HER GOVERNMENT, PEOPLE, AND BOUNDARY 
51 
United States ; his daily routine is similar, and he is annoyed by 
office-seekers to about the same degree. He commences business 
at half-past six o’clock in the morning, and often has cabinet 
meetings as early as seven. The government offices open at seven, 
when all the clerks and officials are expected to be on hand, no 
matter how late they were dancing or dining the night before, but 
they knock off work at eleven for their breakfast and siesta, and 
do not return to their desks again until two. 
Cabinet ministers are paid $6,000 a year and congressmen 
$2,500, without any additional allowances, but the sessions do 
not last more than three months usuall}'', so that they may engage 
in their regular occupations the rest of the year. 
The standing army is composed of five battalions of infantry, 
1,842 men; one battery of artilleiy, 301 men, and one regiment 
of cavalry, 325 strong. Besides these regulars, who garrison the 
capital and the several forts throughout the country, there is a fed- 
eral militia which is drilled annually and required to respond to 
the call of the government at any time. 
The rank and file of the army is composed exclusively of In- 
dians, negroes, and half-breeds. They are obedient, faithful, and 
good fighters. Some of the fiercest battles the world has ever 
known have taken place in Venezuela with these poor fellows 
on both sides. Their uniform in the field is a pair of cotton 
drawers, a cotton shirt, a cheap straw hat, and a pair of sandals, 
hut when they come to occupy the barracks in town and do guard 
duty around the government buildings they are made to wear red 
woolen trousers, blue coats, and caps of red and blue, with regular 
army shoes. 
The officers are generally good-looking young fellows of the 
Ijest families, who take to military service and enjoy it. They 
wear well kept uniforms, have good manners, and are usually 
graduates of the university. 
The government has estaldished a school of industry for the 
education of the Indian children, and every year a commission 
is sent to obtain recruits for the army among tliem. The boys 
are tauglit trades and all sorts of handicraft, as well as reading, 
writing, and arithmetic, and the girls are drilled in the duties of 
the brnne. When they have reached an age when their faculties 
are fully develo])cd and their habits fixed they are sent hack 
among their tribe as missioiiaries, not to teach religion, hut civili- 
zation, and the Indians are said to he imja'oving ra})idly under 
the tuition of their own daughters and sons. 
