410 
FIRST PIUNTIXO-OFFICE IN CARACAS. 
was filled with all the monks of San Francisco, begging to see 
a dipping-needle. The curiosity excited by physical pheno- 
mena is naturally great in countries undermined by volcanic 
fires, and in a climate where nature is at once so majestic 
and so mysteriously convulsed. 
When we remember, that in the United States of North 
America, newspapers are published in small towns not con- 
taining more than three thousand inhabitants, it seems sur- 
prising that Caracas, with a population of forty or fifty thou- 
sand souls, should have possessed no printing office before 
1S0G ; for we cannot give the name of a printing establish- 
ment to a few presses which served only from year to year 
to promulgate an almanac of a few pages, or the pastoral 
letter of a bishop. Though the number of those who feel 
reading to be a necessity is not very considerable, even in 
the Spanish colonies most advanced in civilization, yet it 
would be unjust to reproach the colonists for a state of 
intellectual lassitude which has been the result of a jealous 
policy. A Frenchman, named Delpeche, has the merit of 
having established the first printing office in Caracas. It 
appears somewhat extraordinary that an establishment of this 
kind should have followed, and not preceded, a political 
revolution. 
In a country abounding in such magnificent scenery, and 
at a period when, notkwithstanding some symptoms of po- 
pular commotion, most of the inhabitants seem only to 
direct attention to physical objects, such as the fertility of 
the year, the long drought, or the conflicting winds of 
Petare and Catia, I expected to find many individuals well 
acquainted with the lofty surrounding mountains. But I 
was disappointed ; and we could not find in Caracas a single 
person who had visited the summit of the Silla. Hunters 
do not ascend so high on the ridges of mountains ; and in 
these countries journeys are not undertaken for such pur- 
poses as gathering alpine plants, carrying a barometer to an 
elevated point, or examining the nature of rocks. Accus- 
tomed to a uniform and domestic life, the people dread 
fatigue and sudden changes of climate. They seem to live 
not to enjoy life, but only to prolong it. 
Our walks led us often ,in the direction of two coffee 
plantations, the proprietors of which, Don Andres de Ibarra 
