Our adventure failed because the authorities got wind of the
affair and matters were precipitated. Our leaders at the moment
happened to be scattered over the country--some were abroad; and
a few hotheaded men of the party, who were in Caracas just then
and probably feared arrest, struck a rash blow: the President was
attacked in the street and wounded. But the attackers were
seized, and some of them shot on the following day. When the
news reached me I was at a distance from the capital, staying
with a friend on an estate he owned on the River Quebrada Honda,
in the State of Guarico, some fifteen to twenty miles from the
town of Zaraza. My friend, an officer in the army, was a leader
in the conspiracy; and as I was the only son of a man who had
been greatly hated by the Minister of War, it became necessary
for us both to fly for our lives. In the circumstances we could
not look to be pardoned, even on the score of youth.

Our first decision was to escape to the sea-coast; but as the
risk of a journey to La Guayra, or any other port of embarkation
on the north side of the country, seemed too great, we made our
way in a contrary direction to the Orinoco, and downstream to
Angostura. Now, when we had reached this comparatively safe
breathing-place--safe, at all events, for the moment--I changed
my mind about leaving or attempting to leave the country. Since
boyhood I had taken a very peculiar interest in that vast and
almost unexplored territory we possess south of the Orinoco, with
its countless unmapped rivers and trackless forests; and in its
savage inhabitants, with their ancient customs and character,
unadulterated by contact with Europeans. To visit this primitive
wilderness had been a cherished dream; and I had to some extent