CHAPTER III. 



VENEZUELA. 



I. 



HIS Hispano- American state appears, like the New World itself, to 

 have acquired its name in a haphazard sort of way, perhaps from 

 an incident connected with the voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. In 

 1499, when Hojeda, in company with the Florentine, penetrated 

 for the first time into the inland sea or " lagoon " of Coquibacoa, 

 now called Maracaibo, he noticed on the east side a group of some twenty cabins 

 erected on piles, surrounded by " gondolas," and communicating with, each other 

 by crazy drawbridges. The little lacustrine town, mirrored in the still waters of 

 the lagoon, seemed to the travellers like a "Venezuela" or " Little Venice," and 

 it may be presumed that Vespucci, as an Italian, was not the less struck by the 

 resemblance. 



The name thus casually given to the cluster of huts gradually extended to the 

 surrounding shores, where pile dwellings were at that time very numerous, and 

 then to the whole region. It thus eventually replaced the expression, Costa Ferma 

 (" Main Shore "), originally applied to all the seaboard between the Orinoco delta 

 and Lake Maracaibo, in opposition to the islands which had been the scene of the 

 first Spanish explorations. Before the proclamation of independence the province 

 of Caracas had already been oflScially called Venezuela, the political meaning of 

 which, as now clearly understood, corresponds to the whole space enclosed by the 

 frontiers of Colombia, Brazil, and British Guiana. 



Disputed Frontiers. 



But these limits were far from being determined all along the line ; hence the 

 impossibility of estimating even approximately the probable extent of Venezuela, 

 while vast territories were still being claimed by one or other of the conterminous 

 states. Since 1891 the frontier question towards Colombia has been settled by 

 Spain, to which the matter had been referred. Aided by the numerous docu- 

 ments preserved in the national archives, the Spanish arbitrators were able to 

 pronounce an official verdict substantially in favour of Colombia. Thus the 

 Goajira district was assigned to the western state ; if not altogether, at least from 



