The third Venezuelan Congress met in January, 1833, and proceeded to incorporate the wandering soldiers of the revolution into a regular army, and to arrange the division of the public debt and other agreements with Colombia and Ecuador. At the end of 1834 there were four candidates for the presidency, of whom Doctor José Maria Vargas was elected in 1835; a good omen for the country, inasmuch as Vargas was a scholar, not a soldier, and his claim to the confidence of his country rested on more solid grounds than those of his military opponents. He was only prevailed upon with difficulty to stand, or to act when elected, but displayed a praiseworthy loftiness of motive while in office. Mariño, however, showed his shallow and selfish nature once more in raising discontent amongst those who considered that might should triumph over right rather than the reverse; Vargas resigned early in 1836, and for the rest of this presidential term the vice-president carried out the duties of the office. In 1839 Páez was again elected President, and in that year did much to increase the prosperity of the country and to raise its position in South America. The cart-road from La Guaira to Carácas was opened, and another commenced between Puerto Cabello and Valencia. The liberty of the press was so far increased that A. L. Guzman was able to start the journal _El Venezolano_ in opposition to the existing Government, and in support of the Federal ideal of the newly formed Liberal party, the Centralists being known as the Oligarca. In the following year a colonisation scheme was put forward, and a national college for girls opened, while an attempt was made to found a national bank in 1841. This year also saw authority given to the executive to take measures for the education and civilisation of the aborigines, and to put in hand the standard works on the geography and history of Venezuela by Codazzi and Baralt. In 1842, the last year of Páez’s second presidency, the gradually increasing appreciation of Bolivar’s services to his country culminated on April 30th in a decree of public honours to the “Libertador,” as he was now styled, and burial in state in Carácas. The Venezuelan boats _Constitucion_ and _Carácas_, H.M.S. _Albatross_, the Dutch warship _La Venus_, and the French frigate _Circe_, accordingly left La Guaira, bearing a deputation of influential men, including Vargas, and reached Santa Marta on November 16th. The people of Nueva Granada recognised willingly the prior claims of Carácas, as Bolivar’s birthplace, and his body was borne back on the _Constitucion_. A permanent triumphal arch had been erected in his honour at the foot of El Calvario, and the remains were laid to rest in the chapel of the Holy Trinity in Carácas Cathedral, being transferred later to the Pantheon.