coast, the level region of his refuge, Paez was compelled to evacuate
the Plains, and leave them to the invader. With a few hundred of his
horsemen he established himself on the Plains of New Granada. Scarcely
had he grown familiar with his new centre of action when the troops of
Morillo were turned westward for the purpose of curbing the rebellious
spirits in the neighboring Vice-Royalty,--when, quicker than thought,
Paez was once more over the mountains, and recovered by a sudden swoop
the Llanos of Barinas. Thenceforward, this region remained the surest
foothold of the revolution in Venezuela. Encircled with Spanish troops,
it remained, nevertheless, a practical republic in itself, and the
vast basin of the Orinoco was the cradle of Venezuelan freedom. The
Provisional Government consisted of a mere council of generals, who, in
1816, created Paez General and Supreme Chief of the Republic. A vast
stride from the _hatero's_ hut that we saw him inhabiting in 1808!

Paez resigned this dignity in favor of Bolívar in the following year,
contenting himself with his great military command. Surrounded by the
body-guard we have seen, through all the years 1816, 1817, and 1818, now
in Venezuela, now in New Granada, in the Plains to-day, in the mountains
to-morrow, enduring every privation, braving odds apparently the most
overwhelming, fighting pitched battles at midnight, and triumphantly
effecting surprises in the open day, he maintained alive, in the midst
of general discouragement, the cause he had espoused. Bolívar, the
Liberator, was meanwhile endeavoring to make head against the Spaniards
elsewhere, and gathered a considerable force in the interior province of
Guiana. In 1818, the vanguard of the British legion--troops browned by
the sun of Spain, who had marched with Wellington from Lisbon to the
Pyrenees, and who gladly accepted the offers of the Patriots when
Waterloo had put an end to European strife--sailed up the Orinoco, and
effected a junction with the assembled Patriot forces.