Where Duty Called; or, In Honor Bound

by George Waldo Browne

It has been said that the capital of Venezuela, while only five miles inland from its port, La Guayra, is situated in the mountains, three thousand feet above the seashore. The railroad which connects the two coils about this rugged ascent like a steel lariat thrown by a dextrous hand, now winding in and out where some bottomless abyss is encircled like a huge letter U upon the landscape, or anon clinging upon the rim of some sharp-pointed rock, where the same train creeps around the angle, showing mortal fear by its snail-like pace. Another has aptly compared it to a spider's thread strung from crag to crag. Time and again the engineer can look back from his cab into the windows of the rear coach, while between him and the object of his gaze yawns a rock-walled well hundreds of feet in depth.

The young engineers were standing on the rear platform, watching with admiring gaze the wild scene stretching away from their feet.

"Isn't it grand, magnificent!" exclaimed Harrie. "I never saw its equal. Did ever you, Jack?"

"Nothing to surpass it, lad; not even the Alpine Pass of the Colorado. Where can one find a grander combination of sea, plain, valley and mountain? And whoever saw a greener plain on a bluer sea?"

"Or a sky quite as serene," added Harrie.

Ronie was fain to agree with his enthusiastic companions, while they admired together the rugged panorama falling away from them to the foothills trending from the base of the mountain like the huge roots of some great tree which had burst from their imprisonment in the earth and stood out as the bold supports of the mighty burden they upheld. Between these ridges, or leaping from their gnarled sides in silvery cascades, numerous streams of water made bright bands on the background of gray and dark green. Below the mountains, groves of royal palms, standing with park-like regularity and so far apart that their white trunks shone like pillars cased in silver foil, were to be seen. Out from among these gleamed the white and yellow roofs of the cottages of the people. Beyond these glistened the white line of breakers, forever coming and forever going, leaving only a chalk mark to tell where they have been but will never be again. Outside of this lay old ocean, throbbing under the hot, fierce tropical sun like a hunted creature panting to get its breath, but never resting.

Still up, up, crept the iron conqueror, until it broke the veil of mist in cloudland, up where the trees were jeweled with dewdrops and the track reeked with the wine of the sky. At one place they could look down into three thousand feet of space, and soon after their sight was gladdened by the view of the valley on the other side and the thrice welcome sight of Caracas. Again they were pleased by the happy blending of art and nature, the beautiful country, the basin under its stupendous rim, the city marked by the towers of its numerous churches, the dazzling roofs of public buildings, the regular streets lined with picturesque cottages, the gardens of white houses of the coffee planters, and beyond more mountains.

Caracas was founded by Diego de Losada in 1567, and named the "City of Santiago de Leon de Caracas." The picturesque valley which forms its site was the capital of the heroic tribe of natives known as "the people of Caracas," which name was very appropriately given to the capital of the race which after two hundred years of warfare succeeded in annihilating the original owners of the soil. This long struggle against the stronger power by the weaker forms one of the most glorious pages in South American history, and scintillates with deeds of heroism and human sacrifice.

Now the ascent has been made, they find that the city is overlooked by mountains smooth and bare of trees, but covered with a light-green sward, except where some stream affords a band of a darker tint. The clouds seem of more than northern fleeciness, and hang over the peaks like smoke, or float lazily from valley to valley, giving varying hues to the beautiful landscape. The climate is delightful; the first impressions of the capital pleasing.

Caracas has a population of about eighty thousand, it being the usage that only one family shall occupy a house. It is a city of culture and fashion, of public statues to scholars and artists, as well as warriors, for not all of the history of this interesting republic is filled with war. While a land of hotheaded people, whose career has been largely filled with riots and revolutions, here and there are to be found evidences of a high civilization, producing marked contracts of the rival forces of man.