This had hardly gone into operation when, in 1895, a contest arose with Great Britain about the boundaries between Venezuela and British Guiana.

Under pressure from the United States, however, the matter was referred to arbitration, and Venezuela came out substantially the loser.
In 1899 there appeared on the scene a personage compared with whom Zelaya was the merest novice in the art of making trouble.

This was Cipriano Castro, the greatest international nuisance of the early twentieth century.

A rude, arrogant, fearless, energetic, capricious mountaineer and cattleman, he regarded foreigners no less than his own countryfolk, it would seem, as objects for his particular scorn, displeasure, exploitation, or amusement, as the case might be.

He was greatly angered by the way in which foreigners in dispute with local officials avoided a resort to Venezuelan courts and--still worse--rejected their decisions and appealed instead to their diplomatic representatives for protection.