There is a Telephone Exchange, with four hundred and seventy-five subscribers, with branch lines to La Guayra and other cities. The instrument is very popular in all the tropical countries, where any method by which physical exertion may be avoided receives both public and private approbation. The Spaniard shouts “_Oyez, oyez!_” (Hear ye, hear ye!) when he goes to the telephone, the same words that are used by bailiffs to open courts of law in the United States, and it sounds quite odd not to hear the familiar “Holloa!” after the bell jingles. The telephone is extensively used in private houses; and as the etiquette of the country prohibits ladies from shopping or going upon the streets without an escort, they find Mr. Bell’s invention a great convenience. They visit with their friends and gossip over the wire, order their meats and groceries from the market, and direct the storekeepers to send up samples of the goods they want to buy. The electric light is quite common also, the Opera-house being illuminated by it, as well as the President’s palace, or “Yellow House,” as it is called, in imitation of our President’s mansion at Washington, and other public buildings. The Opera-house is subsidized by the Government during the season. There is always a good company here. Performances are given twice a week, and the subsidy received by the present management is forty thousand dollars for the season, with free use of the house and scenery, which belongs to the Government. We attended a presentation of “Robert le Diable,” and it was as well rendered as the average operatic performance in the United States. The theatre is a magnificent building of stone, standing in a plaza or park; and although the interior is rather bare of decorations, and the attempt to secure the greatest amount of coolness gives it a barn-like air, in its equipments and arrangement the house is equal to any in New York. The attendance was rather small, or looked so in the great auditorium, which seats two thousand five hundred people, and the President, who is said to be a constant devotee of the opera, was absent. When Guzman Blanco drove out the nuns and monks he made good use of their property. One monstrous Carmelite monastery, covering an entire block, was confiscated, remodelled, and turned into a university, which is supported by the Government and attended by the youth of Venezuela professionally inclined. Science, law, medicine, and all the ologies but theology are taught here, and the schools are well managed and of a high grade. Attached to the university is a public library and museum, under the care of Professor Ernst, a distinguished German scientist. This institution is supported by the revenues of a coffee plantation confiscated from the monks and now belonging to the Government.