VII.
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 dollars out 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.
VIII.
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, the arroyos, 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 sort of wood, and come suddenly to the minister’s house.
