CHAPTER VII.

CARACAS.

The World is Small-Waiting for the Revolution-Discovery of a Chess Player-Antiquity of Things-Venezuela and the Grafters -Caracas and Northern Cities Compared-Northern Energy and Southern Lassitude-A Formal Reception-The Palace of Crespo -Mann and the Guide-Bolivar and Washington-Sampling the Food-Attractions of the Capitol-Glorification of WarriorsA Hero Dethroned-Visit to the Pantheon-Dinner at the American Minister's-Night Scene on the Plaza-Speaker Received at the Yellow House-Castro Sick and in Seclusion-Sherman's Midnight March-Asleep in the Chapel-The German RailroadA Surfeit of Scenery-Lunching Under the Bamboo Tree-Incidents of the Ride to Puerto Cabello.

After all, the world is very small, and its ways, in different times and places, are very like. Thousands of years before the Christian era the wisest King of all history, he who found that "all is vanity" and that "one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh," told us also "there is no new thing under the sun." If what one sees in far-off Venezuela hath the appearance of being new or strange, one has but to remember the proverb, and, if in Venezuela, or any other earthly spot, remote, romantic or forbidding, he shall flatter himself, no other eye shall see, save that of "Him who seeth all" let him beware. Let him not overlook the unseen wireless chord-the magic spark that flashes in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. But most of all, let him not once forget the omnipresent, allinformed and all-informing representative of the great American newspaper. At every place we found him, but,

least of all, had we expected to find him in distant Venezuela.

"It was a little dangerous to go to that show, so I took a seat in the gallery, where the rest of 'em couldn't see me," said the backwoods member of the Legislature to his admiring friends in Smoky Hollow; "but I didn't feel a bit ashamed when I looked around, for darned if nigh the whole Legislature wasn't there."

"Hello!" said a quick-spoken, quick-witted young fellow, at one of the functions in Caracas. "I haven't seen you since Chicago."

I looked up, but was unable to recognize the man who had addressed me. It is an old and commonplace expedient, but I had to use it: the man who oft appears in public places sometimes must:

"You have the best of me," I said.

"My name is Haggerty. I reported the convention in Chicago, at which you were elected President of the National Republican League. Do you want me to sing 'Sweet Annie Moore?'"

"No, Haggerty, that's enough," said I, recalling both the convention and the song, "but what are you doing here?" "Waiting for the revolution!"

The reply was laconic. It was the first time I had heard it in just that form, but soon it was to be as familiar as the discoveries of Columbus in the West Indies. Haggerty was representing the Associated Press and was in Caracas because of the rumors of Castro's death and a predicted uprising of the people. The story illustrates my thought in opening, but here is another.

Among the passengers was Walter Penn Shipley, of Germantown. He registered at the Hotel Klindt, and, finding the clerk could speak English, asked a few questions.

The clerk replied civilly and then, observing the name upon the register (and for a moment it was not unlike a bunco game), inquired:

"Do you not play chess?"

"Why, yes," said Mr. Shipley in surprise.

"I could not be mistaken, for I have just seen your picture and read your record in the British Magazine."

And then tossing over a bundle of papers, he produced a periodical with Mr. Shipley's picture upon the front page and a running notice of his achievements at the game.

"You must attend our club!" exclaimed the delighted clerk, "we have some great players, but they may not be in your class."

Mr. Shipley was flattered, but coy. That evening, however, he yielded to the pressure and found an earnest audience of Venezuelan chess players waiting for him at the club. He looked them over and found, from their serious aspect, that apparently a great reputation had preceded him. "But no!" said he adroitly, "I do not care to play, let me look on."

Firmly, but politely, the gentlemen of the club insisted, and finally the Philadelphian agreed to submit to one game. He played that game, and, apparently, much to the chagrin of his opponent, won.

"You must play again!" came a chorus in broken but determined English.

"No, gentlemen, one game is my limit. I have had enough." And with these words the newly-made hero retired with his laurels.

But I want to speak of the Solomonic proverb, "There is no new thing under the sun." The modern mind evolves some brilliant thought, only to find that years ago another had done the same. The modern stage advances some new

bit of humor which tickles the public taste, only because the public is forgetful and Joe Miller has been too long dead. A brilliant speaker coins a striking phrase, only to learn as the deadly parallel is drawn that somewhere in the Bible, in Homer, or in Shakespeare, his imageries, if not hist words, have been anticipated.

I thought of all these things as from the mountains above I looked down upon the red-tiled City of Caracas, a city in a valley 3,000 feet above the sea, and I wondered if we, as a nation, whose growth and prosperity has been so marvelous, had not perhaps "iooked down" upon these people, whose very demeanor, seemingly morose and sullen, bespoke the spirit of resentment. Here was a civilization long antedating our own. The people had not progressed with that commercial and industrial rapidity that had characterized the United States, and for this, perchance, the climate was responsible. True, the bustling traveller from the Northern country had to wait till noon before his Southern brother would partake of breakfast with him, but when the latter did appear he would come as one proud of his country and mindful of the personal proprieties, even to a fault. He would not come with the rush and the bustle of the typical Yankee, but he would come equipped in language (for the educated Venezuelan is a linguist), and in all the gentlemanly qualifications, to impress the visitor with his own self-respect. I had heard the word "graft," so disagreeable a word as popularly used in the United States, applied with alarming frequency to the official life of Venezuela. I never, in its very hey-day in the United States, regarded "graft" as a new word. It was merely the adaptation of older terms descriptive of the selfish practices of great and small men, yea of institutions and countries, since fraud and cunning and human deviltry were