wife is a Creole beauty, a brunette, with slightly tinted cheeks when excited, and with eyes as black and as expressive as one could imagine. In the dance, she is a sylph in form and motion. They are very hospitable, and, I think, very happy in their mutual love and respect. From intimate acquaintance with this Señor Vallivian's character, I have learned to regard him as one of nature's nobility. He is generally respected, as well by those who are of opposite politics, as by his own friends and compatriots. He has about twelve god-sons, strong Indians, who gladly work under him, and are proud of their padrino (god-father).

Padrinos and Madrinas (godmothers) are not, in some Roman Catholic countries, what I have seen of godfathers and godmothers in what are called Protestant countries. The pledge incurred by the former is generally faithfully fulfilled, and, as a consequence, a reverential feeling is held by the godchildren toward their sponsors, which continues throughout life. It is delightful to see the children, ay—the grown up people too-crossing their arms and lowering their heads respectfully

The general habits and necessities of Venezuelans do not require them to apply themselves to the cultivation of many exotics; although the mountains of their richly productive country are suitable, by their temperature, for the culture of some cereals and many of the other vegetable productions of the Temperate Zone. But it is not so with the cultivators in the suburbs of Caracas and Cumana, who, enjoying the civilization of Europe, and being in constant intercourse with strangers, find a ready and profitable sale for their production of articles of food common to countries in the latitude of Europe.

The high customs duty charged on imported merchandise, and on money exported, amounts to a tacit prohibition of all foreign importation trade, and leads to a desuetude of foreign articles, and a dependence on home products-perhaps its best feature; but it limits the supply of foreign 68

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goods only to the rich, for they only learn to despise home-made articles, and thereby materially cripple the domestic manufacturing trade; it leads also to a systematic evasion of the duties by smuggling. Hence we see among the Llaneros or country people a pair of boots made in five minutes from two pieces cut out of a raw hide; and the owner of substantial wealth in cattle and cultivated land, making his appearance in cheap uncouth shirt and short trousers, barefooted and barelegged; and for a hat, a coarse kerchief.

The revenue also suffers, and in a way most disastrous to the country. The officers of customs add to their salaries by a percentage on the goods smuggled, with their connivance, into the country, and thus the method of raising a revenue intended for the promotion of good government, is made a source of corruption to which the integrity and fidelity of its officers too readily yield.

One is not surprised, then, to find the diet of the La Ceiba household all of home products; and although many of the articles are new to a stranger, yet he soon gets to be accustomed to them, and

to enjoy the necessaries and delicacies of a Venezuelan table.

A call to dinner. The master and the wayfarers sit on benches and quaint old-fashioned home-made chairs, to a table covered with a clean cloth, on which rough pottery dishes and plates are placed. The food consists of thinly sliced salted beef, called tasajo, and fresh beef from the carcase of a gored ox. Fresh beef is a rarity here. When an ox is gored or too exhausted for shipment, it is sold for the value of the skin, that is, for two or three pesos of eighty cents each; and for that day and the following, fresh beef is plentiful. The meat for dinner is boiled with pumpkins, sweet potatoes and beans, the broth of which, with pepper, is very excellent, and is called caldo. We have also fried tasajo beaten in a mortar, and overlaid with eggs; and plenty of plantains boiled or roasted, cassavae bread and corn bread called arepa.

Before dinner I volunteer a grace in simple Spanish words, to which all respond, and the host looks pleased and thankful. He tells me that he

knows I am heretico, but believes that I am one whom God possibly intends, in good time, to be reclaimed into the true, holy, Catholic Church. Immediately before dinner, two Indian girls bring in calabashes of water, which answer for finger basins, after which the fingers may freely do the duties of knives and forks.

It rained during dinner time. A middle-aged woman of mixed Indian and Negro blood, who was about to proceed to her home at Wacheracas, a settlement a little below the village of Caña Colorado, was impatient of the rain. She very devoutly prayed to Saint Anthony to cause the rain to cease, as she wanted to starch some clothes. Then, that she might have the credit of exercising patience, I suppose, she continued her conversation, and she was a good talker. But the rain not ceasing, after what she considered a reasonable time for her prayer to reach the saint, she looked up to the clouds, and pointing a finger rather threateningly, called out: - "Por Dios hombre; que es esto, San Antonio! No me escuchas ? Cuidado!" "Oh, dear! Saint