equalitarian frenzy. Their leaders--Falcon, Zamora--were demagogues on horseback. At the spectacle of this barbarism Paez, returning in 1861 from the United States, restored reaction and autocracy. On September 10th he proclaimed himself supreme chief in the face of the federal power; an octogenarian, he gathered all the powers of the State into his trembling hand; a melancholy symbol of the oligarchy, exhausted in its struggle against the invading democracy. In vain did he issue tyrannical decrees; he could not prevent the triumph of federation. At Coche, Guzman-Blanco, general of the federal forces, negotiated with Rojas, the omnipotent secretary of Paez, an agreement which put an end to the tottering dictatorship. The action of the founder of Venezuela, "the man of the plains," representing the conservative aristocracy, was over. He died in 1873, when his work of a half-century was about to be continued, under another form, by the great _caudillo_ Antonio Guzman-Blanco. He was the son of Antonio Leocadio Guzman, leader of the liberal party. He had travelled in the United States, was a diplomatist, and had followed a course of study in the law, and on his return to Venezuela had directed military operations during the revolt against Paez. He had the gifts of the military leader; he skilfully organised attack and retreat in that difficult warfare of many factions amidst the plains; he revealed himself as a heroic leader of men, dashing and persevering. In 1862 {107} he attained the rank of General-in-Chief of the Army. The General Assembly elected him vice-president of the Republic, under the presidency of Falcon, after the agreement of Coche. Guzman-Blanco then contracted a loan of one and a half million pounds in London, where Venezuelan credit was ruined. It was necessary to restore the public finances after the long crisis of the revolution. The operation was onerous, and the liberal leader was criticised. However, the Venezuelan Congress awarded him a prize in the form of an award of money. In 1865 and 1866, during the absences of President Falcon, he exercised command with admirable political tact, introducing severe financial economies, regularising the debt, and suppressing sinecures and pensions. In the political world, despite the triumph of the federals, he demanded the reinforcement of the central power, as against the anarchy of the autonomous provinces. In fact, a new constitution, extremely liberal, which was promulgated by the Assembly in 1864, had conceded an excessive degree of independence upon the provinces.