Drake’s capture of Caracas was considered the boldest of all his achievements. It was in 1595 that he stood in with his squadron at La Guayra, and the inhabitants, when they realized the presence of the man who had devastated the West Indies, abandoned their homes and fled to the mountains, carrying the news of the arrival of the terrible Englishman. The Alcaldes of Caracas assembled all the men in the country who could carry arms, from the ages of sixteen to seventy, and marched down the wagon-road along which the railway runs, to stay the invader. Half way down they prepared an ambush and lay in wait to annihilate him. Drake landed at La Guayra with seventy men, captured a fellow named Villalpando, who, by gifts of treasure, agreed to guide him up the old, dangerous, and abandoned Indian trail. So, while the gallant Alcaldes with all the men of Caracas were marching down one road Sir Francis was marching up another, which they thought he would not dare to climb. Neither met an enemy, and while the Spaniards were lying in ambush Sir Francis was hanging the traitorous Villalpando in what is now the Plaza Bolivar, drinking the wine from the Spanish cellars, ravishing the women, and plundering the houses of the citizens. But one old hidalgo, named Alonzo de Ledeoma, who remained behind, denounced the invaders from the threshold of his plundered house, declared them to be cravens, and dared the bravest of the Englishmen to meet him in single combat. Sir Francis and his crew jeered at the brave old man, and told him to send for his fellow-citizens who had gone down the mountain-road; but he insisted on fighting them alone, and was accommodated. They killed him as tenderly as they could, set fire to the city, and then, laden with all the portable property of value in Caracas, marched down the ravine to La Guayra again, and sailed away with a million dollars’ worth of treasure, captured without the loss of a single man.