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
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.