Forty miles is the estimated distance from Táriba to La Grita, but the road is sufficiently good to make it seem shorter, and the view up the valley, with mountains rising tier upon tier into the clouds, is superb. The town was founded in 1576, on a gravel _mesa_ or tableland, necessitated a steep climb before actually entering the town. Its position makes it peculiarly subject to earthquake shocks, but in spite of this the old churches and Government buildings are still standing. The many stores are an indication of the importance of La Grita as a market town, and on Sunday one finds the streets full of countrymen in charge of mules laden with the wheat, wool, tobacco, and cotton of the surrounding country. At 6,000 feet above the sea, the town has the reputation of being one of the healthiest in Venezuela, and certainly the apples, apricots, and peaches in the patios, with roses and violets beneath them, are a pleasant sight to the man from the north, who has found the “luscious fruits” and gorgeous flowers of the tropics a snare and delusion. A few miles down the river towards Uracá is Seboruco, with its copper-mines, soon, it is said, to be worked again. Not far above the town is the Pass of Portachuelo, which marks the boundary with Mérida, the central of the three Andine States. Mérida is the mountain State _par excellence_ of Venezuela, including within its boundaries the highest peaks and some of the hottest valleys in the country. With this variety of climate it is natural that the range of products should be wide, but bad roads and resulting high cost of transport have kept the country largely undeveloped. The capital was founded in 1542 under the lengthy appellation of Santiago de los Caballeros de Mérida, and it has long been the seat of the Bishop of the Andes. A colporteur having recently been found in the diocese selling Bibles, the energetic occupant of the see promptly excommunicated him and all who had purchased the forbidden books; his zeal, however, seems merely to have rendered more marked the indifference of the male portion of the population to public religion of any kind.