666 THE CATALAN CAPUCHIN. 



For Bolivar, Llanero had a most profound respect, carried almost 

 to veneration j and he was consequently one of the first to join the 

 Independent standard. The great difficulty the army of the Liberator 

 had to struggle against was the want of provisions. The left bank of 

 the Orinoco had been so ravaged by former wars that little could be 

 expected from its miserable inhabitants. The country on the right 

 bank of the river had been in comparative security ; but the people, 

 uncertain of payment, sent such very scanty supplies to the requisi- 

 tions of the Liberator, that he determined to send Llanero amongst 

 them as a proper person to stimulate their patriotism, and persuade 

 them to their good. 



It so happened that, a few days previous to the departure of Llanero 

 on his mission, a French schooner arrived, laden with all manner of 

 things which could not find a market elsewhere, such as old clothes, 

 rancid oil, sour wine ; and, judging the march of mind was pro- 

 gressing at Angostura with the march of Bolivar, many books were 

 sent translations from the French into the Spanish : and the cabin 

 was adorned with a ballad, then in great vogue among the French, 

 much about the same popularity as " Cherry Ripe" once enjoyed with 

 us. This ballad was called " La Barque a Caron," and took Llanero's 

 fancy very much. He was at the pains of having it translated to him 

 and learning it by heart. He was soon made to understand that part 

 of the mythology of the ancients which was the gist of the song, and 

 fully comprehended how old Charon was employed to ferry the souls 

 of deceased sinners to await the final order of the infernal judge. 

 Such was the burthen of " La Barca de Caroni," as translated. 



Before Llanero had been appointed to the mission, he was raised to 

 the rank of Major in the Independent army ; so, thinking it incum- 

 bent upou him to do justice to his dignity, he clothed himself from 

 head to foot with the cast-off French military finery, which, to the 

 unsophisticated taste of the republican soldier, was the climax of 

 splendour ; for, it must be understood, the trifling earnings of his 

 former industrious pursuit had not been completely dissipated, and 

 now it enabled him to add lustre to a rank that he little anticpated 

 when his entire military wardrobe consisted of a blanket with a hole 

 cut in the middle, through which he could thrust his head. His ap- 

 pearance was much in the following fashion : Tall and gaunt ; but 

 wiry and muscular. His countenance very dark, and his crispy hair 

 betraying a tinge of the African, or, as the sailors say, "a. dip of the 

 tar-brush." The expression of his features would not have been bad 

 had it not been sadly biassed by an irregular exhibition of muscle, ex- 

 tending from the right eye-brow across the eye and cheek and right 

 lip, which was completely separated ; this was the consequence of 

 being under the hands of a bungling practitioner in the likeness of a 

 Spanish dragoon, who wantonly dropped his instrument across 

 Llanero's face, just at the moment when he received a cloth-yard or so 

 of lance- wood through his interior : this Llanero would facetiously 

 observe, twisting his grisly features into something like a grin, was 

 the signature of his Spanish correspondent to his last will and testa- 

 ment. We now behold him casting off his former primitive vestments, 

 and clothed in a short hussar jacket of light blue, edged round with 



