VENEZUELA'S EYRIE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 41, 13 March 1909, Page 3

VENEZUELA'S EYRIE.

AND THE RAILWAYS THAT REACH IT.

1 M hen you hen the coast of Venezuela, yon appreciate one reason why iU Indian .President, Cipriano Castro, ha* Ijcrji able Jo <|efy with impunity more ultimatum* thau any other man living. Clo.it?. behind a narrow si rip of ( sliclvino; jiiior-e- the tier upon tier ui at- { t,tosl - i=Ucer precipices, double bastion* oi tlie Maritime Andes list' lo a height . ol SJlioit, along a distance of neverai hundreds ol' miieo. Jn a valley between f the two tremendous parallel ranges constituting these mountain*. HOOUii above x the Caribbean ,Sea, is Caracas, tlie capi,r tal of Venezuela, and the seat of its lio-vernnu-nt, It obviously easier to [ throw ultimatums than troops across this great natural barrier, and thua ll'jesident Castro lias frequently been able to disregard threats that tlie 0110 ! would l>u followed by the other. The > mountains a;id the Alunro doctrine have j hitherto rendered the Eyrie of Venezuela unapproachable by force. It is truei that the heights have been surmounted by two railways to Caracas. i Both are remarkable pieces of engineur- . ing, but that very circumstance makets ' it all the easier to defend or to destroy them if 'need be. They are reputed to be already milled so that the touch of a button in the capital would render them useless to an invader; but the precaution. if it exists, need hardly have • 'bee.il taken. At scores of points along j their routes a chigle man, armed with

a crowbar, could cll'cctually block them by tending rocks weighing' hundreds in tons crashing down upon them from the dill's above. These two lines reach the capital from Puerto Cabello and from La Guaira respectively. The first-named is a magnificent natural harbor, one of the finest of its kind iii the West Indies, and the. favorite resort of tile four or five old steam and nailing craft constituting the Venezuelan Navy. It requires little seamanship to cuter or to leave the port, for there is "JOi't of water at its entrance, anil it was there that, only the other day, the Dutch captured a Venezuelan "cruiser" from under the guns of the forts guarding the harbor mouth. From l'uerto Cabello the railway climbs over a pass 2000 ft high for 38 miles to Valencia, the chiei town of the province of Carubobo, from which the line is continued along the valley between the two ranges to Caracas, about 100 miles distant. A much shorter route to the capital is by the railway, only 23 miles long, which reaches it from La Guaira. That port, about SO miles east of l'uerto Cabello, is, though much more important, by no melius so attractive, as the other. When you land within its 2000 ft breakwaterplanned by British engineers and built with British money—you lind yourself on a nhrubless slope of ochre-tinted sand, where the heat is like that of a furnace, and the odours would make those from a street refuse depot seem scents of Araby. From the shore end of the breakwater the town straggles upward over the glaring dunes; a huddle of outwardly while- wooded shanties, crowned towards the top of the slope by two or three ollicial residences, a bull-ring, and a fort reputed to mount some powerful (Jreusot guns, but which is not much to look at. Above this dreary spot towers the mighty mountain rampart, its steep sides, stretching ridges, and distant peaks clothed with dense tropical forest whose green is in startling contrast to the red of the beach upon which the hills impinge. For the rest one wonders how a railway can possibly have been carried up such a declivity. You may set; a string of burden-bearing mules or donkey* from the harbor vanishing along the narrow track which penetrates the jungle. Judging from the blows and language of their half-bred drivers, they seem hard set enough, poor beasts, to breast even the first comparatively easy slope, and, you marvel that a locomotive should climb the steeps beyond. But it does. Certainly the train* are short; three carriages is the Usual number of which they are made. up. The engine is a miniature one, fur the gauge is narrow, and it pants up the single line almost as painfully, and sometimes hardly faster, than the donkey caravans which are frequently in sight, for the railway runs partly alongside the road. Only occasionally the former diverges to negotiate some particularly awkward gradient by means of a series of zigzag*, which, when surveyed from above, resemble a pile of lug ZV carved in the green hillside. 'Halfway up is a tank where the engine takes in wat.r. and there also is the only place where two trains can pass Immediately above this is a tunnel beyond which the scenery becomes wild in the extreme. The train crawls along creeper-clad precipices on ledges so narrow that it seems to be traversing on a tightrope. It appears to be about to hurt itself against impassable walls of rock; to rush, at ilie last moment, into the cuttings that pierce thein. It emerge!* into upland glens where the great cowtree, the biggest of the palm*, with many others of the. kind, tree ferns, silk-cotton trees, and scores more, are so matted together by trailing orchids, amaranth, and oleander that the little locomotive is lost amongst them, Rattlesuakes rear their ugly Hat heads as it passes; the great anaconda uncoils and retreats before it, amongst the foliage von may hear the tinkling note of the bell-liirii, and great butterflies, gorgeniislv colored. Hit oast the carriage win-

From thi. hist of these tropical glens . tliQ ti'iiiu ernci'iicis upon a comparatively hare tableland across which the line rims ■to Caracas. 'J'lic ili-staiifP from La (luaira is commonly accomplished at tlie 'not excessive speed of eight miles an I hour, hilt tin' journey is so lovely that 1 one would not willingly have it shortened. The heat is excessive, hut that naturally Incomes much less oppressive as tlie train ascciuls. Caracas, when von begin to look into it, is something of a rcvclatio-.i. Outwardly there is little that is savage or uijcivilincd about the Eyrie of Venezuela. Its population of 50.000 is amply furninhi.il with electric light, trains, telephones, and gas. The public watersupply, piped from tlie hills, is of exceptional ijuality. ami four or live considerable mountain streams How through th? li-ee-dotted city. Outwardly the public buildings are magniliccul, and there Is a hupcraliuudanct. of them, including the House o," Assembly. luivcisily. Museum, hrce Library, hospitals, theatres, juiuL—most significant of all-two Presidential I'alaees. The whole place is full of life and color; the markets arc fu'l of .small business, and the si reels of rather objectless bustle, tine misses white face's, for there is only uuc per cent, of Kuropeaus in the ljepublic, and the people are a very mixed lot. descended from races as far apart as Spanish hidalgos, African negroes-imported as shves—and the aboriginal Indians. It is when you begin to explore Caracas that you iind how much ui its showis mere tinsel. The Cathedral, a building grandly designed, is finished oil' outhide ill only too obvious stucco. Ho are others of the line public buildings, whilst the iutoriors of all are more or less dilapidated. Tlie gorgeously-attired folk Hitting about arc evidently not devoted to the batli-they are reputed to take one. only when a doctor prescribes it, whilst the predominant impression obtained is of a dirty slovejiiictss which appears peculiarly out of place amidst such lovely surroundings and in such a glorious climate. It is a relief to look away from the tawdry capital towards the Silla, a mountain which rises, pure ■and stately, to tlie SGOOft of its twin peaks, only two miles from the city, ft is the only object left unsullied near Venezuela's Eyrie.