La Guayra lies just above sea-level. In two hours, we must climb over the Great Mother’s back, going thirty odd miles to reach Caracas, which lies at an elevation over three thousand feet in a valley, only six miles in an air line from La Guayra.
Up, up into the thin vapours, into regions of other trees still higher, whose tops again we pass amongst. The sun is hazy through a translucent veil of mist, and far away, the white horses of the sea dance up against the shore and out of sight, and the white sombrero drops beneath an emerald cloak, and everything but the sky is shut out.
We jump first to one side of the car and then to the other, for the sea-view and for the mountains. We are whirled around quick curves, and all but lose our feet; and some of us—even men—get dizzy looking at the drop below us; and then we cut through themountain and hurry on up the steep climb until the plucky little engine decides to stop, and we are told that we have reached the summit; and we hurry from the cars and feel the sweet coolness of the mountains, and the actual presence of the Great Mother.
We stand close together on the brink of a chasm and look tremulously into the depths of her great heart; down, down, a thousand feet and more of living, breathing green, into every hue of purple and blue, deepening into black near the far-off valley, and disappearing into azure among the clouds,—silence, shadow, tenderness, sublimity, overspread by the ineffable loveliness of morning.
We are moving again, and now it is down, gradually, for Caracas lies a thousand feet below the summit. We follow along a white highroad, the mountain trail from Caracas to the sea. Now we are on its level; now we leave it. Long trains of pack-mules make a cloud of gray dust against the green, and here and there a red blanket thrown across a burro’s back brings a delicious bit of life and colour into the passing scene.
Caracas and the Mountains VenezuelaCaracas and the MountainsVenezuela
Now we seem to be on the level, and scurryalong at a great rate; and soon there spring up out of the brown earthadobehouses (the first we have seen since we were in Mexico), and here are more and yet more, and there, ah! that must be Caracas, the great Venezuelan capital, the habitation of over one hundred and fifty thousand people!
But, shall we say it? Must we be honest at the expense of all else? The approach to Caracas is a disappointment. There is scarcely any kind of a habitation which gives a landscape quite such a distressful look as theadobehut. Built of sun-dried mud blocks, it gives off an atmosphere of dust with every whiff of wind. It comes to our mind always with the thought of dry barrenness, heat, sun, dust, shadeless fields of maguey, pricklynopals, broad sombreros, and leather-clothedrancheros. And to see the suburbs of a great city, the outlying habitations, in gray, crumblingadobe, makes an unpleasant impression, in spite of the fact that, from the distance, we catch a quick glimpse of a peaceful campanile and high, imposing roofs a bit beyond. There’s only time for a suggestion, but that suggestion biassed all our later impressions. We steaminto the station and begin to pick up our traps and make for the carriages.
As we said before, the spirit of independence gained supremacy, when we were once fairly upon the Spanish Main. Out of many, a few of us escaped the tourist agent. A courier had been sent from New York, and at every port we had the privilege of availing ourselves of his guides, carriages, meal tickets,et cetera, if we wished to do so; and for some it was certainly a great advantage, for, unless one knows some French and Spanish, one is at the mercy of every shark that swims, and these waters are full of them, as are all others for that matter.
We found the prices very high everywhere, with few exceptions; equally high for poor accommodations as for the better, the reasons whereof, for the present, must be left unexplained. Suffice it to say, that the American is his own worst enemy. Nine-tenths of our party thought it would be unwise to go through South America from La Guayra to Puerto Cabello on their own responsibility;so our little group were the only ones to experience the joy and excitement of an independent tour through a strange country, where English—good, honest, live English—is a rare commodity.
The Doctor, and Mr. and Mrs. M—— from Boston, and Daddy were keen for the experience. I was afraid we might be left away down in South America, with no train to carry us on from Caracas, for “the personally conducted” were to have a “special,” but my fears were finally allayed by constant assurances of safety; so independence carried the day.
Once inside the Caracas station, Daddy disappears, and, after a bit, we see him beckoning to us from in among a crowd of vehicles, all very comfortable and well-appointed, and we sidle along among the noisy South American cabbies, and jump into the selected carriage.
Now, what was said to the cabby, I’ll never know; but we were no sooner in that carriage than the horses started on a dead run, rattlety-bang, whackety-whack, jigglety-jagglety, over stones and ruts, through the city of Caracas. Up the hill we tore, and all I could see fromunder the low, buggy-like canopy was the bottom of things sailing by in a cloud of dust. Every now and then we struck a street-car track on the wrong angle, and off we would slew, still on the run, with one wheel in the track and the other anywhere but in the right place, for half a block or so, and then no sooner well under way again, than we would all but smash to pieces some peaceful cab, jogging toward us from the opposite direction. A train of donkeys, coming from the market, on the way home to the mountains with empty baskets, narrowly escapes sudden death at our furious onslaught; and I can yet hear their little feet pattering off and the tinkle of the leader’s bell, as his picturesque little nose just misses our big clumsy wheel. In a jumble we see the small feet of the passers-by, and so we jerk along until all at once we stop with a bump at theGran Hotel de Caracas.
There we wait in the garden while our recklessly independent men seek lodgings. None to be had! Off we gallop toward another inn, catch glimpses of a square, stop again, wait in the carriage, and find the standing still very delightful. In a few minutes, our bold leadersreturn with the look we know so well,—jubilant and hopeful. Beautiful rooms, fine air, clean beds, sumptuous parlours, and all that,—you know how it reads.
We enter theGran Hotel de Venezuela.
May I be forgiven if I leave the path of calm discretion for once, or how would it do to leave out theGran Hotel de Venezuelaaltogether, and turn the page to where the mountains begin? But, you see, if we leave out theGran Hotel de Venezuela, we should have to leave out Caracas, and that would never do at all.
There was one member of our party who never sat down to a meal that he did not declare it was the finest he had ever eaten in his life. This faculty of taking things as they come, conforming gracefully to the customs of a country, is, perhaps,—next to unselfishness,—the most enviable trait in the traveller. Well might it be applied, as we begin the search for our rooms in theGran Hotel de Venezuela. We climb a wide, winding, dirty stairway, pass through the sumptuously dusty parlour, upanother flight of the same kind, only narrower and dustier and darker. An English housekeeper leads the way, and some one exclaims (Oh, the blessed charity of that soul!): “How pleasant to find a neat English woman in charge of theGran Hotel de Venezuela!”
It has never been clear to me just what state of mind could have inspired that remark; whether it was a momentary blindness, occasioned by the mad drive, or a kind of temporary delirium, from the sudden consciousness of power over perplexing foreign relations; or whether it was merely the natural outburst of an angelic disposition, I could never quite make out. But those are the identical words he used: “How pleasant to find a neat English woman at the head of affairs in theGran Hotel de Venezuela.”
The “neat English woman” had dull, reddish, grayish hair, stringing in thin, stray locks from a lopsided, dusty knot on the top of her head. She had freckles, and teeth that clicked when she smiled. A time-bedraggled calico gown swung around her lean bones, and at her side she carried a bunch of keys, one of which she slipped up to the top into a wobbletydoor, and ushered us into our “apartments.”
The “neat English housekeeper” fitted into that room to a dot. It was gray, and red, and wobblety, and she was gray, and red, and wobblety.
If it hadn’t been for the everything outside, away beyond the balcony (for, thank Heaven, no Spanish house is complete without one!), no amount of philosophy could have atoned for that room. It was simply white with the accumulated dust of no one knew how long. Our shoes made tracks on the floor, and our satchels made clean spots on the bureau. Two slab-sided, lumpy beds suggested troubled dreams. Two thin, threadbare little towels lay on the rickety, dusty wash-stand, and an old cracked pitcher held the stuff we must call water. A thin partition of matched boards dividing ours from the next “apartments,” rattled as we deposited our things in various places which looked a little cleaner than the places which were not so clean.
Had it not been for the balcony, we could never have endured it; though we had put up in queer places before. We had not even thesatisfaction of leaning on the balcony rail; it was too dusty. But we could stand, and we did stand, looking out over and beyond the picturesque buildings, to the everlasting hills, to the Andes, their lofty summits encircling us like an emerald girdle, with calm La Silla thousands of feet above all.
Below us lay the city and the Square of Bolivar, with the bronze statue of the great Liberator in the centre, in the midst of a phalanx of palms, rising above the dust and the glaring white walk.
To the left, the Cathedral, one compensation at least for all the rest. What combination of characteristics is it that makes the Spaniard such a marvellous builder, and, at the same time, such a wretched maintainer? He builds a Cathedral to be a joy for all time; its lines fall into beauty as naturally as the bird’s flight toward its nest. Whatever he builds, he builds for posterity; simply, beautifully, gracefully. Even his straight rows of hemmed-in city houses have a touch of beauty about them somewhere; and in the Cathedral,his true artistic sense finds full expression. Close at hand the noble Campanile, swung with ancient bells, watches in serene dignity and beauty the moving, streaming life below. Sweet lines, harmonious to the eye, lift the Cathedral from the hideous dirt and unkempt streets; from the whirling dust and circling buzzards, to a sphere of forgetfulness, where beauty struggles for the supremacy she holds with royal hand so long as we continue to gaze upward.
Equestrian Statue of Bolivar, the Liberator Caracas, VenezuelaEquestrian Statue of Bolivar, the LiberatorCaracas, Venezuela
But once let our eyes leave the mountains and the Tower, and it all changes into that other picture, the other side of the life of that curious compound of traits, the Spaniard. For here, South American as he calls himself, down deep in his heart he is ever the Spaniard, and although he has claimed his independence of the mother country these many years, through the heroic victories of Bolivar and his brave associates, his characteristics are Spanish, his arts are Spanish, his life is Spanish; his glorious Cathedral is Spanish, and his horrible streets are Spanish; his magnificent statue of Bolivar is Spanish, and the dowdy, dusty garden about it is Spanish.Was he ever intended to be a householder? Should not his portion be to beautify the earth by his artistic intuition, and let the rest of us, who do not comprehend the A B C of his art, be the cleaners and the menders? Is not this a people left like children to build up the semblance of a government from the wrong stuff? Will not the world in time come to see that one race cannot be all things; that some must be artists, and some mechanics; that some must be leaders, and others followers; that some will be the builders of beauty, to last for all time, and others must be the guardians of health, the makers of strong, clean men?
Why is it that the President’s house,—the great yellow house across the square, shown us by the Minister of War himself to-day,—one of the homes of Cipriano Castro, the present Dictator, is nothing more or less than an arsenal, packed to the full with cartridges, muskets, and rapid-firing guns, and alive with armed troops? How is it that Castro is said to have laid by a million dollarsout of a twelve thousand dollars a year salary? Why is it that our going into Venezuela was considered by some unsafe? Why did we shake every bone in our bodies over the upturned streets and boulders of Caracas? Because the Venezuelan is trying to do that for which he is not fitted; in which, during all these long years of constant revolution, he has failed. He, past-master in certain of his arts, has taught the world his colours and his lights and shades; he has given to earth notable tokens of his skill in building; but in house-cleaning—municipal or national—he is out of his element, and should no more be expected to excel in that line than a babe in arms should be expected to know the Greek grammar.
Like all Spaniards he is mediæval in his instincts; he cannot really govern himself as part of a republic.
The city of Caracas exemplifies this statement. It is in a horrible state of dirt and disproportion. Its people are kind and courteous, but its streets are a nightmare; and over all hovers the strong hand of military despotism.
After dinner our first expedition was to call upon the United States Minister L—— and his wife, who were occupying the former residence of Count De Toro, some miles out of the city. And what a drive!
To move comfortably in Caracas, you must either take the donkey tramway—which never goes where you want to go—or you must walk. But to walk a half-dozen miles in the hot sun, on a dusty, stony road, is not particularly inviting, so, with our respects to the sun, we decide to drive, and all the way out we wonder why we ever did. And yet, had we walked, I suppose we would have wondered why we hadn’t taken a cab.
As it was, the dust blew about us from the rolling, bumping wheels in great clouds, and the big stones in the road sent us careening about from one side of the carriage to the other. Again we think of Mexico—of the dust, the parched earth, thearroyos, and the saving mountains beyond. We pass a dried-up river-bed, where women are washing in a faint trickle of water, and then we wind about the hill and climb up the rocky way, enter a sortof wood, and come suddenly to the minister’s house.
An Interior Court Caracas, VenezuelaAn Interior CourtCaracas, Venezuela
Our nation’s arms on the gateway make us feel at home, and we jingle the bell and send in our cards and wait in the shady court. In a few moments, Minister L—— appears, and with him Mrs. L——, who bids us enter her cool, delicious drawing-room, very clean and sweet and old-fashioned and quiet, though the house is truly Spanish, with wide, airy rooms and curious pictured walls. The men went off up a flight of stone steps through the garden to the office, to talk politics and the “Venezuelan situation,” I suppose; while we sat there with the minister’s wife, who told us much of her life and the customs of the country, and, among other things, how difficult it is for a foreigner—even a diplomat—to gain access to the real home-life of the Spaniard; how the women live shut in, and see but little of the world, only glimpses now and then, never knowing anything of our Northern freedom.
The drive back to the city was one continuous round of jolt and bump and dust. Werattled down and up the streets which, despite their narrowness and general dilapidation, could not be utterly devoid of interest, if viewed from the eyes of the lover of wrought-iron handiwork and graceful handlings of simple and strong elements in building.
We were told that it was our duty to view the Municipal Palace, and dear Sister, although I knew she was tired, did not want anything seeable omitted; so we most willingly left the cabs at the palace door, with the hope of never having the agony of that ride repeated.
As the Spaniard builds his cathedral, so does he impart to each important structure a fitting grace and dignity of style commensurate with its office. The Municipal Palace is built about a great hollow square or plaza, which is filled with palms and other similarly beautiful vegetation. But, oh, dear! oh, dear! the dust! The great reception-hall, or audience-chamber,—or whatever one might call it,—was lined with stately gilt chairs and sofas, done up in linen dusters. The effort of driving and seeing and jolting and being agreeable had been such a strain that I just thumped down on one of the wide sofas and spent my time looking aboutme, while the others conscientiously made thegrande tourfrom one end of the great room to the other.
It is a large oval hall ornamented with some very fine historical paintings. The Spanish Student had found an obliging officer—for soldiers are everywhere—and I quietly left the two alone. I thought it too cruel, after our long drive, to expect him to retranslate for my benefit, but then there came a faint suspicion in my mind, from a troubled expression on his face, when the guide launched into the deep waters of Venezuelan history, with Bolivar rampant and the Spaniards fleeing, that, possibly, it was not all clear sailing; that, possibly, this was just the occasion for the last of my phrases. No, I watch the face; it resumes once more its usual expression of serenity, and I sit there and think how beautiful it might all be if it were only clean; if Bolivar could only come back again and teach his children their unlearned lesson of disinterested self-love of country and home.
Bolivar appears to have been the only liberator (and each new “President” who throws out the defeated party and instates himself iscalled “liberator”) who ever died poor, having spent not only public funds for the betterment of arts and science and education, but nine-tenths of his own personal patrimony as well.
The guide closes the blinds, and our party comes together at the door, leaving nice little clean spots where they have stood in groups on the dusty, once highly polished floor, and we turn down the long, wide balcony to an open door at the end. A brilliantly uniformed, handsome lad bars admission, for Castro the Great is holding a cabinet meeting there, and we can see the collar of a black alpaca coat and the back of a very solemn-looking chair, and hear a low voice speaking,—and that was all we saw of Castro.
Some one proposes a drive; some one else suggests the shops, but we decide to go home. That dear old word sounds lonesome away down here in South America. Does it mean theGran Hotel de Venezuela? Was this the home; or was it the wide, out-reaching mountains, fading into the deeps of night; or the Cathedral, rising from the dread below in her sweet chastity?
Tired bells jangle out the slowly passing time. An ancient carillon sounds the quarter, an added clang the half, one note more for three quarters. The long black arms reach to the hour, then another and another passes, and night brings rest to the Great Mother. But the soft gentle eyes are no sooner closed than all the children, the white children at her feet, begin to stir and move, just as yours and mine do when mother sleeps.
The old church towers, with sweet grace, wrap about her stately form a mantle of whitest silver, bordered with great lines of black, and away above her head, up in God’s garden, forget-me-nots and heartsease blossom out into twinkling spots of starlit beauty.
The moon rolls languidly on in the gentlest heaven that earth e’er looked upon.
Below, beneath God’s garden, the white children brighten and awaken from the drowsy languor of the long day. Lights flare out, doors open, and streets fill with happy voices, and a white-frocked humanity empties itself into the Plaza to hear yet again the great Military Band of Caracas.
There comes a hush, and then—it must be from the garden away off so far—there drops a veil,—the veil of forgetfulness, in sounds of music so inexpressibly tender and alluring as to catch the soul from earth away up to where white angels gather the forget-me-nots and heartsease. The crumbling city and its disordered sights, the dust and all unpleasantness pass away beyond the veil, and all that remains is covered with the witchery of music.
To make it real, we, too, join the children and press in close, just as our little ones do who fear not the expression of their emotions. We, too, press in where the makers of this wonderful music, sixty of them, stand in a great semicircle at the head of a flight of stone steps, and then we listen to the old, eternally old stories of life and love and joy and tragedy; listen, until our souls are filled to the utmost with the deeps of life!
An intermission comes; we take a deep breath; meanwhile he of the Spanish vocabulary, made bold by enthusiasm, threaded his way to where the leader of the band was nonchalantly smoking a cigarette, wishing to congratulate him on the masterful work done byhis musicians, and also to thank him for having just played “The Star Spangled Banner,” in honour of the Americans present.
Shrugging his shoulders, the bandmaster remarked that his men had almost forgotten that American thing, as it was twelve years since last they played it! Thus does the Venezuelan show his love for these United States. But we forget that in the charm of the reawakened melody, for it is the kind of music that speaks real things; that brings the great forgetting of things visible; that brings the great remembering of things eternal. Mellow notes, as from the throat of a blackbird, slip through the liquid night as softly as the splash of feathered warblers in the cool water brooks, and when the strong word is uttered, it comes forth like the voice of a seer, unjarring, made strong through great tenderness.
Closer and closer we press to lose not the slightest note, and we realise that it is the music which comes to our cold Northern senses but once in a lifetime, and our ears plead for more and yet more. No strings could ever have so mellowed themselves into the loveliness of that night as did those liquid oboes, whosesylvan tones filtered through our senses with ineffable sweetness. The wood and brass seemed to have been tempered by long nights of tears and days of smiles, so ripened were they into an expression of the soul of humanity.
At last the Great Mother sleeps, her children are tired and go to rest, and God’s garden blossoms away, away off beyond in the far country.
THE choice lay between a luncheon on board our vessel down in the hot harbour of La Guayra, with President Cipriano Castro and his suite invited as guests of honour by the German officers, or an added day in Caracas; and then a glimpse of South America on our way by Valencia to Puerto Cabello, where we would again take ship. The question was well-discussed,proandcon, and finally decided in favour of Venezuela, the countryversusCastro, its dictator. After all, General Castro was not so very different from the other Venezuelans all about us, except in that great element, his personal success for the time being; and then you know we did see his alpaca coat and the back of his chair, and we heard his voice in the council-chamber,—at least wethought we did,—and that really ought to be enough to satisfy any one.
In a way, we did feel satisfied, and yet there was a lingering inclination toward that luncheon. It might be that, for once, the great man would look, act, appear just a little different from the every-day sort. It was only a remnant of the everlasting hope for a perfect adjustment of mind and body,—that futile phantasmagoria which would make the great man great in all things. And to give up and leave Castro in a common, every-day alpaca coat,—and only the back of it at that,—when we might see him in gold lace and gorgeous uniform, well, it was too bad; but then old common sense comes lumbering along and spoils the whole thing, and tells us it’s no use, no use at all, mourning over the impossible; he’s only a man, and a little man at that, and there are plenty of fine men all over the world, and there’s only one South America; and so and so on, until the balance weighs so heavily against the Castro faction that, when the time came to take the train for La Guayra, we divided the party, sent the little girls back tothe ship with our friends, and turned ourselves loose upon the sunny streets of Caracas.
We had no guide-book, no one told us what to do, no one seemed to know what we ought to do; so, freed from all restraint, we had the delightful sensation of unlimited liberty.
It was Ash Wednesday and the church-bells rang incessantly. We took to the left, passing the Cathedral, whose black shades enveloped one after another of the faithful, and kept straight on, to where the women in white frocks and lace mantillas, and the black serving-girls with baskets, and the small boys, and trains of burros were streaming down in the direction of the market. Most naturally we join the procession, now in the street, with the cabs and carriers of all sorts of things, and now jostling in among the people on the narrow sidewalk of the shady side.
We have no intention of telling about the flies and the smells and the dirt. They were all there and can easily be pictured, and we really have no intention of staying but a moment in the market, for we have seen so manybefore; but once a part of the big throng of buyers and sellers; once fairly free from the South Americans who insist upon speaking English, once free to use our own laboriously acquired Spanish, we stay on and on, buy and eat all sorts of curious fruit, until we fear for the consequences, and are delightfully uncomfortable and happy.
It was a surprise to find in Caracas a market which surpassed in varieties and quantities any other place we had ever seen.
Caracas, with its abortive palms, its dusty, dried-up appearance, gave one the impression of unproductiveness; and the dinner of the night before, with meat, meat, meat,—an exaggerated Trinidadian affair—led us to expect anything but fresh, sweet, delectable fruits; but here they were in masses! We had searched every port for pineapples, and these were the first ones we had found which answered to our ideals formed years ago by the pineapples of Amatlan and Southeastern Mexico. And such dear little thin-skinned refreshing limes! I wonder why they are not exported more freely in place of the big, thick-coated lemons? I suppose the impression prevailsthat the American wants everything on a big scale, so he gets the big lemon in place of the dainty aromatic lime. There we found in great abundance all the fruits with which we had grown familiar on the islands, but more surprising, the fruits of the temperate regions as well. There were some queer kinds of melons, too. We tried them, of course; we tried everything, buying here a slice of pineapple fordos centavos, and over at another stall amedio’sworth of mangoes; then we take up a piece of a curious fruit and examine it rather suspiciously. Its meat is yellow and covered with little black seeds, just the size and appearance of capers, and when one eats it, the seed is the only element of flavour. It has so exactly the taste of water-cress that one needs to use considerable will-power to believe it is a melon, and not a salad.
Here were grapes, both white and black, and sweet and sour lemons, and all sizes of oranges. There were peaches and apricots, and curious little apples, about the size of a small crab-apple; and delicious little Alpine strawberries from away up in the Andes, and then there were in every stall mangoes, and sapodillas,and granaditas, and pineapples sweet as honey and luscious, and curious aguacotes and zapotas and many unknown fruits—besides the ever-present cocoanut.
And vegetables! I only wish we could tell you the names of all the aromatic herbs and green stuffs spread out to tempt us. But there was one thing we did recognise at first sight: the beans—nine different varieties in one stall and maybe as many more in another—“frijoles de todas clases,” the market-woman announced for our encouragement. A procession of bulging baskets crowds us along out of the market, and we move on to make room for a stream of empty baskets coming from the opposite direction.
We take a straightaway course down toward the ever-beautiful curves of a massive old church, some blocks off, and on the way, with the wanderer’s prerogative, step into the open door of a fine modern building, apparently a bank. The Spanish Student walks up to a grilled window in the court to get an American gold piece changed into Venezuelan bolivarsand is at once invited to enter. The president and vice-president of the bank were at conference in a finely appointed, spacious office, and as we appeared, both greeted us most cordially and addressed us in perfect English. The weather started the ball of conversation rolling, and from that we chatted on about the voyage, and the islands, and all sorts of things; and then the men launched into a discussion of the political situation, and from that to the power Germany was acquiring in a mercantile way in their country. And they told us how the Germans came there with their families, and taught their children from babyhood the language and customs of the South Americans, at the same time holding firmly their grasp of the mother tongue and the thrifty business methods of their home concerns. Thus given from infancy this advantage of a thorough knowledge of the language and customs of the country, they acquire a prestige with which no amount of ability in a foreigner can compete should he be less ably equipped. How dangerous to America is becoming this Teutonic power and prestige we do not realise, for who can fathom the ambition and persistency ofthe Kaiser and his subjects in South America—Germans all, though thousands of miles from Berlin?
I could but admire the facility and ease with which these South American men of affairs expressed themselves in English, and I thought, how few there were of us who could thus readily express ourselves in Spanish. It came to me forcibly that the American who is truly far-sighted, is the one who is acquiring, and having his children acquire, a good speaking knowledge of Spanish; for the time is surely coming when our need of Spanish will be far greater than to-day. The time is coming, if we guard our interests aright, when these South Americans will look to the North for a closer bond than now exists, and when that time does come, the man most potent in the new relation will be he who can, by a knowledge of the language, customs, and habits, place himself in perfect sympathy with his South American brothers. And we must remember, too, that we are dealing with men whose education is based upon the time-honoured culture of an old world, men of attainment, of polish and policy, of strength andpower; however much that power may be at times misguided, there is latent great force and adaptability.
The South American is a man of marked and strong mental ability, and is already—and for that matter has for years been—modelling his laws after those of his more fortunate younger brother of the Northern continent. It is not in proper law and forms of government that he lacks, but in their proper enforcement, and back of all in the muzzling of that healthy public interest that would demand their enforcement. However much he fails in government, the time when his country will be dispassionately ruled by fixed and just legislation is hoped for by such men as the officers of this bank. For how can the country’s business go on amid the turmoil of ever-impending revolution?
These West Indian Islands and South America, combined, have been used by all nations who have profited by their marvellous productiveness merely for what can be gotten out of them through one resource and another; even North Americans themselves are not above reproach in their quarrels over the VenezuelanPitch Lake concessions, which was then a subject of keen interest. But in spite of the fact that some Americans have been feathering their nests from this foreign down, still I believe that our people will eventually lead the world in true philanthropy,—the philanthropy of development and honest business methods, and that ours should be the hand that brings to the South American the solution of his great difficulties; directed not to annexation of these Southern lands, but to helping in the evolution of a stable, self-respecting independent government.
South America is waiting for the great hand, for the great liberator of the land from the faults and follies of its own sons, and when he comes he will find a country rich to overflowing in unrealised possibilities. The curse of these countries seems to be in the love of the Spanish American for political intrigue, which periodically bears fruit in the bogus political “liberator,” throbbing with meretricious and self-seeking ambition which he bombastically labels “Patriotism.”
Cathedral and Plaza Caracas, Venezuela Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.Cathedral and PlazaCaracas, VenezuelaCopyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
If you had stood face to face with two such well-poised types of conservative South Americans as we met that morning, I feel sure that you, too, might hope for a great future for this country, could it but be represented and led by its best men.
With courteous good wishes, we left the señors’ pleasant company, and went on, still in the direction of a church-tower. The shops were far from interesting, much like others down in the islands, with the exception of a chocolate-shop, which we found to be the sales office of a factory where a great deal of prepared chocolate is made, for Caracas is a great chocolate market. After we had filled our pockets with all we could carry, of chocolate blocks and chocolate fishes and chocolate dolls, we started on again, munching the chocolate as we went, until we came at last to the Cathedral, which was in a state of mortar and lime and scaffolding, due to having the cracks from last October’s earthquake doctored up in the same matter-of-fact way that we clean house in the spring.
Well, we were glad at last to have seen the inside of the Cathedral, for even without thesuggestion of a guide-book, we had in a sort of way felt that we ought to do so; such a slave of “Ought” does the traveller become, in spite of utmost precaution.
By this time the sun was nearing noon, and we naturally turned in the direction of theGran Hotel de Venezuelaas the only available place in which to rest; that is, I thought it was the only available place, but the Spanish Student knew better. How he knew, or when he had experimented, he would not say, nor could the truth be forced or dragged from him, as he walked on toward theGran Hotel de Venezuela; but I had a suspicion, from the decided click to his step, and a lurking joy in his eye, that he had forsaken the Gran Hotel de Venezuela; that he had discovered a new Arcadia, and, oh! it was so delightful to feel that it was not theGran Hotel de Venezuela. Then he stopped at a lattice,—I am sure there wasn’t a door in the house—at the lattice of an enticingDulceria, and we sat down where it was cool and quiet, and I waited to see what would happen.El propietorioappears. At once, at the sight of the Spanish Student, the señor smiles, and disappears. They had metbefore. The señor enters once more,—for we are not to be left to an ordinary waiter,—this time with two tall glasses,—very tall, thin glasses.
If you could only have felt the fatigue of that moment! We had tramped about three hours, under the high, white sun, with the drowsy spell of noon creeping stealthily over the city, and even over the insatiable tourist; if you could have been with us to have seen the two tall glasses, filled to the brim, placed on the table by mine host himself, you, too, would have concluded that it was no small matter to be thus refreshed. It looked like lemonade, and yet it didn’t, and it tasted,—well there’s no other explanation possible; it was bewitched. Mine host had crossed his heart, looked twice over his right shoulder, turned three times on his left toe, and then pronounced the spell.
One taste convinced me that it took a lot of things to make that lemonade,—a lot of things besides limes and water, and whatever that lot of things was, it was the finest combination I had ever known. Mine host pronounced it lemonade; so did the SpanishStudent, though I heard him suggest “un poquito de Rom Imperial” to the señor. With one taste, all fatigue took wings, everything took wings. The bent-wood table capered off with the bent-wood chair, and the long, fly-specked mirror cavorted from side to side with the parrot-cage. Everything was lovely and undulatory, and life was one long oblivion of the red-headed housekeeper at theGran Hotel de Venezuela.
He, the one opposite, leaned back and looked amused and satisfied, and said: “There’s more coming.”
“What, more lemonade?”
“No, not more lemonade, but more of something else.”
And then it came. Again two tall glasses of a delicious rose-coloured ice, made of fresh wild strawberries, gathered that morning among the glistening dew of the Andes. In the centre of the ice, like the rakish masts of a fairy’s ship, two richly browned, delicate tubes of sweetened pastry bore the ensign of our feast.
They reminded me of the lamplighters wechildren used to make at a penny a hundred, on winter evenings by the crackling coal fire.
You remember? Or have you never had the fun?
You take a bit of paper an inch wide and twelve inches long, wet your finger, give a queer kind of twist to one corner and up it rolls, in a long, neat shape. Double it over at the end, and there you are. Sometimes it unwinds, and then it is exactly like the confectioner’s roll in Caracas, only white instead of a rich, luscious brown.
From that moment on, all other attractions of Caracas, the University, theCasa Amarilla, the Pantheon, palled in attraction before thatDulceria. It became to us, and to every one we met, the loadstone of Caracas. To taste of an ice made from berries picked among the valleys of the Andes is no small matter, and to quaff a lemonade which, without suspicion, could still fashion wings at least as lasting as those of Icarus of old, is also no small matter, and may we not be forgiven and no questions asked if we confess to more than one return to theDulceriashop just across the Plaza in Caracas?
Four o’clock was the hour appointed for the coming together of our diminished party, and until then theGran Hotel de Venezuelawas supposed to hold me in its ancient decrepitude, and it did hold me until about three o’clock; when the bells set up such a clanging, and were so zealous to get me up and out of bed and into their mid-afternoon vespers, that I finally yielded to their summons, and, making a hasty toilet, stole down the creaking stairs and out into the streets.
No Northern city at midnight is more soundly asleep than the tropical town in mid-afternoon. The heavy white blinds are down, the green lattices closed tightly, awnings dropped close before the shop-doors; while the cabby and his horse, on guard near the Plaza, doze in willing slumber. The market is empty, the little donkeys are long since browsing upon the green slopes of the foot-hills; the street criers are still, the whole world seems dead asleep, and, as I slipped along toward the Cathedral, the drowsy chanting of priests’ voices was the only sound which broke the quiescence of that delicious afternoon. For deliciousit was, in truth. All of God’s part was in its perfectness. The air was sweetly cool and refreshing, with a flavour of mountain ozone mingled with the sunlight, and, as I came to a cross street, looking up the long narrow, white reach to the foot-hills, it was with a bit of imagining, like a glimpse through the tube of a huge kaleidoscope, with the green and purple and blue and yellow mountains an ever-changing vista of resplendent colour in the vanishing distance.
The priests’ voices called out again, and I entered the high-domed, sweet place of worship. The chancel and altar were being repaired, so it was in the oblong nave that the priests, white-robed, rich with lace and embroidery, sat in ancient carved chairs, saying in responsive chants the words decreed for Ash Wednesday. The priests were old, and some were very feeble, and it seemed at times an effort for them to rise when the service demanded. A number of young men, of lesser dignity, assisted, and two little acolytes in red sat quite at the end of the row of priests. Still the chanting goes on and on, and the voices are monotonously sleepy, and long drifts ofmellow, shaded light drop down on the white robes, and one of the priests yawns, and the little acolyte nods, and then goes fast asleep; and up overhead the lofty dome reëchoes the somnolent voices, and I hear the old bells telling me about four o’clock, but they seem very indistinct and sleepy and uninterested. And I feel sleepy and nod, and wonder if it’s the priests’ voices or the bells that put everybody to sleep, and I forget all about four o’clock until a workman way down near the altar, perched on a high ladder, mending more cracks, knocks off a piece of plaster, and I start and look around, then tiptoe out; while the bells tell me that the quarter-hour is gone with the rest of the day.
Caracas is responsible for a decided turning about from some of my former estimates of the Spanish character. It is not necessary to say just exactly what these preconceived opinions were, but they were there, and as I supposed, a fixture. In the children’s neighbourhood brawls, I have noticed frequently that, whenever vengeance was to be meted upon some offendinghead, he was called by one and all, “a Spaniard.” That was enough to arouse all the wrath of his youthful spirit into rebellion, and until the word was recalled, war reigned. This of course is largely since our late trouble with Spain. I shall not say that the use of the word exactly represented my state of mind toward the South Americans, but, in spite of the many pleasant experiences of years gone by in Mexico, I shall confess to a somewhat allied feeling with regard to that name, and to all people who are in any way affiliated with the race, and I dare say that something of this same prejudice has existed among our people at large for some time, and not altogether without cause.
To have that impression partially removed was one of the results of an evening spent at the opera in Caracas, where General Cipriano Castro had arranged an especially fine performance to be given in honour of the North Americans then visiting his republic. The opera-house was decorated in our nation’s colours, intertwined with the yellow, red, and blue of Venezuela, and every seat not taken by our party was occupied by the representativecitizens of Caracas. The performance—a light, comic opera—was of excellent standard, and passed off with great applause. Much as we enjoyed the music, the Venezuelans themselves were our greatest object of interest.
The house was apportioned in the usual foreign style, with two tiers of boxes circling on either side from the President’s box in the rear centre. The women, as usual, occupied the front seats in the boxes, and were thus in a position to be seen and observed very closely. And never—I make no exception, no exception whatever—have I seen such modest, womanly appearing women as were present at the opera that night. They did not giggle nor stare nor flirt. They were richly, beautifully, becomingly gowned, but, although arrayed with a desire to please, they were as modest and unassuming as a lot of little girls at a doll’s tea-party. Their eyes no sooner met yours than they dropped,—not affectedly, but naturally, naïvely,—and it was impossible to refrain from forming an opinion of the conditions of society from the faces and actions of these women.
Women make society what it is; they makeit right, high, true, and pure; they make it wrong, low, false, and vile, and the general appearance and actions of the women of a country, studied by an observer of human nature, will tell more truthfully the moral condition of a people than any book ever written.
Whatever faults the Spaniard may have bequeathed to his descendants; whatever his failings in government and kindred problems, the women, these beautiful women of Caracas, made us feel that they had set for themselves high standards of morality; that the social life was away beyond the level we had expected; that the family—the wife—is a sacred trust given the man to protect in honour and virtue so long as he lives.
There is, no doubt, much to be said against the rigid life of seclusion led by the Spanish women, but there is this to be said in its favour: it has created a race of men who honour and respect their homes, a race of men whose attitude toward women is universally respectful and deferential. With all our stiff-necked New England self-sufficiency, we have yet much to learn, we women of the North, and let it not be beneath our dignity to remember that theSouth American women have some lessons learned which we have yet to master; and perhaps there are none who could teach us more gently or more effectively than the modest, womanly women of Caracas.
AND now we are at the railway station, headed for Valencia and Puerto Cabello, still determined to continue unguided back to the coast.
There was to me something so extraordinary in the thought that, for once, we were really to get ahead of the professional guides, that it required repeated and oft repeated assurances to at least one of the women of our circle from the kindly official at the railway station, to relieve all doubts as to the wisdom of our plans. Of course, the men of our party had no doubts, at least, none were expressed; and yet some of us, particularly the writer, could hardly believe that the train we were to take would carry us on through Valencia, past the lovely Lake of Valencia down to Puerto Cabello, a half-hourin advance of the Special Train with the Special Courier; that we would be a half-hour earlier at luncheon in the mountains, and a half an hour earlier that evening in reaching Puerto Cabello; and this latter would be no small consideration after a long, hot ride from mountain-top to sandy beach.
But this was to be the case, so the official informed us, not only in Spanish, but in French, and very perfect French, too—for not understanding Spanish, we women of course had to hear it all over again in French; so we left the party, and boarded the regular morning train for Valencia, amidst the warnings of many, the doubts of all the timid ones, and the envy of a few jollier spirits. What would become of us, if this train should make up its mind not to go through to Puerto Cabello, and drop us at La Victoria, or San Joaquin perhaps; and what if the much-lauded Special should after all fly on and leave us in the mountains, high and dry, a half-day’s journey to Puerto Cabello, with no means of reaching the ship on sailing-time; and what if our pretty boat should sail away to God’s country, and leave us literally stranded, marooned for weeks,on the sun-blighted beach of Puerto Cabello, waiting for a ship?
A House beside the Sea Puerto Cabello, VenezuelaA House beside the SeaPuerto Cabello, Venezuela
A thousand “ifs” are flung at us, but there stands the big, handsome South American railway official, with a rose in his buttonhole, patent leathers on his feet, and a smile on his face, and visible support in every attitude of his fine body; so we settle down, reassured, and look around to count heads, and we check off—all but one, the Doctor,—he is not at the station. Where is he? Where is the Doctor? He has sworn to stand by us to the end; in fact had been one of the prime movers in this venture, and here we are ready to start, even the men are aboard the funny little train, and the Doctor not in sight.
Ten anxious heads lean out from ten abbreviated windows; ten distressed voices ask in all available tongues, “Where is the Doctor?” We ask the official—the one with the rose—if he has seen one called the Doctor, with bland, smiling face, round and jovial; blue eyes, light hair, walking with a confident, easy swing, wearing a linen suit and East Indian pith helmet. No one answering that description had come to the station. Fully half an hourbefore we left theGran Hotel de Venezuela, the Doctor had taken a cab, so that there should be no doubt or question as to his being on time; for the Doctor was an orderly man, of decided opinions and exact habits. He was never known to be late at an appointment. He had with him the free untrammelled air of the unmarried man. He had neither wife to detain, nor sweetheart to beguile him. He was a free-lance, and yet here it was, a moment before the time for departure, and the Doctor nowhere to be seen.
The train shivers, quivers, gives a bump or so, squeaks out a funny foreign whistle, and we are moving out of Caracas. Ten of us instead of eleven. Ten much troubled wanderers, thinking and wondering a very great deal. We pass the curious little chapel upon the hill, with its five disjointed little steeples, looking as if one more quake of the grand old Mother would topple them all over for good; pass the lowadobehuts on the outskirts of the city, and then catch a last glimpse of the Cathedral and its dear old bells, and the trees about the Square of Bolivar; and are almost into the rich country, outlaying the great city.But where is the Doctor! Had he been beguiled or waylaid, or had he waited for one too many a sip of the unforgettable lemonade; or had he gone to sleep with the priests under the magic of the old bells?
No, nothing seemed to fit in just right. The Doctor had reached years of discretion, he knew the wiles of women, and, as for being waylaid, that was hardly possible, for he always carried his chest high; and, as for the priests,—no, it was not the priests, for the Doctor had paid his respect to the Cathedral the day before. Hadn’t we seen his white hat disappear under the big, open doorway as we were on the way to market? But the lemonade,—there was the hitch; he might have longed for one more glimpse of theDulceria, and the tall glass and the indescribable nectar,—con un poquito de Rom Imperial,—yes, he might have done so, any normal being might have done so, and that must be the whole trouble; then, just as we had decided on the lemonade, we stop at Palo-Grande, out in the gardens beyond the town, and into the car rushed a red-faced, very mad American, with satchels and luggage and souvenirs in his hands, andrage upon his face,—the Doctor; none more—none less,—the lost wanderer!
If any one was ever welcome, he was. We figuratively threw our arms about him, and wept with joy at the return of our long-lost brother. The Doctor’s face was a study. From despair, it changed to delight, and he flung himself into a seat, too happy to speak. But the Doctor was not slow in giving us an explanation. He had been experimenting on some very choice, newly acquired Spanish. That was the trouble, and instead of taking him to the city station, the cabby, probably anxious for a good fare, had driven about five miles to the first way-station on the road. I did not think the Doctor could ever have been disconcerted under any circumstances, but he was as thoroughly scared as one has need to be and live; and for the rest of the day, every few minutes, he would break out with some forceful expression about fool Americans who couldn’t speak Spanish and fool Spaniards who couldn’t speak English. We all then and there decided that we would learn Spanish or die. One or the other we are sure to do.
It is a difficult matter to engage the Doctor in either scenery or conversation, and, in spite of all the wonders in which we find ourselves, as the plucky little train hurries along, it is a sort of laugh and jollification all the way with the Doctor.
I shall never forget the willows at the station where our Doctor appeared. They were so exquisitely graceful and beautiful. They were tall, with somewhat of the habits of the Lombardy poplar, close-limbed, sinewy, and with the plumy grace of a bunch of feathers, bending, bowing, whirling, swishing, in the cool mountain air, and I shall always think of them as the Doctor’s willows; for just as his frightened face popped into the door, in the twinkling of an eye, I glanced out of the window, and there stood that row of tall willows, like coy, young maidens, bowing their gentle heads in graceful congratulation. The Doctor’s willow was to me one of the rarest, sweetest trees of that wonderful day of trees, of that wonderful world of trees, of that wonderful land of infinite beauties, known only to those whose eyes have touched the vibration of their being.This willow, modest, unassuming as it is, so unlikely to attract attention, without flower or colour, other than the richest green that sunshine ever bestowed upon a leaf, was in its way as exquisite as a dream of lace and dew-drops, as tender as the sound of a lute, as sweetly sinuous as the drop of a violet’s head; and the mountain air, filtering through the thin, arrow-like leaves, was music fit for gods,—not men.
But the Doctor would not look at the willows, nor at the tall grass—tall—tall—tall—following along the bed of a limpid stream—the Guaira—tumbling along over pools and rocks and mossy beds; grasses so high that even Jack’s famous giants must needs stand on tiptoe to peep over the top; grass twenty to thirty feet high, with feathery plumes gracing the tall spires in masses of waving beauty. He would not see the beauty of the picture that the Great Mother showed us, for he was still in a dazed state of combined bewilderment, anger, and joy, and you know it takes time to find one’s feet after such an experience.
But did I tell you how as usual bravery was rewarded? When we boarded the train, wenoticed our coach was unusually fine for a Venezuelan railway, and we wondered at it. Later the conductor explained that it was the private car of the general manager, all the common coaches being taken up to complete the Special Train; and so the Doctor was at last content.
Speeding along over the lordly plateau beyond Caracas, through a country where the faintest effort on the part of man to cultivate the earth, the least scratch with the hoe, meets with more than abundant response, where, even in the high mountain altitude, sweet fields of cane and coffee bring restful green and delicious shades in the ever-pervading sunlight, we were entertained by some of the party, who were prophesying a hard day and a hot day with a relish which was quite enviable. Why is it that there must always be those who are constantly anticipating hot weather? It seems to be out of the question to escape them; they either predict that it will be, must be, unbearably hot, or unbearably cold, according to the latitude in which they happen to be found.There seems to be no way of getting along comfortably with the present. So we listened while dire forebodings were omened for Valencia, and worse for Puerto Cabello.
In the meantime one of our friends,—Mrs. M—— from Boston,—was suffering with a severe headache, and the Doctor, who had been in the seat ahead of us, was asked if, in that small, black, professional-looking valise, there was not something to relieve her pain. And then the Doctor broke forth once more:
“There’s no use. I can’t stand this any longer. I was called up last night for the sick man in the after-deck stateroom; after each port I am asked to prescribe for men suffering from swizzle jags, and I’m routed out at all hours, and buttonholed by nervous women I don’t know. I wish I could help Mrs. M——; nothing would make me happier. But to tell the truth, I’m not a doctor. I am only a plain business man—a manufacturer. Somehow, when the passenger-list was made up, I was put in as ‘Doctor S——’ and the list was printed and circulated before I knew of my title. Then every one called me ‘Doctor,’ and it was such an easy name to catch that I thoughtI’d just let it go, and I’ve been ‘Doctor’ to every one ever since; but when it comes to setting a leg or curing a headache, I must put an end to it.”
But the name had become fixed. It was there to stay, so the Doctor was the “Doctor” in spite of his lack of diploma, and, in one sense, by his good cheer, his readiness to join in fun, his stock of good stories, and his consideration for others, he was quite as beneficial to our sometimes weary selves, as if he carried his pockets full of bitter tonic and invigorating elixirs.
In front of us sat the Doctor; back of us sat a young South American from “up country,” with whom we entered into conversation, and from whom we learned much to confirm our rapidly forming opinions of his great country—Venezuela. He spoke English well, having been educated partially in England, partially in New York. He came from the Province of Colombo, to me a very indefinite, remotely hidden-away place somewhere in the Andes, accessible only by two or three days’ journeyfrom Caracas, partly by mule and partly by boat up the Maracaibo River. By the way, we are told that Colombo is the native state of that peppery little dictator—the present President Castro.
This South American gentleman had been sent to Caracas to interview Castro and his ministers with regard to a loan of twenty thousand dollars in horses, cattle, and provisions made during the last revolution to the faction which had placed Castro in power; the transaction had evidently been dignified by the soothing name of “a loan” because the quondam cowboy leader Castro had ended as a self-elected President. Just what our fellow traveller’s success had been, we were unable to learn or he to tell, for this same General Castro is a wily bird and keeps many an honest Venezuelan guessing. He told us what we already knew,—that Venezuela needs peace—peace—peace, and that, until she is assured of peace, her great hands must be idle. We needed no words to assure us of her greatness. It was there before us. The idle hands were clasping rich harvests unsown, rich treasures in gold and silver glittered upon her fingers, andfollowing the sweep of her green mantle, there was a race of warm-hearted children, within whose being there was the making of great men and women. But there must be peace. For, when there is war, her great men go to the front, her brave men are killed; but in some unfortunate way her political schemers and professional revolutionists survive, and are always ready to make new trouble. “He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.”
And so they run away—the unsuccessful ones—to Curaçao, to Paris, or to some of the neighbouring South American states, but their dirty shadows ever hang imminent on the horizon.
During the conversation with our South American friends, we had reached the end of the plateau, and the descent began into the great valley below. It was not until we reached that point that we realised the wonder of this Venezuelan railroad, or that we understood the reason of its being called the “Great Venezuelan Railway”—Gran Ferrocarril de Venezuela. Like the greater portion of all the business enterprises in South America and the West Indies, the railroad was built by Germans. Krupp, of gun fame, was named as the head of the company, and too much cannot be said of the courage and skill of men who undertook to build a road under such difficulties. There are railways of difficult construction all over the world, indeed, but never, in our experience, were we more impressed with the magnitude of an undertaking than we were with the construction of this masterful road; though one might well criticise the business judgment of men who would thus put millions of dollars into an enterprise that apparently can never be self-supporting. Think of it, eighty-seven tunnels through rocky mountain spurs, one hundred and twenty heavy steel bridges between Caracas and Valencia, miles of rock-cutting and costly filling, and all this to carry a handful of passengers and a few tons of freight each day—altogether not enough to load one of our “mixed trains” in the States!
It follows where cataracts leap a thousand feet, where rivers boil in thundering roar over mighty rocks; it cuts the mountain top asunderand dashes through the rock-hewn lap of earth; it drops down through the tops of giant trees, and robs the morning of her mist; it mingles with the clouds, and anon kisses the feet of the ocean—but it doesn’t pay dividends.
From its heights, the earth stretches out in wonderful ridges of gigantic proportion; geography becomes real, a fact, seen in the great perspective. The air is so clear that the eye seems to have new power of vision to reach to the uttermost end of the earth; the eye imparts to the soul its larger horizon, and a great leap of joy carries the spirit into the infinite room of creation, into the infinite grandeur of created things, and the spirit grows and feels its small estimate of God’s earth expanding into a newer, grander conception of creation. Mountain ridges sweep through tremendous space, one upon another, and at their base, thousands of feet below, a green pillow of sugar-cane invites the head and heart to quiescence. No word “green” can ever bring back the quivering, transparent green of those young cane-fields, far below in the valleys, wateredby the careful hand of man in thousands of tiny streams of irrigation.
The morning was just what it should be in spite of the croakers, and the immensity of nature had imparted to our spirits much of her buoyancy; so when the train came to a halt, we jumped with alacrity from the little coach, and sought among the people for the human interest, which was as ever very great. The route was dotted with charming stations, each one flying a German and Venezuelan flag in delightful amity—for the Germans impress the South American first with their greatness and then with their friendliness; the mailed hand is shown only as the last resort.
Here were stations green and beflowered, in sweet good order, with fountains and running streams, and booths where we bought ginger cookies and Albert biscuit andcervesa Inglesaand all sorts of fruit; and back of the stations, hints of quaint old churches with distant bells, and gathering about the mother church, blue and white and yellow glimpses of queer old houses. And oh! the colour! The floweringtrees! What artist could ever reach the delicacy of theMariatree, one mass of living pearls. Its branches so full of flower that there seemed to be no room for leaf; the branch only there by sufferance. At La Victoria, where we stop for luncheon, in a curious little café under a confident German flag, our family interpreter disappears, and in a few minutes returns in the likeness of a Thracian god, bedecked with garlands, pink and white. He covers my lap with rarest blossoms, gives them to one and all, and brings into the dusty coach a fragrance of Elysium. I long to keep the flowers for ever; I long to hold that colour in such security that it can never escape; I long to enclose that essence in some secret shrine for ever. And shall I say I have not?
As we rush along down, nearing the Great Mother’s mighty limbs, we pass drooping arbours ofBucari, another flowering tree of wonderful splendour, each flower like a glorious waxCattleya, and millions of them at a glance. Just then, as the blaze of beauty dazzles our eyes, two brilliantly green parrots, frightenedby the noisy interloper, take flight from under their beauteous canopy, and wing their way in yellow, green, and red vibrations through the scintillating landscape. We are now flying along on a level stretch, in a high, rich valley, full of luscious fruits and ripening harvests, and before the mountain opens to receive us into one of its deep tunnels, we see large fields of a low bush, growing quite in the nature of young coffee, with much the same size and general appearance; without, however, the customary shade-trees. Our friend from Colombo explained that it is tapioca; and off beyond, in this next, white-walledhacienda(what a world of dreams and romance of the land ofsiempre mañanacomes to one in that combination of ordinary vowels and consonants—“hacienda”!), in theHacienda Las Palomas,—or was it theHacienda La SierraorLa Mata, orGuaracarima?—the natives gather from the green river valleys, maize and beans and yucca, in the language of the country, “frutas menores;” but more abundantly than all else, are gathered the coffee and the sugar in vast crops year by year.
Westward from the summit the River Tuyplays hide-and-seek with us for many a mile, darting, hurrying, beckoning, charming us, with a desire to loiter when she loiters, to leap through the cliffs with her joy, to rest under flower-spread arbours in sleepy towns with her, to dissolve ourselves at last into the deep earth as she does. Finally we see her no more, but now the larger Aragua, flowing toward the Lake of Valencia, reaches out a bold hand, and we follow the new pathfinder where she commands.
One last look into the shadowy depths before we drop to the plains. It is only a glimpse, for the passing is so swift that the eye cannot reach its entirety of beauty; but that glimpse is like the shadow of a great rock,—a lasting memory. A bird slowly sways in mighty, circling sweeps, poised upon the ether, between two green-robed mountain priests—a great bird against the hazy mountain deep, swaying, calm, eternally sure of its strength. Was there a hand outstretched beneath in the far, disappearing morning which brought the ecstasy into the soul of that lonely wanderer?
We leave the tunnels, the endless bridges, the heights, and drop down rapidly into thevalley, where the heat begins and the dust flies. We follow the Aragua until she brings us to the Lake of Valencia, a long, rambling, shallow lake, much like some of our own Northern lakes, and, at the first opportunity (I think it was at Maracay), we leave the train, and stand under the wide doors of the freight depot, with the natives lying around half-asleep on sacks of coffee, and try to catch a whiff of refreshing coolness from the lake. More German flags; they are very interesting, but why should a party of Americans be so honoured? For the German officers had gone back to the ship to do the polite to General Castro. But the halt here was for a few minutes only; and we go on, down through the hot little city of Valencia into greater heat, and for a time into greater and more glorious vegetation.
It was a curious sight,—the piles of compressed coal dust made into blocks,—“briquettes,”—eight to ten inches square, each stamped “Cardiff, Wales,” piled in high, orderly heaps at each station; greater supplies of which we found, as we left the timber for the low country. But I must not give the impression that the low country is untimbered;far from it. As we leave the higher levels and start the final sharp descent toward the coast on the cog-road,—a curious device in railroading to overcome the danger of such steep inclines,—we can give no conception of the forest growth through which we pass. The air is hot and still; the trees stand in their eternal beauty, in their myriads of blossoms, in their vivid colourings, with deep festoons of moss and interweaving vines in motionless repose. They seem to exhale heat and silence and darkness, even under the blaze of a still, white sun; they tell only of night in the tangled growth of nature triumphant. It might have been at Nagua-Nagua, if not there it was very near there, that the springs of water, boiling out of the earth, were hot and sulphurous, and, as we were about to move on in our roomy coach, along came the much-talked of Special, with its crowded passengers looking jaded and worn and cross, more, I imagine, from the incessant clatter of tongues than from the asperity of the Southern sun. On, on, nearer to the sea, to where the palms grow. There had been cocoanut and royal palms before,—yes, from Haïti through all the islands we had seen them, buthere they attain their most perfect grandeur and glory. We came upon them not singly, in isolated groups of conservative aristocracy, but in companies and regiments, miles of them, arranged by the masterful hand of Nature, now in mighty groups apart, like a conference of plumed generals, and then again in battalions of tall grenadiers on silent dress parade. Their light lofty trunks gave back from the sun a dull, grayish white pallor. They were still and grand, and unspeakably beautiful.
The heat seems to grow more intense as the sun sinks lower in the heavens, and we drop down almost to the level of the ocean. The dust becomes more blinding, and the palms disappear, and all things prickly and unapproachably dry and forbidding, shadeless and impenetrable, take their place, and change the picture from one of tropical life to tropical death.
A South American Street Puerto Cabello, Venezuela Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.A South American StreetPuerto Cabello, VenezuelaCopyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
Long wastes of white sand spread over the desolate landscape, relieved by not one sprig of comely green or welcome shade, with great mounds and masses of gigantic and distorted cacti, more impassable than any man-made barricade. They fitted in well with the heat and the dust, and the long, low sun-rays, shooting in upon us their streaming floods of white light; and then, just as I began to think the croakers might have been right for once—there came a shout from the Doctor, from the Boston friend, from us all; and Daddy, who was on the other side of the car, jumps over to my seat and bends over my shoulder just in time to catch sight of the sea—el Mar Caribe—before a bristling bank of cacti shut it for the time from view. The Caribbean Sea—blue, far-reaching, sweetly cool, washing the feet of the great, good Mother;—we longed to plunge into the surf, and wash away the dust and heat and all unrest. The sight of the great sea so near us, and our trim ship at anchor in the harbour of Puerto Cabello, and the prospect of seeing the little girls, from whom we had been separated by so many hours and miles, gives us a deep joy. The day had been covered by the hand of God from dawn to setting, and to the end of time there shall no greater beauty meet our souls.