tered, and sent to the former place in carts | solitary blue-gowned friar, whom Bolivar left (which it seems can go through more certainly to linger about the place as a relic of its former than the coche), where it is shipped, about half to the United States, and the rest mostly to Germany. Pursuing our walk we come to the Church of San Francisco, the monastery attached to which is now the Halls of Congress. The only remnant of the once rich and powerful order of Franciscans who occupied this vast pile, is a A VENTA. glory. We will not take part in the deliberations of Congress now; the church is the most frequented in Caracas. The young gallants cluster round the entrance to see the fair señoritas as they go to and from their devotionsthe only time they are seen in the streets. They all wear vails or shawls over the head, hats not being allowed in church, and are ac companied by servants carrying on their heads the rug upon which their mistresses kneel. The church presents a picturesque aspect, filled with vailed women, kneeling or sitting in close contact down the whole nave, and presenting as great variety of color and texture in the mantillas and montas, as in the shade of complexion and quality of those who wear them. It requires early rising to see the pretty women of Caracas in church-they have returned home before most of us have left our beds. Observe this venta. The shop has a high patroness you will observe; the piety or superstition of the inmate is made manifest very frequently in this manner. The construction of the house is worthy of remark. Nearly all of them are made of earth and stones pounded into a sort of box, and left to dry in the sun after the box is removed. When mixed with a little mortar it is called reale (royal). As there are no frosts these walls answer as well as stone. There are some houses of coarse, thin brick. Whoever has a brick house takes good care that the world know it; it is rough laid with superabundant mortar, and is not sightly; but it ranks with our "brown-stone fronts," and its proprietor would as soon think of plastering it over as Mrs. Potiphar would of whitewashing her Fifth Avenue mansion. And apropos, it is time that we strolled into the Fifth Avenue of Caracas. Let us go to the bridge of the Trinity; it is six o'clock. All the nice young men are about, and all the pretty women are in or out, which ever you choose to call it; the grated, projecting windows are garnis with bright black eyes. Such eyes! such round bare shoulders and arms! what an ordeal for a stranger! The hour before night (there is no twilight here) is most profitably and agreeably spent walking the streets, stopping at the windows of your señorita acquaintance, and chatting through the bars with the soft-voiced damsels within. If you have a nice horse and ride well you show off your paces to appreciating eyes, stopping at such windows as please you, for your horse can go almost every where his master is permitted. We shall often meet a priest going to administer the last sacrament to some moribund. He is preceded by a white-robed boy who tinkles a bell, and is followed by people of the church and friends of the dying person, who hasten at the sound of the bell to take part in the procession, which all make way for; the footman kneels bareheaded, the horseman dismounts and does likewise, the bells of the churches toll lugubriously as it passes. At night the procession is dotted with glimmering lanterns, and the tinkling bell sounds painfully in the still streets as the throng moves on, numerous or not according to the number of his friends, but always silently, to the house of death. When a person dies the friends are invited, by circular issued in behalf of all the relatives, to assemble at the house of the defunct generally about nightfall. From thence they march in procession with the bier to the church. The cut represents a funeral which we attended of one of the most distinguished and beloved citizens of Venezuela. On reaching the house we were supplied by servants carrying armfuls of them, each with a huge black wax candle, some five feet in length by two inches in thickness; this was lighted, and we were taught to protect it from the wind by paper tied around the flame lartern-wise. We waited, lining either side of the street till the bier, preceded by priests and followed by the relatives and nearest friends, passed through the double line, | for different parts of the figure, and is very which, when it reached the church, was closed striking. When the tour is finished there is a in by the rear which filed in, in long and glimmering array: the frame-work to support the bier, heavily draped with black cloth, was carried on the head of negroes, therefore at a considerable elevation. Arrived at the church, and after the silent prayers of the priest, the body was taken to the cemetery by some of the friends, the family and the others returning to the house, where, ranged round a room draped in black, the friends passed in in single file, silently shaking each relative by the hand and retiring. Three days after, at early morn, were the "honors" to the departed. A beautiful sarcophagus, surrounded by emblems of mourning, among which we observed a lamb covered with black crape and bound at its foot, was in the centre of the church, which was draped in black. The friends assembled here to attend a mass chanted by a full choir for two hours, and again took leave of the mourners. pause; the ladies sit around the room, the men go into the corridor and patio to smoke cigaritos and await the commencement of the next tour, and thus they keep it up till two or three o'clock, when they patter home on foot, the two or three carriages here being kept rather for show than use. When a child dies, it is looked upon as a cause of rejoicing, that, dying before it sinned, it has become an angel; the bier and body are gayly dressed, and, among the lower people, it is waked with great spirit by dancing, music, and feasting. As evening advances promenaders disappear and the windows are deserted; at eight o'clock it would seem as if all Caracas was asleep. We hear music at a distance, and, approaching, see a crowd around the windows of a house. We join it and look in with it. There is a ball, and the crowd who are not invited feel that they are at liberty to hear the music, and look in and appreciate or criticise the dancers, and those within seem to agree thereto. But let us leave the crowd at the windows, who express their approval of dances and dancers very freely, and go back to our posada. We get safely by sentries whose challenges we reply to in approved form, whose directions to cross to the other side of the street we obey implicitly. The watchmen, cloaked and armed, have just finished bawling with stentorian lungs, "Twelve o'clock and a clear sky!" We look up at the firmament brilliant with stars, the southern cross blazing with its symbol of faith, and we shudder at the thought of the fleas we are soon to encounter. The sleepy muchacho finally opens the door in answer to our noisy rapping and good-night to Caracas. OUR Nelly is a brilliant, sparkling little fairy. She is just seventeen, and has half the youths of the country side paying court to her, scowling at each other fiercely, and going wild about her generally. Her dangerous blue eyes occasion them that trouble which such eyes The young ladies strike us by their elaborate have caused young men in all ages. They lancostumes, a little exaggerated on European fash-guish beneath her frowns, rejoice in her smiles, ions, much bejeweled, belaced, and ornamented. and I should not be surprised if the little maiden Their husbands, when they marry, cause them walked through many of their dreams. few pleasant surprises in laces, jewelry, etc., for he can have little to add to their toilets. The music has a certain originality and wildness that strikes you. The dances known to us are evidently well known to the Caracanians; but fast Young America might take a lesson in the graceful languor with which they slowly sail round in the waltz or mazourka. An engagement to dance is for a tourno, consisting generally of four or five dances, the waltz, polka, mazourka, and always the "Dansa." It must be desperate work for a stranger. He can, however, invite, by permission of the caballero, a lady for a palamito, or one of the dances of the tour to which she is engaged. The Dansa is the favorite dance of the Caracanians. A double line, of ladies on one side and gentlemen on the other, is formed; the head couple set to the couple next to them, go through various graceful evolutions, one of which is a kind of waltz, à quatre, finishing the figure with a waltz or polka, and thus progressing down the line to each couple till the whole is in graceful movement to the music, which has different measures In Nelly tells me all her love affairs. I am her old friend and elderly admirer. I have been so since she first climbed into my lap and showed me the lovely new doll which papa had brought from town for her that morning. those youthful days she confided to me her most cherished views on doll-babies' underclothes, play-houses, and wondrous picturebooks of Aladdin, Prince Riquet with the Tuft, and Beauty and the Beast; and now that she has put away dolls and other childish things, to interest herself in those more imposing playthings, the feelings of young gentlemen, she consults and advises with me, as before. We sit on the sofa, or in the portico, if it is warm, and then I hear all Miss Nelly's secrets. I never greet them with that elderly and incredulous smile which says so plainly, "Child! I am a thousand years older than you are! Your trifling affairs are infinitely beneath such a great philosopher as myself! I laugh at your follies. and quietly scorn all your airs and graces, and caprices and coquetries!" Just the contrary. When Nelly comes and nestles on my shoulder, and looks up at me with those deep blue eyes, and smiles in a confidential way, and whispers under her breath the last little affair; when this pretty little tableau is arranged for my benefit, this petit comedy enacted for my entertainment, I never utter a word of criticism, I never laugh, I listen with the most serious attention, and am rewarded by having Nelly turn her heart's inner lining outward for my inspection. serves all your love and worship. You should not be made vain by them, or use them to trifle with honest emotions. They are transient, and doomed to pass quickly away-the grace of the fashion of them perisheth. Be not puffed up, lest a worse thing befall thee; and see that you employ your gifts in a worthy way-'tis the sole and only means of avoiding remorse, when you look from beneath your thin gray hairs on the merry hours of your youth." Nelly trusts me implicitly, for I have never betrayed her. The youngsters have found out that the old gentleman who, having secured a competence from the wreck of his fortunes, lives among his own people at "The Forest" is deep in the secrets and counsels of Miss Nelly. They accordingly ply me with all manner of inducements to espouse their side, and be their "friend at court." Last week Charley Blank sent me, with his best regards, a brace of the plumpest pheasants I ever saw; advising me at the same time of his intention to call on me soon, when he "hoped I would tell him some more of those delightful stories about the good old times and | the distinguished men who were my friends." Tom Haskins rode five miles out of the way to bring me a package from the post-office but yesterday; Alexander Legrand sent me, two days since, a box of the finest smoking tobacco that ever was known. But I am proof against all these wiles; I do not design betraying little Nelly. Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes. If the enemy choose to furnish pheasants for the family dinner, or smoking tobacco for myself and my visitors, I have not the slightest objection. They carry themselves-these gay young fellows-toward the friend of Nelly with an air of the deepest respect and cordiality; but he has no confidences to make them in return. When-but at present two young greyhounds, of the they come to "The Forest" and ooze out with flattery and complaisance, I listen to their harangues unmoved, and laughing inwardly, say, "Ah, my fine lads, I have seen many like you in my day! Let us be friends, but not too close friends!" And then I bow with that inclination of the head which Nell is pleased to call "of the Old School," praising it, and leave the coast quite clear to the amorous youths. This, and much more equally sensible, I say to Nelly, listening with thoughtful, tender eyes; and I think that my advice has not been without its influence in curbing the too riotous emotions of triumph, which the little beauty must have felt at the effect of her charms. Sometimes, it is true, she can not restrain her victorious feelings, or refrain from wielding the sceptre thrust into her hands by the foolish youths kneeling around her footstool. More than once she has exercised, as Queen of Hearts, the royal authority to which she has been elevated. But in the main our Nelly has been very good and proper. She has not tyrannized, where she might have done so with impunity, over the thralls of her bow and spear, the captives of her beautiful eyes. She has been kind, and forbearing of her jests, to paralyzed young gentlemen ; and when others have laughed at the follies of her admirers, she has flamed out splendidly with her flashing wit, and disarmed the ill-natured critics by her "pluck." But I am running on too carelessly, trying in vain to describe our maiden. I must come to the "little affair" which now engages Nelly's attention. A large pack have long been in full cry, on the track of our timid little white rabbit purest breed, are far in advance of their competitors for the prize. These noble greyhounds think they hear the poor, startled little rabbit pant-they scowl sideways at each other, and push on with redoubled speed; they are the real rivals, the serious competitors. But, to drop the forced metaphor, and "speak by the book." The other day Nelly came to me, and I saw, from the pout upon her lip and the color in her When they have departed, Nelly and myself cheek, that something of an interesting nature have a confidential laugh and talk about them; had lately taken place. I knew that she and but I will never encourage the damsel in mak- the two youths just referred to, under the eleing critical remarks: and so the comedy goes gant figure of greyhounds, had been walking on, from day to day, and from month to month. out together; and as the young gentlemen had, For Nelly is terribly surrounded. She is the moment before, departed, Nelly evidently courted enough to turn the head of a much old- came to confide her sorrows or annoyances to er and wiser person. You will, however, par- my sympathetic ears. I assumed, therefore, a don my making the observation that I have mysterious and secret expression of countebrought the damsel up carefully-advisedly: nance; and my reserved and guarded look inshe is a girl of excellent sense. I carefully dicated that I was prepared to store away in guard her against the approaches of a vain self- my breast, and put under double lock and key, conceit. I often say, "My child, this attract- whatever the damsel should confide to me. ireness which you possess is but the result of Nelly nestled close to me on the sofa; leaned those gifts with which you are endowed by a her head upon my shoulder-it looked, I dekind heaven. You did not make your smile el- clare, like a little golden flower, full blown and oquent, your eyes full of mirth or pathos. The drooping with the dew-and then, in a mystekind, true heart, the beautiful good-nature-rious and pettish voice, the little beauty whisthese things are derived from a Being who de-pered, brought back my slipper. I wouldn't speak to his lordship, Mr. Harry Dale, all the way home, and that's all. Isn't he odious and ungentlemanly?" The flushed little beauty paused. I made no reply. The fact is, I did not know what to say. Mr. Harry's conduct was singular. That he was deeply in love with Nelly I knew perfectly well. Why, then, did he so obstinately refuse to fulfill her wishes? I was pondering this problem still, when Nelly interrupted me. "There, Cousin," she said, "you needn't say any thing. I see you are going to defend Mr. Harry Dale, who is your favorite. I can't see what you like so in him! All I have to say is, that he is odious and hateful.” "You consider him so." "You dear old grandfather!" she cried, "I like you better than all of them put togetherthose foolish boys! Better? I reckon I doa thousand times! They would have teased me to know what had happened, and I never would have told them; for boys think girls have splendid secrets when they haven't any-only they make a fuss, as if they had. Now you listen quietly, and it is so much more sensible." Nelly paused in this moral digression, remembering her grievances. She pouted again. I did not speak-I listened. This astute pro-running for-” ceeding was duly rewarded. Nelly plunged at once in medias res. "Mr. Harry Dale thinks himself very smart, I suppose," she said, pouting far more than ever. "He sets up for a gallant young gentleman, and expects me to consider him one after what has just happened." "No, he is! I liked him once, but I hate him. Hum! I reckon I suppose I am not worthy of his lordship's notice! I am not worth "Or wading for, my dear." "Or wading!-yes!" came in a burst of laughter from Nelly's rosy lips. "You can't think how Hetherton Wilby looked when he came back! His fine boots were dripping; his pantaloons-but oh, goodness gracious!” cried the young lady, with a sudden air of fright, while I waited patiently to hear what had just hap- she covered her mouth with her hand [Nell has pened. I was not disappointed. Nelly repeated her laughter with enthusiasm as she finished. "It was really very gallant in Mr. Wilby," I said, with the imperceptible smile which characterizes wise old bachelors, "and I suppose you rewarded him." a lovely hand], "a young lady to speak of"We were walking out," said Nelly-"Heth-pantaloons. It's horrible! But I don't care; erton Wilby was with us—and came to the bridge and after all, you know, his-pantaloons—were over the run, Cousin. I was standing on the as thoroughly soaked as if he had stood in the bridge, leaning against the railing, when I run all day." thought I would find which of them-which of them-1-loved me best! You know what I mean, you wicked old gentleman! looking at me with such laughing eyes!—which liked me best, I mean. Well, I thought of a way which would show me. I put my foot over the edge of the bridge" [Nelly has an exquisite foot, and an ankle which is absolute perfection], "and then -by accident, you know, Cousin—now you are laughing again, Sir!-stop!—by accident-nothing but accident, of course!-I dropped my slipper into the water. See, here it is-isn't it pretty? bronze morocco, with open-work em-itation; but suddenly recovering her self-posbroidery and red rosettes-" "You dropped that into the water? Indeed you must have been anxious to solve the problem, Nelly-" "I did wish to know. Well, the slipper fell, and bounced up from the water, and then went sailing away. I looked round at Mr. Hetherton Wilby and Mr. Harry Dale-no, at Mr. Harry Dale and Mr. Hetherton Wilby-for that odious Harry is mighty set up! Do you think he would move a single inch? He thought himself very grand! He leaned carelessly on the railing, and didn't seem to mind meeting my eye-the hateful thing!—and said that it was yes, it was really-'a beautiful little boat!' Just to think of his impudence!" "Hum! that was cool. And Mr. Hetherton Wilby; what did he do?" "Acted like a perfect gentleman. He ran down, and waded into the water-waded!-and "Rewarded him?" asked Nelly, with an admirable affectation of ignorance, which a smile like my own, however, betrayed. "I mean that you permitted the gallant knight to put on your slipper." "Yes," replied Nelly, in a voice of some hes session, she cried, gayly, "Yes, indeed, Cousin. Was the reward too great ?" "No indeed. So he replaced the slipper which had fallen by such mere accident ?" "Yes, Sir. Now you are satirizing me-but I don't care. He did it very gallantly; knelt, and then took my foot in his hand, and then-" "Oh! took your foot? I shall advise the youngster to beware of that foot!" Nell laughed, and tossed her handsome head with the air of a spoiled little beauty—as much as to say, "He may be very glad that I let him put my slipper on-he was pleased enough." "Of course he took my foot in his hand, Cousin," Nell replied; "he could not help doing it, you know." "Poor fellow! I see now; he was compelled to; much against his will." "Hum!" [this sound from Nelly's lips was very expressive]-"but let me go on, Sir. Well, he |