By a resolution of congress General Castro is empowered to hold the office of president for six years from 1902. Bitter and costly as have been the experiences through which Venezuela has passed during the last twelve years, the vast majority of the intelligent and property-holding classes realise more clearly than outsiders possibly can that internal stability will alone ensure the commercial development of the country; that Venezuela united is far more likely to prosper than if separated into always jealous and often warring provinces. The mass of the people are industrious and peaceable. Real progress has been made since the time of Bolivar in the almost impossible task of adjusting republican forms and procedure to a people who by inheritance and tradition knew nothing of the difficult art of self-government. It cannot fairly be said that Venezuela as yet sees her way clear to a solution of the problem, but her commercial statistics for the last thirty years prove that her people have acquired industrial capacity, and the history of other Spanish-American countries shows that the power for evil of the turbulent military class may perish once for all with startling suddenness when the right stage in national development is reached. COLOMBIA CHAPTER I CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT When Alonso de Ojeda coasted along the Venezuelan shore in the spring of 1499 he stopped short just west of the Gulf of Maracaibo, near the present boundary between Venezuela and Colombia. The following year Rodrigo Bastida doubled the Goajira peninsula and pursued his voyage to the west, catching sight of the giant snowclad mountains of Santa Marta and of the low land which lies between them and the sea. Coming to the mouth of a great river on the day sacred to Saint Magdalene, he named it the Magdalena, and farther to the south-west found the fine harbour where the city of Cartagena now stands. At the head of the Gulf of Darien he came to another great river, the Atrato, and here his explorations stopped.