw it around you, and sit on the bench until you are dry enough to resume your clothes. Some of the more modest ladies, or, they say, those who have no charms to display, wear in the water a sort of night-dress made of towelling, but the pretty ones wear nothing but smiles—not even a blush.

During the day everybody stays in-doors after the bathing-hour, which is about nine o’clock in the morning. The fashionable get up about eight o’clock, drink a cup of coffee, eat a roll, go to mass, saunter down to the bath, and return in time to dress for breakfast, the most elaborate meal of the day, which is served about eleven o’clock. The menu offers soup, fish, game, steaks, sweetmeats, and wine. Then the people loll around till dinner, which comes after five o’clock in the afternoon, and is a repetition of the breakfast, except that roasts are served instead of steaks. After dinner everybody goes to the grand promenade along the beach. The band plays, the ladies are gayly dressed, the gentlemen twirl their canes, admire their small feet in the moonlight, and chatter like a lot of magpies. The promenading and gossiping are kept up until midnight, except twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, when there is dancing at the hotel or at some one of the private residences. The season lasts from October, when the rainy period ends, until April, when it begins; but families from Caracas and other cities seldom remain at Macuto more than three or four weeks. The charge at the hotel is four dollars per day—about three dollars and a quarter in American money. If some one would build a first-class American hotel here, and provide the comforts that are found in the States, it would be a paying investment; and I would not wonder if a subsidy would be paid by the Government.

CHOCOLATE IN THE ROUGH.

The coffee plantations, or quintas, as they are called, extend from the coast far up into the mountains, and are very prolific. The people here claim to raise the best coffee in the world; and it is a singular fact asserted by the exporters that only the poorer grades go to the United States, while all of the better quality is sent to France and Germany. Just why this is so no one explains, further than repeating the remark so often made that the Americans do not like good coffee.

SEPARATING THE COCOA-BEANS.

Another curious fact is that chocolate costs more here than it does in New York—here where it is grown and manufactured, for very little of the genuine article is sold in our market. When the cocoa-beans are thoroughly dried in the sun they are shipped in gunny sacks to market, where the chocolate manufacturer gets hold of them. He grinds them into a fine powder of a gray color that looks like Graham flour, mixes it with the pure juice of the sugar-cane, called papillon, and flavors the mixture with the juice of the vanilla-bean. After being boiled for a certain length of time, this is poured into moulds and allowed to harden, when it becomes the chocolate of commerce. The Caracas chocolate, as all the product of Venezuela is termed, is considered the best in the world. It costs sixty-five cents per pound at the factories there, but can be purchased for forty-five or fifty cents a pound in New York. The best cocoa-beans are forty cents a pound here, but the Yankee manufacturer has a way of increasing their weight and reducing their value by adulteration. Pipe-clay is cheap and heavy, and it is supposed to be harmless. It weighs five times as much as cocoa, and as the profit in lager-beer is in the foam, so is the profit in chocolate in the pipe-clay, or whatever substance it may be mixed with.

Puerto Cabello and Maracaibo are the two great exporting markets of Venezuela, from which the greater part of the coffee and chocolate is shipped. The former place is famous for being one of the most unhealthful in the world, and the bay upon which it is situated is called Golfe Triste (the gulf of tears), because of the terrible scourges which are born in its miasmas. The bottom of the bay is said to be literally covered with the bones of those who have been heaved overboard for the lack of a better place to bury them. The ghost of that most famous of all freebooters, Sir Francis Drake, haunts the place, for he died here of yellow-fever, and his body lies in a leaden coffin thirty fathoms deep in the sea. The place is called Puerto Cabello (the port of the hair), on the pretence that ships are so safe in its harbors that they might be tied to their moorings with a single hair. This is something of an exaggeration, but nevertheless the harbor is the best on the Spanish Main, and has such abrupt banks that a vessel can be run up against the shore anywhere to take her cargo.

Off the coast of Puerto Cabello lies the island of Curaçoa, the quaintest, most novel, and altogether most interesting place on the Spanish Main. It is a fragment of Amsterdam, set upon a coral rock in the middle of the sea. It has always been a colony of Holland, with all the picturesque quaintness, stupidity, and wooden-shoe-oddity of the fatherland. Leaving the tropic scenes of Spanish America at bedtime and waking up in Holland in the morning makes you feel like one of Plato’s troglodytes, who were raised in a cavern and then suddenly dropped into the world. You cannot quite allay the feeling that something has been done to you; the appearance of things has changed so suddenly and completely that you do not feel quite right about it.

PUERTO CABELLO.

Curaçoa looks like a toy town built by a child of uncommonly incoherent mind, by taking blocks out of a box and setting them up in irregular rows regardless of size, shape, or color. The general effect is a nightmare of gable-ends and dormer-windows painted a bright yellow. Immense warehouses with great gaping doors and windows stand beside quaint little Dutch cottages surrounded by beautiful gardens, and stores several stories high, of the most elaborate architecture, rise beside low structures as flat fronted and as square cornered as a dry-goods box with a Dutch oven on top of it. Quaint dormer-windows stare at you from the most unexpected places; hideous yellow towers, like the legs of some petrified monster sticking up into the air, meet your view in all directions; and great prison-like fortresses, with port-holes like the eyes of needles, and ponderous doors lapping over like the covers of a banker’s ledger, appear with surprising frequency. The streets are narrow, crooked, and rough. They begin in the most unreasonable places and go nowhere. Some of them start broadly, but wind around like the track of a serpent, growing narrower and narrower until they suddenly end, like the edge of a wedge, against a stone wall.

Curaçoa is a great place for business, although it is so quiet and sleepy that one might think the whole town had taken a dose of laudanum. It is the distributing point of a large amount of commerce, a harbor of refuge for vessels in distress, the haven of political exiles from South America, and the hotbed of conspiracies and revolutions against neighboring republics.

South of Curaçoa is Maracaibo, with its curious lake, in which are towns built upon stilts, that give the name of Venezuela, or Little Venice, to this land. The explorers, like tourists of modern times, were given to tracing resemblances in America to what they were familiar with in Europe, and they imagined these huts rising on piles above the water looked like the city of canals and gondolas. But there is no more resemblance to Venice than to Chicago, and the name of Venezuela, like that of the continent, is a falsehood which the world has allowed to stand uncontradicted.