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Upon receiving this telegram at night, before a lonely dinner, Mrs. Eustace Greyne was deeply moved. She felt she had been hasty. She knew that to very few women was it given to have a husband so free from all masculine infirmities as Mr. Greyne. At the same time there was "Catherine," there was the mansion in Park Lane, there was the Venezuelan millionaire.
This was at the time of the Venezuelan crisis: the United States, which for nearly one hundred years had lived in perfect peace with a British power touching her frontier along three thousand miles, laid it down as a doctrine that her existence was imperilled if Great Britain should extend by so much as a mile a vague frontier running through a South American swamp thousands of miles away.
The matter was then taken up diplomatically, as stated above, but was dropped when the Venezuelan boundary dispute became acute. Lord Salisbury's proposal was favorably received by President Cleveland, and after mature deliberation the draft of a treaty was finally drawn up and signed by Secretary Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote.
Moreover a fact which I certainly did not expect the western side of this supposed land, namely, Trinidad, Tobago, Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia, have, as far as land-shells are concerned, a Venezuelan fauna; while the eastern side of it, namely, Barbadoes, Martinique, Dominica, Guadaloupe, Antigua, etc., have, most strangely, the fauna of Guiana.
During this time he received occasional lessons from the brilliant Venezuelan pianist, Teresa Carreño, who admired his gifts and later played his piano concertos. Edward was now fifteen, and his family considered he was to become a musician. In those days and for long after, even to the present moment, it was thought necessary for Americans to go to Europe for serious study and artistic finish.
"There were also on board Monsieur and Madame Boisson, from Caracas, returning home to Europe after a lengthened residence in the Venezuelan capital, where they had carried on a large millinery business, supplying the dusky senoritas of the hybrid Spanish and native republic with the latest Parisian modes; Don Miguel, the proprietor of an extensive estancia in the interior; and little Mr Johnson, a Britisher, of not much account in your country, I guess, not a gentleman at all events, in my humble opinion.
But she did not bother Georg and me with woman's fears. Bravely she kept her own counsel, anxious only to be of help to us. We passed over the Venezuelan Province, over the mountains and into Amazonia, headwaters of the great river still on the 67th Meridian West.
For one thing, public opinion is not centralised in America as it is in England. Only the good-humoured common-sense of British diplomacy prevented war at the time of the Venezuelan incident; and it may be that the same influence would be strong enough to prevent it again.
"For my part," he stated, "I renounce forever the authority you have conferred upon me, and, while the fearful Venezuelan war lasts, I shall accept none save that of a simple soldier. The first day of peace will be the last of my command." Venezuela had lost the best of her blood; she was nothing better than a heap of ruins, and yet, she was preparing for new and greater undertakings.
Brought up amid the herds of half-wild cattle belonging to his father, who was a landholder in the Venezuelan plains, he became thoroughly skilled in the care of cattle and horses, and an adept at curing their disorders. He was accustomed to mount and subdue the wildest horses, and was noted for strength and agility and for power of enduring fatigue.
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