In the rainy season the holes fill at once with water, and indeed the whole plain is immersed to the depth of a foot or more; then the men have to work up to their waists in water, chopping beneath the surface, prying the pieces loose with their toes and tearing the chunks off by taking long breaths and reaching far down for a few seconds at a time. When we cross our asphalt streets and smell the tarry odor and feel its softness under a mid-summer’s sun, let us think of the strange lake in the tropical wilderness. The table talk at “Headquarters,” was often most amusing. Torrents of Spanish eloquence and gesticulations kept our English ears ever on the alert to follow the meaning, and our sense of humor ever under strict control to preserve well-bred gravity when such statements were made as “Venezuela leads not only all the South American countries, but all those of North America as well, in literature, art, science and commerce. When our General Blank went to New York the greatest ovation ever paid any general in the world was given him. New York remained amazed!” Once only did I look amused and I have never quite recovered from my mortification at thus disgracing myself. Whatever the faults of the Spaniard may be, he never smiles when he is not intended to; not even at the laughable mistakes which we foreigners make when we are learning his beautiful language. I try to say in extenuation of my unseemly mirth that the Spaniard has no sense of humor and that we should very much prefer having him laugh at our mistakes and letting us correct them. But all to no purpose. I know that I did not behave like a well conducted _Venezolana_, and nothing can alter that fact. The three Venezuelans had been put in charge of the Pitch Lake,—because their “Sister’s husband’s niece” had power in the court of Castro. Among their regular duties they included singing airs from the operas, reading Don Quixote and the Caracas newspapers and playing dominos. [Illustration: FIG. 51. INHABITANTS OF GUANOCO ASSEMBLED FOR A DANCE.] They had provided themselves with elaborate costumes for the rôle; they carried big revolvers and wore huge green and white cork helmets, khaki riding clothes, puttees, spurs, and carried riding whips. There was not a horse within fifty miles! No horse, even had there been one, could penetrate the tiny forest trails about Guanoco. In the dancing sunlight and shadows and the orchid-fragrant air it was hard to picture spilt blood and intrigue and treachery, and harder still to prophesy the sad times that were to come upon Guanoco. Yet while we were there the air teemed with revolutionary rumors. The _Jefe civil_, as the chief magistrate was called, was off day after day investigating first one suspicion and then another, returning utterly spent with the exhaustion of unresting days and nights upon the trail. Revolutionists had attempted to land guns on the near-by coast. There had been a skirmish and several men had been killed.