profoundly affected him and changed the course of his life. To
me alone was the truth known, and I must now tell, briefly as
possible, how my great friendship and close intimacy with him
came about.

When, in 1887, I arrived in Georgetown to take up an appointment
in a public office, I found Mr. Abel an old resident there, a man
of means and a favourite in society. Yet he was an alien, a
Venezuelan, one of that turbulent people on our border whom the
colonists have always looked on as their natural enemies. The
story told to me was that about twelve years before that time he
had arrived at Georgetown from some remote district in the
interior; that he had journeyed alone on foot across half the
continent to the coast, and had first appeared among them, a
young stranger, penniless, in rags, wasted almost to a skeleton
by fever and misery of all kinds, his face blackened by long
exposure to sun and wind. Friendless, with but little English,
it was a hard struggle for him to live; but he managed somehow,
and eventually letters from Caracas informed him that a
considerable property of which he had been deprived was once more
his own, and he was also invited to return to his country to take
his part in the government of the Republic. But Mr. Abel, though
young, had already outlived political passions and aspirations,
and, apparently, even the love of his country; at all events, he
elected to stay where he was--his enemies, he would say
smilingly, were his best friends--and one of the first uses he
made of his fortune was to buy that house in Main Street which
was afterwards like a home to me.

I must state here that my friend's full name was Abel Guevez de