CARACCAS. ^ 23 



it rare to find among them persons of ele- 

 gant manners, learning, and virtue. 



** The reader will not perhaps be a little 

 surprised, that the head of a government 

 so important, the captain- general, and im- 

 mediate representative of the Sovereign, for- 

 merly resided in a hired house, of which he 

 had only the ground- floor; the in tendency, 

 the audiencia, tribunals, and military hos- 

 pital, are also in rented houses. The Con- 

 taderia, or treasury, a solid but mean 

 building, and the barracks, which are vast, 

 and well built, are the only edifices that 

 belong to the government. 



*^ This town has a college, founded in 

 1778 by Antonio Gonzales d'Acuna, Bishop 

 of Caraccas, and converted into a uni- 

 versity in 1792, with the permission of the 

 Pope I In this university reading and writ- 



