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statue in Parian marble. Some of his favorite books, and many of the personal ornaments that he wore, occupy an ornately finished glass case to the right of the altar; and both sides are embellished with marble tablets bearing the names and dates of his military achievements in the long war of independence. Regularly on each recurring anniversary of his birth, the doors of the Pantheon are thrown open, and the tomb is visited in great ceremony by all the officers of the government, attended by the resident representatives of friendly powers.

Not far distant from the Plaza Miranda, down in a deep ravine on the banks of a rapidly running stream, is a giant tree (a species of the Bombax ceiba) beneath whose sombre boughs the early patriots of the Revolution of independence were wont to hold their secret conclaves. Such is the commonly received story; but it will hardly bear investigation. For the great tree, it seems, was planted there as a small sapling as late as the year 1832, - ten years after the political autonomy of the country had been formally recognized by the United States, and two years after the Republic of Colombia had fallen to pieces.

Another story equally interesting, though somewhat incongruous with the preceding, is that the ravine itself was made by the terrible earthquake of 1812, which totally destroyed a large portion of the city. Most strangers who visit Caracas are the recipients of this interesting story, and I believe it has found place in some of the books and magazine articles written by those who write only for the public market. Unfortunately, however, for this bit of popular fiction, the ravine is spanned by an old stone bridge which, according to a now almost illegible inscription on one of its pillars, was erected by one of the old Spanish Colonial

Governors-General nearly forty years before the great earthquake of 1812!

The city boasts of a well-appointed theatre, an immense opera house, and a somewhat imposing Masonic temple. The last-named is an unusual sight in Spanish America; for, generally, wherever the Roman Catholic religion prevails to the exclusion of all other forms, there are few Masons and no gorgeous Masonic temples. But the power of the prelates was rudely shaken by the vigorous twenty years' reign of Guzman Blanco; and Caracas has always been in closer and more frequent contact with the outside world than either Bogotá or Quito. Aside from this, Guzman, who had lived much abroad, had imbibed many foreign ideas, and was never quite free from a suspicion of secretly entertaining French infidel heresies. At any rate, he had a sort of sneaking ambition to make his native city as much like Paris as possible; and so he builded the handsome two-story Masonic temple at government expense.

The little theatre building, centrally located near the Plaza Bolívar, is neat and commodious in its interior arrangement, and is a place of popular resort at all seasons of the year. The Grand Opera House, situated in the southern part of the city, is a more modern and pretentious affair. It is said to have cost nearly half a million dollars; but one is puzzled to understand how even half that sum could have been expended upon it. It was another of Guzman's enterprises, and his enemies charge that he shared the profits of the contractors who built it. Be that as it may, the money, it seems, was paid out of the national treasury and charged up to the account of public works and improvements. Still, the new opera house is a credit to the capital, and would be an ornament to almost any city in the United States or Europe. Our first impression of it is that its

size is out of all proportion to the population; for one naturally wonders what practical use such an enormous auditorium can be in a city of less than 100,000 inhabitants. And yet it is occupied regularly three and four nights each week during the three winter months, by the very best opera troupes of Europe; and on such occasions there is seldom an empty box or seat. Even the third gallery and the lobbies are usually crowded. The Caraquenians are a music-loving people, and all classes and conditions manage somehow to attend the opera. It is a very common thing to hear shoemakers and carpenters, stone masons and plasterers, stableboys and street-car drivers humming some classic air which they have caught up at the opera during the week.

In Caracas there are a great many church edifices, some of which are large and handsome. But one somehow gets the impression that they are not up to the standard of taste and excellence displayed in the structure of the other public buildings of the city. Moreover, one can hardly fail to observe that the daily attendance at mass is smaller, in proportion to population, than in either of the other capitals of the five Bolivian republics. Perhaps the reason is that the men of the educated classes are, as a rule, either secretly or openly hostile to the Church. Some of them are avowed agnostics, others are sceptical, many more are merely indifferent. There is no Protestant element, nor apparently any room for any; no spirit of theological inquiry; no disposition to discuss religious creeds; no formulated issues with the old Church; no open rupture: only a sort of secret dislike to all forms of ecclesiasticism and priestly intervention in the affairs of life.

This indifference, however, is confined almost exclu- .

sively to the educated classes. The common people are devoted to the doctrines and dogmas of the Church. They may appear less reverent, and certainly less fanatical and intolerant, than those of Bogotá and Quito; but when you come to know them intimately, you will discover that they are not less disposed to accept without doubt or question the doctrines and teachings of the Church. They generally believe whatever the parish priest tells them. Their wonder may be excited, but their credulity is never staggered by any story, however extravagant, provided only that it is miraculous or supernatural. Their simple, child-like faith, so far from exciting derision, appeals to sympathy, and can hardly fail to excite admiration. We may not be able to fully enter into their feelings; our conceptions of man's relations to God and to the spiritual world may be on a higher and more philosophical plane of thought, yet we can hardly fail to remember that forms of religion, like forms of government, are good or bad only as they are well or ill adapted to the present condition and wants of the masses.

I

CHAPTER XVIII

"WHERE IS VENEZUELA?”

N December, 1892, a Western member of the United States Congress arose in his place and seriously asked, "Where is Venezuela anyhow?" This was pending a proposition to consolidate the missions to Venezuela and Guatemala, the impression being that the two republics were adjacent countries! Another member, equally well up in geography, and equally enthusiastic in his advocacy of "economy," wanted to consolidate the missions to Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru. It was during the same year that a St. Louis merchant wrote to our minister at Caracas to find out "the most available Venezuelan seaport on the Pacific." A cattle-dealer in Colorado had just written to inquire "whether, in order to visit Maracaybo, it would be necessary to sail via Europe." And, soon afterwards, a tobacconist in Virginia wrote to ask "whether it would be advisable to ship samples via the isthmus of Panama!"

All these were actual occurrences, incredible as the statement may now seem; and they are cited here only for the purpose of illustrating how little was generally known of that country prior to the intervention of the United States in the Anglo-Venezuelan boundary dispute in 1895-96. There had been complaints about the bulk of the South American trade going to Europe; but even some of our Congressmen, it seems, knew not

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