any of these persons having thought of cultivating the earth."

The festivals of the Romish calendar are so multiplied at Caracas, that there are very few days in the year in which some saint or virgin does not claim a turn in the devotional celebrations of the natives. "The most brilliant acts of these festivals are the processions, which always take place in the afternoon. The saint, as large as life, is richly dressed. He is carried on a table very handsomely decorated, and followed, or preceded, by some other saint of the same church less sumptuously adorned. A number of flags and crosses open the procession. The men walk two abreast. Each of the principal persons has in his hand a wax taper; then come the music, the clergy, the civil authorities, and, lastly, the women, surrounded with a barrier of bayonets. The train is always very numerous. The frames of all the windows in the streets through which the procession moves, are ornamented with hangings floating in the air, which give to the whole quarter an air of festivity that exhilarates. The windows themselves are adorned with women, who crowd to them from all parts of the city to enjoy this exhibition." Fireworks, concerts, and dances, conclude, as elsewhere, these pious solemnities. In fact, in detailing the customs and superstitions of the Spanish Americans, travellers continually fall into the error of describing as peculiarities what are common to both hemispheres, or to all Roman Catholic countries,* and of con

* It is scarcely worth while, perhaps, to notice, as peculiarities of the country, the local or provincial legends which are mixed up with the various modifications of the Virgin-worship of the Romish church, In Caracas, as in Brazil, Our Lady, under a thousand various forms of invocation, is the favourite object of worship. The two principal idols are, Nuestra Senhora de Copa Cobana, and Nuestra Senhora de Soledad, the former belonging to the church of San Pablo, the

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founding what is exotic in civilisation, religion, or manners, with what is of indigenous growth. Thus, we find M. Depons particularising the custom of the siesta, the laws and phrases of Spanish etiquette, and other forms and customs which are not more characteristic of Caracas than of the mother country, or the other Spanish and Portuguese colonies. It is, on the whole, a dark picture which he draws of the state of society. "The Spaniards," he remarks, "are, of all people known, those who do the least to establish a police for public tranquillity. The sobriety which is natural to them, and still more, their phlegmatic character, render quarrels and tumults very Hence, there is never any noise in the streets of Caracas. Every body there is silent, dull, grave. Three or four thousand persons go out of church without making any more noise than a tortoise walking on sand. So many French, restrained by the silence divine offices enjoin, would endeavour, whilst quitting the church, to obtain some compensation ;-then, women and children would make, by their chattering, a noise that would be heard a long way. times as many Spaniards do not make the buzzing of a wasp.

rare.

Four

"But if the magistrate has nothing to fear from boisterous offences, he would fall very short if his vigilance were to be on that account less active. Assassinations, thefts, frauds, treacheries, demand of him steps, investigations, measures capable of putting to the proof the most ardent zeal, and baffling the most penetrating sagacity.

"It is a fact, that almost all the assassinations which take place in Caracas, are committed by

other in the possession of the Franciscans; each famous for working miracles, and having an absurd legend attached to the invention of the image.

Europeans. Those with which the Creoles may be accused, are as rare as the thefts that may be imputed to the former. The whites, or pretended whites, of the country, whom idleness, and all the vices it engenders, keep in sottishness and the most abject condition, and the freed men, who find it too irksome to live by their labour, are the only persons that can be reproached with the thefts committed in Caracas.

"False measures, false weights, adulteration of commodities and provisions, are also common offences, because these are regarded less as acts of rogúery, than as proofs of an address of which they

are vain.

The negligence of the civil magistracy was strikingly exemplified, under the colonial government, by the want of all proper regulations for supplying the market. "Would one believe," says M. Depons, "that the city of Caracas, the capital of provinces that might furnish horned cattle to all the foreign possessions of America, is herself, many days in the year, destitute of butcher's meat?”. "If filth does not accumulate in the streets," he adds, "the frequency of rain is to be thanked, not the care of the police." Mendicity here, as at Mexico and other great cities, puts on the most disgusting and appalling form.*

The principal public amusements of Caracas, besides the theatre, are, three tennis-courts, a cock-pit,† and

*As the description of the state of society in the other Spanish American capitals will in great measure apply to Caracas, we may refer our readers for further information to Mexico, vol. i. pp. 235, 265, 287. Brazil, vol. i. pp. 4, 103, &c.; vol. ii. p. 317.

+ Cock-pits formed a branch of the public revenue. One only was allowed in every town, which was rented of the crown. The proceeds from farming the cock-pits, as well as from the licenses to sell guarapo, (an intoxicating liquor, made

a few billiard-tables; the latter are not much fre-
quented. Gambling, the universal passion of the
Spaniards, is under some slight check from the police;
regulations having been made in 1800 for suppressing
the practice. But, for these three or four years,'
says M. Depons," it has been only the poor who have
been watched, imprisoned, and fined by the police for
gaming. Those above the common rank have a tacit
permission to ruin each other at play, without the
magistrate's taking offence at it. The Spaniard loves
only the play that ruins, not the play which amuses."
"In Europe," remarks M. Humboldt, "where
nations decide their quarrels in the plains, we climb
the mountains in search of solitude and liberty. In
the New World, the cordilleras are inhabited to the
height of 12,000 feet; and thither men carry with
them their political dissentions and their little and
hateful passions. Gaming-houses are established on
the ridge of the Andes, wherever the discovery of
mines has led to the foundation of the towns; and in
those vast solitudes, almost above the region of the
clouds, in the midst of objects fitted to elevate the
thoughts, the news of a decoration or a title refused by
the court, often disturbs the happiness of families."
M. Depons has furnished us with a detail of the
various sources of revenue of which, under the old
system, the government availed itself. Most of these
are the same as were employed in the other colonies.
The principal are,—

The alcavala,* which produced about
The maritime alcavala (paid on entering

400,000 dollars.

from the fermentation of coarse sugar and water,) were appropriated to the maintenance of the hospital of St Lazarus at Caracas.-DEPONS, vol. ii. p. 127.

* This tax, originally granted to the kings of Spain in the year 1342, as a supply towards the expenses of the war against the Moors, was established in Mexico in 1574, and extended

This last item requires explanation, and it will serve to illustrate the religious condition of the people. The bulls in question were, originally, bulls of dispensation for those Spaniards who engaged in the wars against the infidels. Their object has long been lost sight of, but the bulls have continued to arrive from Rome, and to be sold in Spain. "The blessings they afford are too precious, and the revenue the exchequer draws from them is too useful to be renounced. It is true that time, which alters or perfects every thing, has caused the popes to give to these bulls, virtues which they did not at first possess. At this day, four kinds of bulls are acknowledged; the general bull for the living, the bull for eating milk, the bull for the dead, and the bull of composition.

to Peru in 1591. In Terra Firma, it was for a long time fixed at two per cent, but, about the middle of the last century, was raised to five. It is levied on every sale and transfer. -See MOD. TRAV. Mezico, vol. i. p. 92.