and
enjoy the sea breeze above them and the convicts by holding a mirror
between the bars of the dungeons can see who is leaning over the
parapet above them. Then they hold out their hands and you drop
nickels and they fail to catch them and the sentry comes up and teases
them by holding the money a few inches beyond their reach. They climb
all over the crossbars in their anxiety to get the money and look like
great monkeys. At night it is perfectly tremendous for their is only a
light over their heads and they crawl all over the bars beneath this,
standing on each other's shoulders and pushing and fighting and yelling
half naked and wholey black and covered with sweat. As a matter of
fact they are better content to stay in jail than out and when the
British Consul offered to send eight of them back to Jamaica they
refused to go and said they would rather serve out their sentence of
eight years. This is the way the place looks and I am going to
introduce it in a melodrama and have some one lower files down to the
prisoners. DICK.

After some not very eventful or pleasant days at Caracas, Richard
sailed for home and from the steamer wrote the following letter:

March 26th--On board S. S. Caracas.

DEAR CHAS:

Off the coast of God's country. Hurrah! H---- did not come near us
until the morning of our departure when he arrived at the Station
trembling all over and in need of a shave. But in the meanwhile the
consul at Caracas picked Griscom and myself up in the street and took
us in to see Crespo who received us with much dignity and politeness.
So we met him after all and helped the story out that much.

There is not much more to tell except that I was never so glad to set
my face home as I am now and even the roughness of this trip cannot
squelch my joy. It seems to me as if years had passed since we left
and to think we are only three days off from Sandy Hook seems much too
wonderfully good to be possible. Some day when we have dined alone
together at Laurent's I will tell you the long story of how Somers and
Gris came to be decorated with the Order of the Bust of Bolivar the
Liberator of Venezuela of the 4th class but at present I will only say
that there is a third class of the order still coming to me in Caracas,
as there is 20 minutes still coming to Kelly in Brooklyn. It was a
matter of either my getting the third class, which I ought to have had
anyway having the third class of another order