This declaration of independence caused a great sensation in the Catholic Church, and excommunication was threatened to all who failed in their allegiance to the Vatican; but neither the Government nor the people were to be intimidated, and the Pope has since tried diplomatic measures to restore union with the Mother Church. There has been a nuncio there for several years, and he resides there still, but is making no progress. Macuto is the Newport of Venezuela--the summer, or rather the winter resort of the wealthy and aristocratic, who find the temperature of Caracas trying upon their constitutions, and seek sea-air, sea-bathing, and flirtations under the palms. It is six miles from La Guayra, and is reached by a tramway, over which a little dummy engine goes shrieking every half hour, and by a broad boulevard which would furnish as delightful a drive as that upon the beach at Long Branch were it not for the dust, which is almost hub-deep, and nearly suffocates one. La Guayra, as I have stated, has the blissful reputation of being the hottest place on earth, shut in as it is by mountains on all sides but the west, and blistering not only in the direct heat but in that reflected from the rocks, which is a great deal more oppressive--a pocket which no air except the west wind, the hottest of all, can reach. But Macuto is around the corner, one might say--around a point of rocks, and upon a little peninsula that stretches out from the beach, where it can catch not only all the breezes that ruffle the sea, but the winds that come from the mountains, down a ravine through which flows a beautiful stream as cool as one in the Adirondacks. It was Guzman Blanco, of course, who found out this little settlement of fishermen, built the seawall to protect the peninsula, made the boulevard from the city, built the railroad, brought plenty of fresh water from the mountains, and built bath-houses there; so that the people of La Guayra can in twelve minutes leave the hottest place on earth for one where the air is always fresh and cool, where yellow-fever never comes, and where a good salt-water bath can be had for the sum of six cents in Venezuela money.