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Why European indoor workmen are not introduced into British Guiana seems inexplicable. That country has been made to be one of the most helpless and least self-sustaining countries in the world. The manufacture of every article, the simplest, the most necessary, excepting the caneplant is discountenanced. Everything almost has to be imported. Some of the preserved provisions are insipid and high-priced, but are allowed to monopolise the place of the fresh wholesome home growth of the country. Thus the country is being steadily impoverished, the importers themselves injured, and only the rich non-resident ship-owners benefited.

The manufacture of tobacco into cigars is extensively pursued in Bolivar. In almost every household one or two women employ their spare time in that occupation, and sell the cigars they make to shopkeepers, who put them up in larger quantities to be sent to other parts of the country, and for exportation to foreign parts. The habit of smoking prevails here. The chemist who makes your medicines-the grocer who puts up

your sugar-the draper opening out a parcel of gloves-the clerk at his accounts, each alike performs his work with the "tobacco" or "cigarro" in his mouth. Even beautiful young ladies lisp the mellow-language of the Spaniard through the fumes of a “cigaretta." Priests in their capacious hat and gown; capuchinos with their serious long beard, their grey cloak and rope girdle pass leisurely along the streets smoking the cigar. The water-carrier trudging behind his donkey laden with kegs of water is not without his cigar. On entering a house almost the first act is the proffer of a cigar. Really if smoke is wholesome, Ciudad Bolivar should be a healthy place. indeed it is not. Calentura (fever) is very prevalent owing to the marshes and stagnant lagoons that make its southern boundary.

But

Bolivar, like most principal Spanish towns, has its university and theatre, its religious processions and bull-fights.

CHAPTER XXX.

A BULL-FIGHT.

THE results of a comparison between the general enthusiasm of the citizens of Maturin, and the apathy and partial attendance of those of Bolivar to the public festivals seem at first sight strange and unaccountable. For whereas in the religious processions and general festivals of Maturin, its streets are overcrowded by the efflux of its own and suburban population, similar festivals in Bolivar, although accompanied with more pomp and splendour, yet lack the thorough heartiness of those who take part in them, while the paucity of followers is an unmistakable symptom of the weak hold of those institutions upon the general public. But several circumstances tend to account for the difference.

The population of Maturin is considerably less than that of Bolivar. The two cities are unlike,

inasmuch as Bolivar, itself wholly a commercial city, is also the commercial focus of the upper Orinoco and Apure, by means of steamers and vessels of considerable tonnage: and land-travelling is almost excluded by the isolated position of the city by reason of swamps, lagoons and rocks. Whereas Maturin, the town residence of farmers with a limited number of merchants, mostly native, is the centre of an agricultural and grazing province, and is easily accessible by means of convenient natural roads from all quarters to the suburban villages and settlements. The Llanerofamilies have also no lack of horses, mules, and donkeys. Perhaps the mixed population of Bolivar, of English and French West Indians, Americans of the United States, and Europeans from every country of that continent has also mainly contributed to the result. These differences of industries, peoples, and modes of travel render the festivities of Maturin a provincial affair, while those of Bolivar are confined not even to the citizens generally, but to only a portion of them.

A forthcoming festival to be celebrated in the

Church Processions.

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town is a topic of conversation in every house of Maturin and its environs for weeks before the day arrives, while in Bolivar I have seen a grand procession led by surpliced choristers, acolytes, and priests with large silver and gold or gilded crucifixes, crosses, and crosiers, attended by dignitaries of the church with profuse decorations, followed by about two hundred persons, a few apparently devout and regular attendants—many casual passers-by who drop on their knees and kiss the hand of one or more of the clergy-several evidently stopped on their way by the crowd-the majority of which is a dirty pack of idle sightseers; while the shops in the street are open and the shopkeepers driving a busy trade. The occupants of other streets are, in the meantime, ignorant of the proceedings until the procession arrives at their own quarter.

It was by the merest accident that I heard of an intended bull-fight or "toreo," to take place within a couple of hours from the time of my receiving information, on the square opposite the governor's residence.

T

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