Note 35 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY

Considering the many natural beauties of the valley of Caracas, its rich, tropical vegetation, its matchless climate, its soft, balmy atmosphere, the rippling brooks and purling rivulets that everywhere gladden the landscape, we can understand how an early Spanish historian, Oviedo y Baños,35 was in his enthusiasm led to declare this location of the capital of Venezuela to be that of the home of perpetual spring—nay, more, that of a terrestrial paradise. If he could revisit these scenes to-day, he would find but little change in their general physical aspect, but he would see at once that the serpent’s trailing has cast a blight over its former beauty, and that the people, as a whole, have sadly degenerated since his time. Then, as he tells us, the stranger that had spent two months in this Eden would never wish to leave it. Alas, that one cannot say this now!36