MR. EASTWICK'S VENEZUELA.*
Tin: reviewer's task is pleasant indeed when he has nothing more to do than to read such a book as this, and give the public a general idea of its contents. All he can say is, " Read, for I have read it ; approve, for I have approved it." Of course the public has so much confidence in its chosen critics as will authorize it to act on such a statement. But after all, there would be something meagre and unsatisfactory in the look of our columns if we made no more use of Mr. Eastwick's admirable sketches. We should be too much like those representative parents who are always being described as placing books in the hands of their children, and apparently leaving the children to guess why such an unintelligent process has been performed in any given instance. We should deprive ourselves of the pleasantest of all rights, the right to quote. It is true that when we enter into the details of Mr. Eastwick's work, we are bound to point out one or two faults of construction. We cannot altogether pass over the strange com- position of the book, made up as it is of the painful experience of the Financial Commissioner for the General Credit Company, of the quick observation and acute remarks of the real Mr. Eastwick, and of the imaginary adventures of some one rather like Mr. Eastwick who was settled at Valencia and had read Lever's novels. The financial Fart of the book is too dry and documentary. Some of the lighter sketche, are too fanciful. A more judicious mixture of the several parts of the book might have excluded the Irish major, who seems to have desired to perpetuate Sir Lucius O'Trigger among the Spanish South Americans. But an authen- tic record of what Mr. Eastwick did, fused up completely with pictures of what he saw, would have made the Loan of 1864 memorable in the history of letters, and would almost have con- • Venezuela ; or, Sketches of Life in a South American Republic, with the History of the Loan of 1864. By Edward B. Eastwick, 0.B., F.R.S. With a Map. London: Chapman and Hall. 1868.
soled the bondholders for repudiation. They will now have the pleasure of thinking that their Commissioner has brought Vene- zuela to Europe, and that owing to their loss we have seen as with our own eyes the harbours of St. Thomas and La Guaira, the towns of Caracas and Valencia. Yet, perhaps, so great is the perversity of human and of investing nature, these sketches will seem dearly bought. No such sentence could have been passed on the book which, judging from the one now before us, we say Mr. Eastwick might and ought to have written.
Beginning with the voyage out, Mr. Eastwick gives a dreary sketch of St. Thomas. lie calls it the nest of yellow fever, diffi- cult and dangerous of access, swarming with sharks, fearfully depressing, and wholly destitute of fresh water. The drive out of the town leads past the cemeteries of all religions. Apparently the only amusement to be had is a shark hunt. Mr. Eastwick and a friend rowed to the mouth of the harbour towing a dead horse at the stern of the boat. No back fins were visible, but, when the rowers were checked for a moment, several dark lines were seen just astern of the horse, and the instant the boat stopped five monstrous sharks darted at the carcase. Four bullets through the nearest shark and a harpoon driven into it just under the lower jaw disposed of it at once, and when it was towed to the beach it was found to measure more than sixteen feet in length by nearly six feet in circumference. The other sharks had pulled the horse under water, "and we could only tell by the bubbles and bloody foam what a worry was going on below." If the choice of such a place as St. Thomas for a mail station perplexed Mr. Eastwick, he was still more astonished at the open roadstead of La Guaira being the port for the capital of Venezuela. The place is picturesque when viewed from the sea, but there is no shelter for shipping, and the town is considered the hottest in the world. "Perhaps the best way of conveying to a European an idea of the heat, is to say that the mean temperature 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." The temperature of Mr. Eastwick's book is throughout that of Daute's Inferno. We must add that the descriptions are equally vivid. The pictures of the bridle road from La Guaira to Caracas, of the town of Carticns itself, of the town and neighbourhood of Valencia, and of the general configura- tion of the country, may be cited as specimens of Mr. Eastwick's art. But we shall find better things to quote when we conic to the manners and customs of the people.
The republican equality that prevails everywhere except among the sentries impressed Mr. Eastwick more strongly than favourably. The whole nature of the Venezuelans, lie says, is soured as soon as they put on a red uniform. Yet a negro who acts as a sort of permanent official of a lower grade at the Government House in Caracas was allowed to say very sharp things to his superiors. He was once on the balcony with a general, when some students began to utter seditious cries, and exclaim, " Down with the negroes! Down with the brigands !" The General asked his companion sneeringly if he heard what was said about him. "Your excellency," he replied, " I hear. They are calling out ' Down with the negroes !' meaning, of course, me ; and Down with the brigands !' which, as no one else is present, must refer, I suppose, to your excellency." Of the general freedom of man- ners which prevails among the servants Mr. Eastwick gives the following sketch :—
" The doctrine of porfect equality is so well carried out that, in one of the best houses where I was a guest, the gentleman who cleaned the boots always came into my room with his hat on and a cigar in his Mouth ; and another gentleman whom I had engaged to assist Juan, left me the day after his arrival, on being refused the custody of my keys and puree, which ho candidly stated was tho only duty be felt equal to. At dances, as soon as the music strikes up iu the drawing-room, the servants begin to waltz in the passages and auto-rooms, and as enter- tainments aro almost always ou the ground floor, and generally in rooms looking into the streets, the 'groat unwashed' thrust their naked arms and greasy faces between the bars of the windows and criticize the dancing with much spirit. I have aeon a gentleman in rags leaning into a window from the streets with his burn arms almost touching those of a beautifully dressed lady, while his most sweet breath funned her tresses. On another occasion I was talking to some ladies at an evening party, when a worthy sansculotto jerked in his head so suddenly to listen to our conversation, that I stopped, on which he called out, 'Oh, these are the aristocrats wo have hero, who won't talk to any one but their own set!' On my sitting down to play chess with the wife of the president of one of the States, half-a-dozen female servants, of every shade, from tawny twilight to black night, surrounded the table and began to watch the game."
One of the least agreeable features of Venezuelan society is that lunatics are suffered to go about freely. No one ever heard of
their doing any harm. One indeed came into a room in the middle of a dinner party, walked round the table murmuring broken sentences, and finally took up a knife from the sideboard. In another minute he had cut himself rather severely, the blood was trickling from his wrist, be was muttering faster than ever, and his eyes glittered like sparks. Fortunately, one of the company had the presence of mind to fill a glass of wine and offer it to the madman, or the Venezuelan experience of the harmlessness of such people would have been unpleasantly contradicted. A propos of dinners, Mr. Eastwick gives the bill of fare of an entertainment offered to him by the Minister of Public Works. The order of the meal was :—" A brimming plateful of turtle soup, good in quality, overpowering in quantity, and indifferently cooked ; a large fruit of the custard-apple genus ; prawns, parga fish, and oysters ; several fruits of the cactus ; turkey, boned, and the inside filled with a kind of stuffing redolent of garlic ; a plate of cherries ; a fricandeau of some unknown meat ; several slices of pine-apple ; a dish, name unknown, the chief ingredient being the flesh of the land tortoise ; grapes of various kinds ; and an in- finite series of other trifles." In this repast there was not as much garlic as usual. Mr. Eastwick tells of a friend who was so sick of constant garlic that he at last resolved to live on eggs. He found to his horror that the small end of each egg was per- forated, and some of the national condiment infused into it.
Mr. Eastwick is in most respects an enthusiastic admirer of the Venezuelan ladies. They are too refined to go to bull- fights, so that Mr. Burgess could not lay them under contri- bution for a South American " Bravo, toro!" But it is as well that magnificent faces should not be associated with the passion of cruelty, and the Venezuelans are to be seen at their windows, in the streets, or at the churches. Here is one of the scenes which ought to have made amends for any amount of heat and garlic :-
" The Catholic year at Caracas is made up of feasts and fasts, and fasting or feasting, the inhabitants are for over ringing the bells, dis- charging holy squibs and rockets, and walking in tumultuous proces- sions. I lived weeks amid this din, and never could got accustomed to it, nor enjoy that hearty sound slumber which Sancho apostrophizes as the best of wrappers. But, in fairness, it must be added that fiestas have their attractions for strangers as well as their disagroeables. On these days, especially on notable holidays, such as that of Nuestra Senora de la Merced, the fair sox come forth in their gayest attire, and walk in bevies to the churches. It is then, if you are an impartial Paris, that you will resolve to bestow your golden apple on the Creole Venus in preference to all other beauties, so lovely are the faces that shine upon you from under the coquettish mantilla, and so graceful tho figures that undulate along the streets. There may, indeed, bo rosier cheeks and fairer skins elsewhere, but not such largo black eyes, teeth of such dazzling whiteness, such taper waists, and faultless feet and ankles, as belong to the Venezuelan ladies. As for any devout feeling, that, of course, is entirely out of the question. The women come forth to be looked at, and the mon stand in groups on the church stops, or cluster inside, to look at them. All round the churches are pictures, usually sad daubs, and a profusion of wax dolls, representing the Virgin at various periods of her life. Anything more contrary to common sense, to say nothing of good taste and devotional feeling, than those images it is impossible to conceive. Among the absurd groups of dolls I was particularly struck with one at the Merced fiesta, in which the Virgin, dressed in all the frippery imaginable, was kneeling beside a gigantic crucifix, while a six-year-old angel fluttered above the cross, dressed in silver-embroidered trunk hose and tartan leggings of the Royal Stuart pattern. About the middle of the day, when the heat is most trying, there is generally a procession, and the image or picture of the saint is carried about, amid a train of ecclesiastics, and with a body of soldiers as a guard of honour. Every now and then the host is elevated, and down go the people on their knees, and anon guns and rockets are discharged, and the use oven of squibs and crackers is sanctified on such occasions."
In other places, too, Mr. Eastwick is not a little tantalizing with his praises of the Creole beauties. his imaginative sketches swarm with black eyes, profuse locks, rosy cheeks, oval faces, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. Thinking that it was Mr. Eastwick him- self who was asked by a bewildering beauty whether he was married, and who replied with embarrassment " sometimes," we blushed for the credit of the General Credit Company, and felt for the feelings of Messrs. Baxter, Rose, and Norton. But we soon found out our error, and saw that the Financial Commissioner had not been betrayed into any such indiscretions. The Company may safely send him out again whenever there are loans to be ne- gotiated, and if the result of a second mission is at all like that of the first, the sooner Mr. Eastwick carries out another box of gold the better for English readers.
Previous page
