106 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



was no priest, no school, no doctor. The two young West 

 Indians at headquarters (neither much more than twenty 

 years old) officiated at all funerals, being Catholic or Protes- 

 tant, in Spanish or English, as the case demanded. They 

 prescribed for all diseases, from the prevalent fever to the 

 woman who was suffering greatly .but could give no more 

 definite description of her trouble than that she had a "pain 

 that walked." 



I could never understand the fever so common at Guanoco : 

 for I never knew a place more free from mosquitoes and from 

 insects of every description. We were continually in the sun 

 and often in the rain, yet we both kept in perfect health. 



The women of the village had converted a small open shed 

 into a chapel, with an altar, on which were all the offerings 

 they could make, a few candles, some bits of gilt paper and 

 tinsel, a rude wooden cross and a wretched little chromo of 

 the Virgin. Here, as we passed, we saw the women kneeling, 

 for where else could they take their troubles! 



At last our Venezuelan experiences were a thing of the past, 

 and we were homeward bound, leaving behind us the dear 

 delightful never-know-what's-going-to-happen life; and realiz- 

 ing, as our ship cut her way through the countless "knots" 

 of dashing waves, that as Maximiliano had said with a shake 

 of his head, when we laughingly asked him if he did not want 

 to go with us, " estd tan lejos " - it is so far! 



* * * * * * * 



Much has happened at Guanoco since the days of our 

 visit. 



Very soon after our departure, Castro fearing the smoul- 

 dering revolutionary plots in Trinidad, ordered all the ports of 

 eastern Venezuela closed. Later came the deadly bubonic 

 plague sealing for many months all the ports of the unfortu- 

 nate country. Then indeed trouble descended upon poor 

 little Guanoco. It was an essentially non-agricultural part 



