The Barracks and House in which the English Police were confined]
Admiral Meade’s squadron touched at La Guayra while we were at the
capital, the squadron visiting the port at that time in obedience
to the schedule already laid out for it in Washington some months
previous, just as a theatrical company plays a week’s stand at the
time and at the place arranged for it in advance by its agent, but
the Venezuelans did not consider this, and believed that the squadron
had been sent there to intimidate the British and to frighten the
French and German men-of-war which were then expected in port to convey
their dismissed ministers back to their own countries. One of the
most intelligent men that I met in Caracas, and one closely connected
with the Foreign Office, told me he had been to La Guayra to see our
squadron, and that the admiral had placed his ships of war in the
harbor in such a position that at a word he could blow the French and
German boats out of the water. I suggested to one Venezuelan that there
were other ways of dismissing foreign ministers than that of telling
them to pack up and get out of the country in a week, and that I did
not think the Monroe Doctrine meant that South-American republics could
affront foreign nations with impunity. He answered me by saying that
the United States had aided Mexico when Maximilian tried to found an
empire in that country, and he could not see that the cases were not
exactly similar.
[Illustration: ENGLISH STATION ON THE CUYUNI RIVER
Inspector Barnes, Chief of the English Police who were captured by the
Venezuelan troops, is seated on the steps]
They will, however, probably understand better what the Monroe Doctrine
really is before their boundary dispute with Great Britain is settled,
and Great Britain will probably know more about it also, for it is
possible that there never was a case when the United States needed
to watch her English cousins more closely than in this international
dispute over the boundary-line between Venezuela and British Guiana.
If England succeeds it means a loss to Venezuela of a territory as
large as the State of New York, and of gold deposits which are believed
to be the richest in South America, and, what is more important, it
means the entire control by the English of the mouth and four hundred
miles of the Orinoco River. The question is one of historical records
and maps, and nothing else. Great Britain fell heir to the rights
formerly possessed by Holland. Venezuela obtained by conquest the lands
formerly owned by Spain. The problem to be solved is to find what were
the possessions of Holland and Spain, and so settle what is to-day
the territory of England and Venezuela. Year after year Great Britain
has pushed her way westward, until she has advanced her claims over a
territory of forty thousand square miles, and has included Barima Point
at the entrance to the Orinoco. She has refused positively, through
Lord Salisbury, to recede or to arbitrate, and it is impossible for any
one at this writing to foretell what the outcome will be. If the Monroe
Doctrine does not apply in this case, it has never meant anything in
the past, and will not mean much in the future.
[Illustration: DR. PEDRO EZEQUIEL ROJAS
Minister of Foreign Affairs]
[Illustration: MAP EXPLAINING VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE]
Personally, although the original Monroe Doctrine distinctly designates
“this hemisphere,” and not merely this continent, I cannot think the
principle of this doctrine should be applied in this instance. For if
it does apply, it could be extended to other disputes much farther
south, and we might have every republic in South America calling on
us for aid in matters which could in no possible way affect either the
honor or the prosperity of our country.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF CARACAS]
In any event the Monroe Doctrine is distinctly a selfish one, so far,
at least, as all rules for self-preservation must be selfish, and I
should prefer to think that we are interfering in behalf of Venezuela,
not because we ourselves are threatened by the encroachments of Great
Britain, but because we cannot stand by and see a weak power put upon
by one of the greatest. It may be true, as the foreign powers have
pointed out, that the aggressions of Great Britain are none of our
business, but as we have made them our business, it concerns no one
except Great Britain and ourselves, and now having failed to avoid the
entrance to a quarrel, and being in, we must bear ourselves so that the
enemy may beware of us, and see that we issue forth again with honor,
and without having stooped to the sin of war.
Caracas was the last city we visited on our tour, and perhaps it is
just as well that this was so, for had we gone there in the first place
we might have been in Caracas still. It is easy to understand why it
is attractive. While you were slipping on icy pavements and drinking
in pneumonia and the grippe, and while the air was filled with flying
particles of ice and snow, and the fog-bound tugs on the East River
were shrieking and screeching to each other all through the night,
we were sitting out-of-doors in the Plaza de Bolivar, looking up at
the big statue on its black marble pedestal, under the shade of green
palms and in the moonlight, with a band of fifty pieces playing Spanish
music, and hundreds of officers in gold uniforms, and pretty women
with no covering to their heads but a lace mantilla, circling past in
an endless chain of color and laughter and movement. Back of us beyond
the trees the cafés sent out through their open fronts the noise of
tinkling glasses and the click of the billiard-balls and a flood of
colored light, and beyond us on the other side rose the towers and
broad façade of the cathedral, white and ghostly in the moonlight, and
with a single light swinging in the darkness through the open door.
In the opinion of three foreigners, Caracas deserves her title of
the Paris of South America; and there was only one other title that
appealed to us more as we saw the shores of La Guayra sink into the
ocean behind us and her cloud-wrapped mountains disappear, and that, it
is not necessary to explain, was “the Paris of North America,” which
stretches from Bowling Green to High Bridge.
THE END
IMPORTANT WORKS OF TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION.
=From the Black Sea through Persia and India.= Written and
Illustrated by EDWIN LORD WEEKS. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt
Top, $3 50.
=Venezuela=: A Land where it’s always Summer. By WILLIAM ELEROY
CURTIS. Post 8vo, Cloth. (_In Press._)
=Notes in Japan.= Written and Illustrated by ALFRED PARSONS. Crown
8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $3 00.
=The Warwickshire Avon.= Notes by A. T. QUILLER-COUCH. Illustrations
by ALFRED PARSONS. Crown 8vo, Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top,
$2 00. (_In a Box._)
=Pony Tracks.= Written and Illustrated by FREDERIC REMINGTON. 8vo,
Cloth, $3 00.
=A Sporting Pilgrimage.= Studies in English Sport, Past and Present.
By CASPAR W. WHITNEY. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $3 50.
=The Capitals of Spanish America.= By WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS. With a
Colored Map and many Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $3 50.
=The Spanish-American Republics.= By THEODORE CHILD. Illustrated.
Large 8vo, Cloth, $3 50.
=Dixie=; or, Southern Scenes and Sketches. By JULIAN RALPH.
Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.
=Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu.= By CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON.
Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 75.
=London.= By WALTER BESANT. With 130 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth,
Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $3 00.
=The Praise of Paris.= By THEODORE CHILD. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth,
Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.
=The Danube=, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. By F. D.
MILLET. Illustrated by the Author and ALFRED PARSONS. Crown 8vo,
Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.
=Riders of Many Lands.= By THEODORE AYRAULT DODGE, Brevet
Lieutenant-colonel U.S.A. Illustrated by FREDERIC REMINGTON, and from
Photographs. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $4 00.
=Italian Gardens.= By CHARLES A. PLATT. Illustrated. 4to, Cloth,
Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $5 00. (_In a Box._)
=Sketching Rambles in Holland.= By GEORGE H. BOUGHTON, A.R.A.
Illustrated by the Author and EDWIN A. ABBEY. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges
and Gilt Top, $5 00.
=About Paris.= By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS. Illustrated. Post 8vo,
Cloth, $1 25.
=Our English Cousins.= By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS. Illustrated. Post
8vo, Cloth, $1 25.
=The Rulers of the Mediterranean.= By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.
=The West from a Car-Window.= By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS. Illustrated.
Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.
=The Borderland of Czar and Kaiser.= By POULTNEY BIGELOW.
Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $2 00.
=Literary Landmarks of London.= By LAURENCE HUTTON. With Many
Portraits. Post 8vo. Cloth, $1 75.
=Literary Landmarks of Edinburgh.= By LAURENCE HUTTON. Illustrated.
Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 00.
=Literary Landmarks of Jerusalem.= By LAURENCE HUTTON. Illustrated.
Post 8vo, Cloth, 75 cents.
=Our Italy.= (Southern California.) By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
Illustrated. Square 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50.
=Their Pilgrimage.= By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. Illustrated. Post 8vo,
Half Leather, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 00.
=On Canada’s Frontier.= By JULIAN RALPH. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2
50.
=Our Great West.= By JULIAN RALPH. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50.
Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York
_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be mailed by
the publishers, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price._
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Since this was written, Professor S. H. Woodbridge, of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been successful in having a
bill passed which hinders the lottery still further by closing to it
apparently every avenue of advertisement and correspondence.
The lottery people in consequence are at present negotiating with the
government of Venezuela, and have offered it fifty thousand dollars a
year and a share of the earnings for its protection.
[B] Guiteris died a few months after our visit.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.