La Guayra

“ Anything to turn away their attention from her, and in that nervous haste which makes people speak, and speak foolishly too, just because they ought to be silent, she asked—
“And where is La Guayra?”
“Half round the world, on the coast of the Spanish Main. The loveliest place on earth, and the loveliest governor's house, in a forest of palms at the foot of a mountain eight thousand feet high: I shall only want a wife there to be in paradise.” ”

“ La Guayra is said to be the hottest place about the West Indies, and I could well imagine how the Great Mother would have to fan her little white children, when they once really felt the breath of the unconscionable sun; but, as we walked along, even though the sun had climbed a few steady hours, we found it far from uncomfortable, even carrying our heavy satchels, and the white umbrella, besides. ”

“ The most conspicuous spot about La Guayra is the little fortress made famous by Charles Kingsley, in his "Westward Ho," as the prison house of his heroine, the Rose of Devon. This was the residence of the Spanish governors in the days when Venezuela was a dependency of Spain. Past this ancient point of defense against attacks from the sea and the winds lead those three ways of travel to the capital, aptly illustrating the changes of centuries; first, but of least importance now, the mule path worn no doubt by the natives in their passages back and forth ”

“ Venezuela is notoriously in the front rank of political corruption in South America, and La Guayra is its greatest single fleecing-place. From the instant he enters this chief port the stranger is hounded at every turn by grasping, insolent officials and political favorites permitted to indulge in the most absurd extortions, a spirit which pervades the entire population down to the last impudent, rascally street-urchin. ”

“ Even to-day it is well-nigh impossible to reach the heart of the region—the great cataract of Guayra, which, hundreds of miles from the habitations of man, isolated by jagged mountains, fiercely swirling waters and the wild tangle of underbrush that make headway through the awesome tropical forest very difficult, constitutes one of the most majestic of nature’s wonder-works in South America. Situated about a hundred miles up the Paraná River from the better known Iguazú Falls, the Guayra cataract lies on the frontier with Brazil. ”

“ Caracas rises and begins business later than La Guayra, where the heat of noonday makes a siesta imperative; it is a bit less foppish than Bogotá or Quito, perhaps because of its greater proximity to the world. Here, too, are ragged men and boys who soften their incessant appeals by using a diminutive “Tiene usted un fosforito?” ”

“ Yago; and when he arrives there, has news from home which gives him other things to think of than following those mad Englishmen, who have vanished into the wilderness. "What need, after all, to follow them?" asked the Spaniards of each other. "Blinded by the devil, whom they serve, they rush on in search of certain death, as many a larger company has before them, and they will find it, and will trouble La Guayra no more forever." ”

“ Before proceeding further, I will here subjoin a description of La Guayra, and the extraordinary road which leads from thence to the town of Caracas, adding thereto all the observations made by M. Bonpland and myself, in an excursion to Cabo Blanco about the end of January 1800.
La Guayra is rather a roadstead than a port. The sea is constantly agitated, and ships suffer at once by the violence of the wind, the tideways, and the bad anchorage. The lading is taken in with difficulty, and the swell prevents the embarkation of mules here, as at New Barcelona and Porto Cabello. ”

“ A trail of devastated plantations shall mark our course wherever the foolhardy defy us, and above the ruins of the smaller towns shall rise the captured columns of Valencia, La Guayra, Caracas—ay, Caracas! When the capital shall be ours, then will we make laws that lift the poor man into his just deserts, while the lawless rich shall feel the spur of oppression as his meeted judgment. Then shall the name of El Capitan stand beside that of Crespo, the mountain lion! ”

“ Now, we are far above the tree-tops of the town, and our white ship out in the harbour lies motionless, and seems far away. We wonder at the courage of the people who would dare so great a feat of road-building, and grow doubly curious to see the city, hidden beyond in the clouds of the mountain.
III.
La Guayra lies just above sea-level. In two hours, we must climb over the Great Mother’s back, going thirty odd miles to reach Caracas, which lies at an elevation over three thousand feet in a valley, only six miles in an air line from La Guayra. ”

“ We have had a fine breeze from the eastward all night, and La Guayra is now nearly a hundred miles astern of us.”
“That is good news,” I remarked. “But why should you have anticipated any evil results to us from the motion of the craft? Are you not aware that we are pretty well seasoned sailors?” ”

“ Although Teach and L'Ollonois had no mind to leave the pleasures open to them in La Guayra, yet they were both men of intelligence and could easily see the absolute necessity for the precaution suggested by Hornigold and accepted by their captain. If they held the passage over the mountains, and fifty men could hold it against a thousand, no Spaniard could come at them. ”

“ But the vessel was not to sail until two days later, so while waiting they took a little run over to Macuto, located not far from La Guayra.
“Macuto is the Bar Harbor, Asbury Park, and Coney Island of Venezuela,” explained the professor, while the party was on the way, along a highway skirting the ocean. “It is only six miles from the seaport, and is a great resort for the folks in Caracas and La Guayra who wish to escape the extreme heat of those towns. It gets a constant breeze from the north and as a consequence is usually ten to fifteen degrees more on the side of comfort.” ”

“ Modern travellers know little of the upper bed of the Parana : navigation is arrested by the Salto del Apipe, 780 miles from Buenos Aires, and few living Europeans have visited La Guayra (1070 miles) , described by old authors as an awful cataract, but really a succession of rapids some twelve leagues long.
Adieu to llozario of the Bats : the last we see of it is the little red-tiled Methody chapel, the brickwork of the big station, and the wooden shoot leading to Mr. Wheelwright's wharf, where ships bringing material for the railway are discharged. ”

“ As my old readers know, La Guayra is only a small seaport, located on a stretch of land between the water and the high cliffs of the mountains. It is a dirty, ill-smelling place, and nobody lives there who can help it.
“I’m glad we haven’t to stop here long,” said Sam. “It smells like dead fish and oil mixed. Where is the steamer?”
An hour later found them on board of the craft, [21] an old-fashioned, tub sort of an affair named the Chester. She was an English boat devoted to the carrying trade between Trinidad, La Guayra, Kingston, and other points in the Caribbean Sea. ”

“ The numbers on both sides were nearly equal. This battle decided the fate of Colombia. The victorious liberator entered Caracas on the 29th. On the 2nd of July, La Guayra also surrendered to him.
Leaving a besieging division before Puerto Cabello, the liberator went to Cucuta, where he resigned once more the office of president of the republic, which, in admiration of his disinterestedness, instantly re-elected him.
When the province of Guayaquil declared itself independent, it solicited the assistance of Bolivar against the Spaniards in Quito. A small division was accordingly sent there. ”

“ If the whole coast of South America had been explored for the worst place in twenty thousand miles to build a city, there could not have been found one with greater natural disadvantages, which human ingenuity cannot overcome, than La Guayra, the seaport of Caracas, capital of Venezuela. ”

“ Being, moreover, a stranger, you are a marked man. It is not everybody who, like the commandant of La Guayra, will believe that you are travelling for your own pleasure. What man in his senses would choose a time like this for a scientific ramble in Venezuela?”
And then Señor Carera explained that he could arrange for me to leave Caracas almost immediately, under excellent guidance. The teniente of Colonel Mejia, one of the guerilla leaders, was in the town on a secret errand, and would set out on his return journey in three days. ”

“ At other times we stopped at guard-houses, where I was devoured by fleas and other insects; for the men who escorted me were afraid of entering the villages, the inhabitants being generally favourable to the patriot cause. We of course kept at a distance from Caracas, but I heard from my guards that General Morales was marching from Valencia with a powerful force for the purpose of recapturing it; and on the very day that we reached La Guayra, I was further informed that he had entered the city and put the whole of the patriot garrison to the sword. ”

“ The villains are too drunk with rum and blood and fury to be despatched."
"A force must be assembled at once," urged Hornigold, insistently, "lest some have escaped who would bring word to the Viceroy. He would be upon us in a day with an army too great for resistance. If you intend not to rot here in La Guayra, or be caught in a death trap, we must be up to the mountain top beforehand. Once they seize the pass, we are helpless." ”

“ The same phenomenon is said to occur occasionally in the adjacent province of Guayra, where stones of the bigness of a man's hand are exploded, with a loud noise, from the bosom of the earth, and scatter about glittering and beautiful fragments that look like precious gems, but are of no value. ”

“ Sir Francis and his crew jeered at the brave old man, and told him to send for his fellow-citizens who had gone down the mountain-road; but he insisted on fighting them alone, and was accommodated. They killed him as tenderly as they could, set fire to the city, and then, laden with all the portable property of value in Caracas, marched down the ravine to La Guayra again, and sailed away with a million dollars’ worth of treasure, captured without the loss of a single man. ”

“ Here we were delayed only a few minutes, for the English in their colonies, as in the mother country, rarely subject the traveler to those delays and annoyances that constitute so disagreeable a feature in certain other countries. “What a contrast,” we said to ourselves, “between the conduct of the officials here and that of the officious inquisitors at La Guayra!”
After we had been comfortably located in our hotel—there are several good hotels in the city—our first thought was about our journey up the Orinoco. ”

“ From the professor the boys learned that the steamer for La Guayra, the nearest seaport to Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, would sail three days later.
“There is a sailing every ten days,” said Professor Strong. “The steamers are not as large as those which cross the Atlantic but they are almost as comfortable, and I have seen to it that we shall have the best of the staterooms. The trip will take just a week, unless we encounter a severe storm which drives us back.” ”

“ We arrived in the roadstead of La Guayra early in the morning, after our departure from Curaçao, and our vessel was soon moored alongside a splendid breakwater, which extends out from the shore for more than a half mile, and gives this port a fairly good harbor, which even the largest ships may enter. ”

“ Philip III. having, by his decree of 1606, approved of the project to propagate the faith, allowed two Italians, Simoni Mazeta and Giuseppe Cataldino to set out (December 8, 1609) en route for the colony of La Guayra, where some Spaniards had settled and had laid the foundations of future empire. The Jesuits began to form their rival government in the regions to the east and south-east of the actual republic, the fertile valleys of the Rivers Parana and Uruguay ; and between 1685 and 1760 they established the Misiones or Reductions of Paraguay. ”

“ The Captain wants you and your prisoners. You'll find him in the guard room. Oh, ho, there's merry times to-night in La Guayra! All hell's let loose, and we are devils." He laughed boisterously and drunkenly as he spoke and lurched backward over the sands.
"We must be gone," said Hornigold. "Rise, mistress. Come, sir."
"But this lady," urged Alvarado—his lips could [Pg 277] scarcely form the unfamiliar word "mother"—"and the good priest? You will not leave them here?" ”

“ Above, three times a week steamers, with many calls on both sides of the river, make a four days’ journey to the Iguassú and beyond to Puerto Mendez, from which point a short railway in Brazil passes around La Guayra Falls.
Railway facilities are increasing, construction though not so easy as on the Argentine plains being less difficult than in general in the other Republics. Nearly 475 miles of track are in operation, 200 of them privately owned. ”

“ It is a land full of mountain torrents, and one of these, after flowing through many plains and valleys, unites the Orinoco with the Amazon, although the watercourse is not fit for navigation by even fair sized boats.”
“What about the people?” asked Mark, after a long pause, during which all of them examined the map more closely, and the professor pointed out La Guayra, Caracas, and a dozen or more other places of importance.
“The people are of Spanish, Indian and mixed blood, with a fair sprinkling of Americans and Europeans. ”

“ Although the sea is extremely rough from Cape Codera to La Guayra, and although the boats have an enormous triangular sail, somewhat dangerous in those gusts which issue from the mountain-passes, no instance has occurred during thirty years, of one of these boats being lost in the passage from Cumana to the coast of Caracas. The skill of the Guaiqueria pilots is so great, that accidents are very rare, even in the frequent trips they make from Cumana to Guadaloupe, or the Danish islands, which are surrounded with breakers. ”