The Ely miner., 1924-06-27
CAPTAINS OF
ADVENTURE
rirhthx xRohhs.n rrIlCo
By ROGER POCOCK

with axes, bayonets and knives, and
their bodies thrown on the flames.
Meanwhile Bolivar, in his .office, re-
freshed himself by writing proclama-
| ton to denOunce the atrocities of the
Spaniards.
Southwark of the Orinoco river there
are vast level prairies called llanos,
cattle country, handled by wild
horseman known as the laneros. In
BOlivar's time their leader called him.
self Boves, and he had as second in
command Morales. Boves said that
Morales was "atrocious." Morales said
that "Boves was man of merit, but
too blood-thirsty." The Spanlards
called their command "The Internal
Division" At first they fought for
the revolution, afterward for Spain,
but they were really quite impartial
and spared neither age nor sex. This
was the Spanish" army which swept
away the second Venezuelan republic,
slaughtering the whole population save
some few poor starving camps of fugi-
tives, Then Boves reported to the
Spanish general, II have recovered the
arms, ammunition, and the honor of
the Spanish flag, which your excel
lency lost at CarabObo."
From this time onward the situation
was rather like a dog fight, with the
republican dog somewhere underneath
in the middle. At times Bolivar ran
like rabbit, at times he was grant
ed triumph, but whenever he had
time to come up and breathe he fired
off volleys of proclamations. In six
teen years painstaking Colombian
counted six hundred nlnety-six battles,
which makes an average of one every
ninth day, not to mention massacres;
but for all his puny body and feeble
health Bolivar was always to be found
in the very thick of the scrimmage.
Europe had entered on the peace Of
Waterloo, but the ghouls who stripped
the dead after Napoleon's battles had
uniforms to sell which went to clothe
the fantastic mobs, republican and roy
alist who drenched all Spanish Ameri-
ca with blood. There were soldiers,
too, whose trade of war was at an
end in Europe, who gladly listened to
BOlivar's agents, who offered gorgeous
uniforms and promised splendid wages
never paid-and who came to join
in the war for liberty" Three hun
dred Germans and nearly six thousand
British veterans joined Bolivar's colors
to fight for the freedom of America,
and nearly all of them perished in
battle or by disease. Bolivar was
never without British officers, pre-
ferred British troops to all others. and
in his later years really earned the
loyal love they gave him, while they
taught the liberator how to behave
like a white man.
1t was in 1919 that Bolivar led
force of two thousand five hundred
men across a flooded prairie. For
week they were up to their knees,
at times to their necks in water I'M
der a tropic deluge of rain, swimming
dozen rivers beset by alligatOrs. The
climate and starvation bore very heav-
lily upon the British troops. Beyond
the flood they climbed the eastern
Andes and crossed the Paramo at
height of thirteen thousand feet,
swept by an icy wind in binding fog
hard going for Venezuelans.
An Irishman, Colonel Rook, COM
manded the British contingent. "All,"
he reported, twas quite well with his
corps, which had had quite a pleasant
march" through the awful gorges and
over the freezing Paramo. A Ven
ezuelan officer remarked here that one
fourth of the men had perished.
st was true" said Rook, "but it
really was very good thing, for the
men who had dropped out were all the
wastrels and weaklings Of the force"
Great was the astonishment of the
royalists when Bolivar dropped on
them out Of the clouds, and in
the battle of Boyaca they were put
to rout. Next day Colonel Rook had
his arm cut off by the surgeons, chaff.
ing them about the beautiful limb he
was losing. He died of the operation,
but the British legion went on from
victory to victory, melting away like
snow until at the end negroes and In
OlanS nlIeQ Ills llluStTlOuS COllpdIllcS.
Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador,
Peru and Bolivia were freed from the
Spanish yoke and, in the main, released
by Bolivar's tireless, unfailing and un-
daunted courage. But they could not
stand his braggart proclamations,
would not have him or any man for
master, began a series of squabbles
and revolutions that have lasted ever
since, and proved themselves unfit for
the freedom Bolivar gave. He knew
at the end that he had given his life
for myth. On the eighth of December,
1880, he dictated his final proclamation
and on the tenth received the last
rites of the church, being still his
old braggart self. "Colombians! my
last wishes are for the welfare of the
fatherland. If my death contributes
to the cessation of party strife, and
to the consolidation of the Union, /
shall descend in peace to the grave"
On the seventeenth his troubled spirit
passed.