The friendliness of Fate, in throwing me in the way of adventures which were beyond my discernment, was never more plainly evidenced than on my return to New York from Australia and Egypt in 1890. On the trip across the Atlantic my mind had wandered away from the West Indies and I experienced an increasing desire to return to South America, but one of the first things I heard on my arrival was that my old friend Guzman Blanco had finally been shorn of his supreme power in Venezuela only a few months before. He had been betrayed by his friends, after the established fashion of that captivating country, and Dr. Anduesa Palacio, one of his enemies of years, had been made President with the approval and assistance of Dr. Rojas Paul, the dummy whom Guzman had left as titular head of the government while he was revelling in Paris, his foreign capital. This discouraged me for a time in my half-formed plan to return to my Southern stamping ground, and as I had plenty of money and was not averse to a rest, I concluded to wait around, Micawber like, for something to turn up. But it was not long until a silent voice began calling me to South America; softly, at first, and then so loudly that it came as a command. I had heard the same sort of an order before, and only very recently, and was not disposed to disregard it. I felt sure it would not lead me into disappointment twice in succession. Without knowing where or how the cruise would end, but confident it would lead to trouble--though I did not imagine how much of it there really would be or how unpleasant it would prove--I bought the “Alice Ada,” a brigantine of three hundred tons, laid her on with Thos. Norton & Sons, and got a general cargo for Rosario, Brazil, on the River Parava. From Rosario I went one hundred miles up the river to St. Stephens and took on a cargo of wheat for Rio Janiero. As soon as I had looked around a little in Rio, while the cargo was being unloaded, I understood why I had gone there, for my expectant eye distinguished signs of a nice little revolution which was just being shaped up. These indications, though somewhat vague to even an experienced new arrival, were so encouraging in their promise of exciting events that I sold my ship and took quarters at the Hotel Freitas to watch developments. I had not long to wait before the young republic celebrated its first revolution, but it was accomplished in such a disgracefully quiet way, and in such marked contrast with that sort of proceeding in Venezuela, and in Central America and the West Indies, that I was thoroughly disgusted with the country and was tempted to move on again into new fields. A land in which the government is changed by the force of public sentiment alone, and without the booming of cannon and the bursting of bombs, has no charm for me.