“How large a place is Caracas?” questioned Sam, as they moved along as rapidly as Mark’s condition permitted.
“There has been no accurate census taken for years, but the population is probably 75,000 souls. You see the laboring classes—called peons here—object to being enumerated for fear it may mean military service, and so they hide when the census man comes around. The whole valley in which the city lies numbers probably 150,000 souls.”
“The houses look a good deal alike to me,” observed Sam, as they made their way down one of the highways leading directly to the Plaza Bolivar, a park in the center of Caracas. “They all have mud and plaster walls, red-tiled roofs, windows with bars over them and no chimneys.”
“Yes, I noticed the absence of chimneys,” put in Frank, whose nose had now stopped bleeding. “Wonder what they do when they want fire in a house?”
“They never want fire,” answered Professor Strong. “It is too warm for a fire. That is why they don’t have glass to the windows.”
“But they must cook.”
“They do, but they use charcoal and burn it in a little contrivance something like a tinsmith’s stove. You’ll see plenty of them before you leave for home.”
“They seem to paint their houses all colors,” muttered Hockley, who now that Frank had spoken felt he too must say something. “There is a blue and a white, and there is a red, and here is a brown, and over yonder an orange.”
“Yes they use any color they please,” answered the professor. “It is sometimes the only way of telling one’s house from that of a neighbor. They may look ugly to you from the outside, but you’ll find many of them quite handsome and very comfortable within.”
They had now entered the city proper and the sights and sounds around them interested the boys so much that they forgot to talk. Natives were hurrying by with huge bundles on their heads or balanced over their shoulders, little children with hardly any clothes were playing in the roadway, and the street was almost filled with pedlers and others on mule back. At one spot they encountered a native driving several cows.