# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Bolivar at Caracas

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BOLIVAR AT CARACAS
NATURE did not share in the dulness of Lent. On the contrary, she was full of promise for Easter joys. Flowers blazed on the lower slopes of the Andes, and bright birds flashed through the air. Holy Week of 1812 was nearly over; the people of Caracas were preparing to decorate their altars; their gatherers were out on the hills, collecting orchids and cactus blooms, and all was tranquil and beautiful. Two men walked apart at the city's edge, one of them tall, dark, garbed as a civilian, the other short, slight, strong-faced, suggesting, in his uniform, both Jackson and Napoleon. They were speaking of the progress made by the people in the fight against a foreign and monarchical government. Said the tall man, "Yet, Simon Bolivar, there are times when I fear. ​Of late we often have smoke and dust in the air, and I have fancied that I heard faint rumblings and felt an ague in the earth. Suppose the masses should be told by some fanatic that these were signs of the divine wrath against our cause!"
"It would be sad. The people are credulous. They remember, too, that Caracas has already suffered from the anger of heaven, as some of them phrase it. We are walking at this moment in the basin of a lake that disappeared in a night. This city may be swallowed up in as short a time. But I believe that the just cause wins. Whatever happens, liberty will be ours."
The two men kept for some time in earnest talk, not noticing that the sky was becoming overcast and smoky, that the sun had grown red, that the day had lost its freshness and the very birds were uneasy. A portent seemed to be in the air. The mountains were fading. The silence and breathlessness had become intense. Sharing in the vague apprehension that began to possess all living things, General Bolivar and his companion started back toward the centre of the town. As he was recognized, the people cried, "The liberator! The liberator!" His strengthening presence gave com-fort to them. In the churches the Lenten music was low and mournful, and in the dim light of their candles they were cavernous and full of mystery. Hark! From some unguessed place, in the sky or in the bowels of the earth, came a rumbling, ​as of thunder. Then, silence, in which creation held its breath to listen. Some of the people left the churches, unable to endure the oppression and suspense. Bolivar had paused at the cathedral door, when, with groan and crash and grinding of masonry, the earthquake came. Peaks toppled, cliffs broke and slid to their bases, the sea battered the coast in stupendous breakers, the air darkened to twilight, towers and houses fell, flames began to rise among their wrecks, the earth cracked and gaped and swallowed people, two volcanoes burst their seal of centuries and belched lava, while roarings and boomings added to the terror. The city melted like wax in the heat. It was soon over. Death and desolation are quickly wrought. Twelve thousand people were killed. Bolivar's heart sank as he looked about him on the panic-stricken survivors. In a sort of childlike helplessness they turned to him, standing on an eminence of ruin, and called again, "Liberator! Liberator!" He clambered down to them and urged on the work of rescue, with his own hands dragging blocks and beams from groaning victims, wiping dust and mortar from eyes that stared at the dusky heavens, restoring children to parents and binding the hurts of the wounded. "It is the wrath of heaven," cried one white-faced man. "God is against us."
"Silence!" commanded Bolivar. "To say that God sides with the tyrant is blasphemy. Our city is destroyed, but not our freedom. Neither men ​nor nature can avail against the right. Cities, governments, may fall, but justice, brotherhood,—nothing can shake them."
"It is true," cried another. "Our priests are dead, but God has spared our leader, Bolivar, to march with us to victory."
A wan gleam of the sun, piercing the dreadful canopy, lighted the face of the Liberator with a halo.