struck a passer-by, to knock his brains out; an
accident which might easily have happened,
for the ropes were stretched just at the height of
a man, and no one gave any warning of their
approach. On the left of the wharf was the
harbour-master's house, and a nondescript building
—something between an office and a fort,
where a lot of Creole clerks were idling. In
front, was the custom-house, and to the left of it
the town. To the right, rose a long straggling
line of filthy huts, swarming with naked darkie
children.

We walked straight to the custom-house, a
strong useful building, but not picturesque. The
superintendent, an official of no little rank, for
the appointment is the usual stepping-stone to
the portfolio of finance, received me in his
shirt-sleeves, with the inevitable cigarette in his
mouth, and on reading the letter of introduction
I had brought from a certain general, shook hands
and told me he had been the general's A.D.C.
in the war just concluded. The sun was already
disagreeably hot, and I was glad to hurry on a
few hundred yards up the principal of the two
streets—which, with a branch or two climbing
the mountain's base, form La Guaira—and take
refuge in the hospitable house of the merchants
to whom I was accredited. Having heard not a
little of the wealth of the La Guaira merchants, I
could not help venting my astonishment in a hearty
caramba, when I entered the house. A huge outer
door opened into a square court-yard, smelling
strongly of turmeric, and half filled with bales of
merchandise. The house was two-storied, the
lower story containing a set of dingy offices, while
the upper was divided into bedrooms, but the
whole building looked so dirty and dilapidated,
that I asked myself, "Can this be the
residence of a merchant prince?" One of the
partners, in whose apartment I found a piano,
books, and some neat furniture, explained the
mystery. There are only three or four tolerable
houses in La Guaira, and he had been in vain
trying to get one. This was simply a
warehouse, and the other partners lived at Carácas.
Juan, a mulatto servant, and a nigger boy,
now set to work to get the spare room ready
for me, and raised such clouds of dust as choked
off for a time the mosquitoes, of which the
atmosphere was full. They are a peculiarly
sharp-stinging sort at La Guaira: small, speckled, and
insatiable.

I was now fairly installed. The first thing that
struck me was the intense heat. I had not then
read Humboldt's Table, in which he compares the
climates of Guaira, Cairo, Habana, Vera Cruz,
Madras, and Abushahr, but without his assistance
I arrived at his conclusion, that I was
now in the hottest place in the whole
world. Perhaps the best way of conveying to
an European an idea of the heat, is to say
that the mean temperature at La Guaira, in the
coldest month, is four degrees of centigrade
higher than that of the hottest month in Paris.
If it be added that there are no appliances
whatever to make things bearable—no good
houses, no ice, no cold water, no shade, and no
breeze, it will be possible to arrive at a faint notion
of the reality. I was peculiarly well situated for
promptly realising a just idea of the climate, for
my room had but one small window, and when
I opened it, there came in a perfume which
obliged me to close it again instantly. The .
locality was, indeed, not very agreeable. The
house almost abutted on the mountain, which
of course kept off every breath of air. On
one side was a boys' school, from which arose
an incessant jabber, and on the ridge above
us was a long building of very forbidding
appearance.

"What place is that?" said I to Juan.

"That, sir?" replied he, with a beaming
countenance. " That is the Small-pox Hospital, but
there ain't no great number of cases there at
present."

It was some alleviation of our misery that we
took our meals in a building much higher up the
hill, and, consequently, cooler than the
warehouse in which we slept. The cuisine was tolerable,
the poverty of the native supplies being eked
out with European stores. The wine was hot;
but there were good Clicquot and Rhenish wines
in abundance, and intense thirst made us
indiscriminating.

There are no Englishmen at La Guaira, and,
consequently, no out-of-door amusements. No
one walks, rides, rows, nor sails, for pleasure.
The Europeans, who are chiefly Germans from
Hamburg, confine themselves strictly to smoking,
drinking, playing whist and billiards. It
would be quite easy to have a good place for
driving and riding by the sea-shore, but, everybody
tries to make the approach to the sea as
inaccessible as possible.

In my first walk I took a look at the hotel,
and saw ample reason for congratulating myself
that I had found other quarters. It was a
very poor posada indeed, and the reek of garlic
made me quite giddy. Garlic, by-the-by, is
as dear to a Venezuelan as the shamrock to an
Irishman, and one feels surprised that it is not
adopted as the national emblem. I was assured
by a traveller that he had exhausted his inventive
powers in devising means to escape eating of
dishes flavoured with this herb, but all in vain.
As a dernier ressort, and when half starved, he
determined to live on eggs, but the fatal
fragrance pursued him still, much to his astonishment
as well as disgust. At last, on carefully
examining an egg before attempting to eat it,
he found that the small end had been perforated,
and some of the favourite herb introduced by
the innkeeper, who was resolved that the national
taste should be vindicated, and that, too, ab ovo
and in extremis. From the inn I went to make
my first purchase, one naturally suggested to
me by my visit to the posada. I went to
buy some medicine at a botica, or apothecary's
shop. As my Spanish was not very profound, I
was glad to find a German in the shop, and to