In the sluggish days that
preceded the revolutionary efforts of our fathers, a nationality was
fixed, seemingly immutable, the growth of scarcely numbered ages, the
daughter of immemorial Time. A people then could place its hand upon its
title-deeds, and, looking back through half a score of centuries, trace
its gradual development from nothingness to power. To-day, on the
contrary,--to use a somewhat daring metaphor,--nations have become
autochthonous; they have repudiated the feeble processes of conception
and tutelage; they spring, armed and full-grown, from the forehead of
their progenitors, or rise, in sudden ripeness, from the soil.
Thousands must now be living, the citizens of prosperous states, who
can recall the days when they had entered upon manhood and yet the name
itself of their nation had no existence. How many, indeed, are still
among us, to whom nations owe the impetus that gave them birth!
Prominent, at least, among those who can lay claim to such distinction,
there still stands one whose career it were well, perhaps, to study. We
will endeavor to profit by a glance at it.
With this intent let us transport ourselves in imagination to the Llanos
or Plains of Venezuela. It is a region similar in some respects, widely
dissimilar in others, to the more celebrated Pampas of the regions to
the south. The wonderful plain, covering more than two hundred thousand
square miles, and forming the basin of the gigantic Orinoco, is a study
in itself.
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