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 prevails that 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 for dos centavos, and over at another stall a medio’s worth 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.
III.
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 bolivars and 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 of the 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 and power; 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 Venezuelan Pitch 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.”