HER GOVERNMENT, PEOPLE, AND BOUNDARY 
53 
stove, nor a fireplace, nor a chimney in the town ; there is no 
glass in the windows ; the nights are always cool, and in the day- 
time there is a difference of ten or twelve degrees in temj)erature 
between the shady and the sunny sides of the street. 
In 1812 the city was entirely destroyed by an earthquake and 
twenty thousand people were killed. It came on Holy Thurs- 
day, when the citizens were pre]>aring for the great religious 
fiesta of the year. There was not a cloud in the sky and not a 
thought of danger in the minds of the people, when suddenl}’ the 
town l)egan to rock, the church hells tolled voluntarily, and a 
tremendous explosion was heard in the Ijowels of the earth. In 
a second the city was a heap of blood-stained ruins and the air 
Avas filled with .shouts of horror and the shrieks of the dying. 
There have been several earthquakes since, attended with se- 
rious casualties, and Avhile the people profess not to fear them 
they build the walls of their- houses three and four feet in thick- 
ne.ss and seldom make them more than one story high. 
The })eople of Caracas have an opera supported l;)y the govern- 
ment, a university, art galleries, public buildings that are beau- 
tiful and expensive, and homes in which one can find all the 
evidences of a refined taste that are knoAvn to civilization. While 
in some res})ccts the people are two hundred years behind our 
own, and while many of their manners and customs appear quaint 
and odd Avhen judged by our standard, there is no social station 
in America or Plurope which the educated Venezuelan Avould not 
adorn. Their women are proverlnal for their beauty and grace 
and their men for their dei)ortment. 
There is no convenient Avay of getting from Caracas to the 
Orinoco country exce})t by sea. Of course, one can “cut across 
lots,” and many peoi)le, armies, indeed, have gone tliat Avay, 
but it is a long, tedious, and diflicult journey, and dangerous at 
times, because of the mountains to be climbed, the forests to bo 
])enetrated, the rivers to be forded, and the trackless swani|)s. 
To a naturalist the trip is full of fascination, for the trail leads 
through a region ])rolific with curious forms of vegetable and 
animal life. 
To reach Ciudad bolivar, formei’ly known as Angostura, the 
])olitical ca])ital as well as the comimircial metropolis of the Ori- 
iVK-o country, is neither diHicult nor expensive, and, aside from 
the heat, the journey is eomfortabh*. It is like going from New 
York to .Memphis by sea, how(“V(-r, although not s<t great a dis- 
tance. 'I’here are no native means of transportation, but you can 
