VENEZUELAN BABBABISM. 293 



So we left. But it was sore leaving. People had been very 

 kind ; and were ready to be kinder still ; while we, busy 

 perliaps too busy over our Natural History collections, 

 had 'seen very little of our neighbours ; had been able 

 to accept very few of the invitations which were showered 

 on us, and wliich would, I doubt not, have given us 

 opportunities for liking the islanders still more than w^e 

 liked them abeady. 



Another cause made our leavinoj sore to us. The hunf:^er 

 for travel had been aroused above all for travel westward 

 and would not be satisfied. Up the Oroonoco we longed to 

 go : but could not. To La Guayra and Caraccas we longed 

 to go : but dared not. Thanks to Spanish Kepublican bar- 

 barism, the only regular communication with that once 

 magnificent capital of Xorthern Venezuela was by a filthy 

 steamer, the Eegos Ferreos, which had become, from her 

 very looks, a byword in the port. On board of her some 

 friends of ours had lately been glad to sleep in a dog-hutch 

 on deck, to escape the filth and vermin of the berths ; and 

 went hungry for want of decent food. Caraccas itself was 

 going through one of its periodic revolutions it has not 

 got through the fever fit yet and neither life nor property 

 were safe. 



But the loniiiufT to cro westward w^as on us nevertheless. 

 It seemed hard to turn back after getting so far along the 



