On the 4th of April, this redoubtable army effected a landing; and once
more, all but an insignificant fraction of Venezuela fell under the hand
of Spain. The flood of successful rebellion was rolled back from the
coast, and Bolívar, with his dauntless partisans, was soon confined to
the Llanos, which stretch away in level immensity from the marshy banks
of the Orinoco, the Apure, and their tributaries.

Our readers have already been introduced to these Llanos, and have
beheld their wild inhabitants amid the monotonous avocations of a time
of peace. Let us now approach them while the "blood-red blossom of war"
blazes up from their torrid vegetation. Let us descend upon them at
night, here, at no great distance from the banks of the cayman-haunted
Apure, and we shall gaze upon a different scene. All around us, the
plain extends in the same desolate immensity that we noticed when we
looked upon it from the _hato_; still, as before, we see it covered with
a dense wilderness of reedy grasses that overtop the tallest trooper
in Morillo's army; as before, we notice the scattered palm-islands,
breaking here and there the uniformity of level; and hosts of cattle and
wild horses are still roaming over the plain.

Near a _mata_, or grove of palm-trees, there is a sound of merry voices
to-night. Fires are crackling here and there; huge strips of fresh beef
are roasting on wooden spits; the long grass has been trodden flat in
a wide circumference, and three or four rudely-constructed huts of
palm-branches close the scene on one side. Five hundred men are
collected here,--the élite of the liberators of Venezuela. Gathered
about their camp-fires, these troopers, who have ridden a hundred miles
since morning, are enjoying rest, refreshment, and recreation. But the
word trooper must not conjure up a vision of belted horsemen, rigid in
uniform, with clanking sabres, and helmets of brass. Of a far different