he mother smiled thanks and delight, but the men
around likewise, as if a compliment had been paid to their whole
company. We saw afterwards almost daily proofs of the Coolie men's
fondness for their children; of their fondness also--an excellent
sign that the morale is not destroyed at the root--for dumb animals.
A Coolie cow or donkey is petted, led about tenderly, tempted with
tit-bits. Pet animals, where they can be got, are the Coolie's
delight, as they are the delight of the wild Indian. I wish I could
say the same of the Negro. His treatment of his children and of his
beasts of burden is, but too often, as exactly opposed to that of
the Coolie as are his manners. No wonder that the two races do not,
and it is to be feared never will, amalgamate; that the Coolie,
shocked by the unfortunate awkwardness of gesture and vulgarity of
manners of the average Negro, and still more of the Negress, looks
on them as savages; while the Negro, in his turn hates the Coolie as
a hard-working interloper, and despises him as a heathen; or that
heavy fights between the two races arise now and then, in which the
Coolie, in spite of his slender limbs, has generally the advantage
over the burly Negro, by dint of his greater courage, and the
terrible quickness with which he wields his beloved weapon, the long
hardwood quarterstaff.

But to return: we rowed away with a hundred confused, but most
pleasant new impressions, amid innumerable salaams to the Governor
by these kindly courteous people, and then passed between the larger
limestone islands into the roadstead of Chaguaramas, which ought to
be, and some day may be, the harbour for the British West India
fleet; and for the shipping, too, of that commerce which, as
Humboldt prophesied, must some day spring up between Europe and the
boundless wealth of the Upper Orinoco, as yet lying waste. Already
gold discoveries in the Sierra de Parima (of which more hereafter)
are indicating the honesty of poor murdered Raleigh. Already the
good President of Ciudad Bolivar (Angostura) has disbanded the
ruffian army, which is the usual curse of a Spanish American
republic, and has inaugurated, it is to be hoped, a reign of peace
and commerce. Already an American line of steamers runs as far as
Nutrias, some eight hundred miles up the Orinoco and Apure; while a
second will soon run up the Meta, almost to Santa Fe de Bogota, and
bring down the Orinoco th