Bogota was once a city famous for its learned societies and literary culture, but during the last decade the entire population have been devoting themselves to politics and war. The revolution of 1884-5 was prolonged and disastrous, and there has been little, if any, improvement in political or commercial conditions since. The Liberal party, representing the young and progressive element, elected as President in 1884 Dr. Rafael Nuñez, and then attempted to overthrow him because of his reactionary tendencies. Nuñez was sustained by the clerical, or Bourbon element; and having a well-organized army behind him, succeeded not only in maintaining his power, but in re-electing himself for a second term with a Congress unanimously in sympathy with his policy. The Constitution was so amended as to transform the Federation into an inseparable union of States like our own, the name was changed from “The United States of Colombia” to “The Republic of Colombia,” and the President was endowed with most extraordinary powers, little short of those exercised by the Shah of Persia or the Czar of Russia. Then a treaty, or “concordat,” was entered into with the Vatican, under which the civil as well as the ecclesiastical authority of the Pope is recognized, and all that the Liberal party had accomplished during its struggles for thirty years was wiped out by a single stroke of the pen. [Illustration: DON RAFAEL NUÑEZ, EX-PRESIDENT.] The extreme ultramontanism of Dr. Nuñez awakened a series of revolutions, and resulted in his abdication of the Presidency; his successor being Dr. Holguin, one of the most prominent and learned leaders of the Clerical party, who has spent his life in Congress, in the executive departments of the Government, and in the diplomatic service. CARACAS. THE CAPITAL OF VENEZUELA. The voyage from New York to Venezuela is one of the most delightful in the world, and gives the traveller not only a nine days’ taste of the sea, but shows him a glimpse of tropical America, and affords him an opportunity to study the peculiar life and customs of our Spanish-American neighbors. A splendid fleet of steamers--the “Red D” line, owned by Messrs. Boulton, Bliss & Dallett, of New York, and sailing under the American flag--furnish as comfortable transportation facilities as can be found on any ocean, and the journey can be made in thirty days, eighteen of which will be spent at sea and at the ports of the Antilles, and the remainder at the capital and chief cities of Venezuela.