running at right angles to each other, forming blocks of nearly uniform
size. Prior to the liberation from Spain, the streets bore names
expressive of the dominant influence of religion—names that seem strange
to us now: _Encarnación del Hijo de Dios_ (Incarnation of the Son of
God), _Dulce Nombre de Jesus_ (Sweet Name of Jesus), _Presentación del
Niño Jesus en el Templo_ (Presentation of the Child Jesus in the
Temple), _Huido á Egypto_ (Flight to Egypt), and many others of like
import—a custom prevalent in most of the ancient cities of Spain and her
colonies, and one which still prevails in Cuba. Fronting on the narrow,
paveless streets are the plastered, red-tiled houses found in all North
Andean cities; behind the bars the pretty Venezuelan girls look out from
their cloistered seclusion with the same wistfulness that is noted in
Bogotá and Lima.
The House of Congress is on the road to everywhere; inside it the
decorations and frescoes are exceptionally fine, and perpetuate many of
the principal events in the life of the nation. Miraflores, the
appropriately named home of Venezuela’s president, is open to visitors
at certain hours. In the Pantéon, to the north of the city, repose the
remains of Bolívar in a superb tomb of Parian marble. Upon it stands a
statue of the Liberator, wrapped in his military cloak—a noble and
dignified figure. In front of the cathedral is the broad Plaza Bolívar,
in the center of which, amidst a profusion of tropical plants, rises the
equestrian statue of the nation’s hero. Another may be seen in Bolívar
Park, on which front several federal buildings; the coins bear Bolívar’s
name, and the largest state of the Union, as well as its capital, Ciudad
Bolívar, is similarly honored—everywhere throughout the republic his
name is revered as is Washington’s with us. In the museum of the
University, in a room kept sacred as the “Holiest of Holies,” are
displayed the Liberator’s clothing, saddle, boots, and spurs, and many
relics intimately connected with his brilliant career. Among them is a
portrait of Washington, sent him by Custis, bearing the inscription,
“This picture of the Liberator of North America is sent by his adopted
son to him who acquired equal glory in South America.”
The white group of buildings of the Vargas Hospital, on the heights near
the city, presents a beautiful picture against the mountains in the
background. This is one of the most extensive and best equipped in
America—either North or South. In the Academía de Bellas Artes are
displayed the works of Michelena, a son of Caracas, whose paintings have
obtained an international reputation, and many other pictures by native
artists from which one may get a good idea of the great scenic beauty of
Venezuela.
Although there are no active volcanoes in Venezuela, the country has
been subject to many destructive earthquakes, notably in 1812, when
Caracas was nearly destroyed at a cost of some twelve thousand lives. As
a consequence of the constant presence of this menace, the buildings of
the capital are almost uniformly of one story. From the Monte Calvario,
on the outskirts of the city, the general aspect is flat and monotonous,
but a walk through the broader avenues and the fifteen or more parks and
plazas, gives to the visitor vistas of foliage and flowers that leave on
his mind the impression of a lovely garden.
The capital is connected by railway with Puerto Cabello, via Lake
Valencia. This is the attractive scenic route that is made a part of the
Caribbean excursions offered by the steamship lines each winter. The
road passes through indescribably beautiful mountains and
_llanos_—alternating wooded slopes and meadows, and richly productive
fields of maize and wheat. Frequent stops are made at the stations of
important plantations or the busy centers of this great agricultural
region: La Victoria, San Mateo, and Valencia, the last-named a
modernized city of forty thousand inhabitants and the capital of the
State of Carabobo, one hundred and thirty-seven miles from Caracas.
[Illustration: A COFFEE PLANTATION, VENEZUELA—DRYING THE BEAN.]
Turning back along the coast, eastward, and passing the last of the
coast ranges, the Carib mountains, which taper off to the sharp point of
the Paria peninsula, the traveler comes to the Island of Trinidad, which
helps to enclose the Gulf of Paria. This island is now a British
possession and is famous for its asphalt lakes; it is also the point at
which Columbus stopped on his third voyage and met the fresh waters from
the Orinoco delta, thus becoming convinced that he was confronted by a
great continent. He gave the island its name when he observed from his
masthead the three high peaks on its northern coast.
The deltaic region of the Orinoco River basin extends for about four
hundred and fifty miles in a southeasterly direction from the mountain
ridge on the Paria peninsula to the British Guiana highlands, and covers
an area of seven thousand square miles. Here the traveler enters a
country of wild, tropical forests, mangrove swamps and mazelike
waterways, teeming with strange bird and animal life—practically the
same now as when it was a primeval land of mystery that terrified the
first navigators.
The delta is made up of fifty or more channels emptying into the
Atlantic north of the main stream of the Orinoco. The region is entered
by the Royal Mail through the central channel, or Macareo River. The
service of ocean steamers, however, extends as yet only as far as Ciudad
Bolívar, about six hundred miles from the mouth, although the river is
navigable for smaller vessels as far as Apures rapids—over a thousand
miles up its course on the Colombian frontier. For fifteen hundred miles
the wonderful stream extends into the continent, draining a territory of
three hundred and sixty-four thousand square miles. With its numerous
affluents, the Orinoco affords four thousand three hundred miles of
navigable waters for the service of this vast region. The main river
rises in the Parima Mountains, which, with the Pacarima range, form the
frontier with Brazil. Near its source it is tapped by the Casiquiare,
the remarkable river, which flows in two directions and connects the
Orinoco with the Rio Negro, an affluent to the Amazon.
The traveler entering the Orinoco from the sea never forgets his first
impressions. There is a weird grandeur about the forests that cannot be
described—the magnificent trees, closely grouped and undergrown with
tropical jungle plants that create a dense shadow land of mystery that
is made ever more awe-inspiring to the uninitiated by the startling
cries of the jaguar and puma and the queer howling of the monkeys. The
leaves are thick and moist, and tinted a deep rich green, but glisten
brightly in the high lights; the foliage never loses that freshness and
brilliance which is assumed in our northern woodlands only in the lovely
season of early spring. Hence the darker tones blending with the
flitting shafts of sunlight develop a play of color effects of
never-ending delight to the lover of nature. Countless creepers, decked
with gorgeously colored blossoms along the water sides and where the
sun’s rays penetrate, twine themselves around the great tree trunks. In
many places natural bowers are thrown up, that display a beauty and
symmetry which could not be surpassed by the most consummate art.
Flame-colored flamingoes, chattering parrots and myriads of strange
birds of brilliant plumage, enhance the beauty of the scene and add a
welcome touch of life, yet serve to confirm the stranger’s impression
that he has wandered into some enchanted realm.
South of the Orinoco there is a gradual rise to the Guiana Highlands,
which are as yet sparsely populated and but little given over to
cultivation; this hilly country, constituting about half of the
republic’s area, ascends in uneven ridges to the higher altitudes of the
Brazilian frontier ranges. North of the river the rolling plains, or
_llanos_, sweep inland from the Atlantic between the Guiana highlands
and the coast ranges like a great green arm of the sea—past the Mérida
sierra and the western escarpment of the highlands, to merge in the hot
plains of the Amazon region. These _llanos_ do not correspond exactly
with the Argentine _pampas_; they undulate and ascend gradually from the
river bottoms to an elevation of over three hundred feet, whence they
continue up into the foothills. They are thus known as _llanos altos_,
or upper plains, and _llanos bajos_, or lower plains. The _llanos_
present a diversified aspect, with much broken ground and heavily wooded
tracts near the upper courses of the Orinoco affluents, and clothed, in
some of the lower stretches, with rich tropical vegetation.
In this fertile agricultural and grazing country lies a great source of
future wealth of the nation, for although coal and iron have been
discovered within its boundaries in practicable quantities, Venezuela’s
production, aside from asphalt, is chiefly confined to coffee, cacao,
tonka beans, sugar, cotton, indigo, rubber, cereals, cattle, hides,
aigrette plumes, sarsaparilla and other medicinal plants, cabinet woods,
and fruits. Gold has been mined since the earliest colonial times.
Venezuela also possesses several of the world’s most important asphalt
deposits. “While the ‘pitch lake’ of Trinidad, a surface a mile and a
half across of pure asphaltum,” says the _Pan American Bulletin_ (of
July, 1911), “is perhaps the most remarkable occurrence of this mineral
in nature, the lake of Bermudez, which covers a thousand acres in the
old state of Bermudez, Venezuela, is fast equaling the first in
commercial importance. Asphalt is also found in the Perdanales district
as well as on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, and as an indication of the
value of Venezuelan bitumen, we have the fact that this special variety
is used to protect the tunnels of the New York Subway.” The foreign
trade of Venezuela in 1910 was valued at $30,336,122, the great bulk of
which was with Europe. Her purchases from us amounted to but $3,788,539.
The population of Venezuela is made up of Indians, _mestizos_, and
unmixed descendants of the Spanish; but few North Americans are settled
in the country thus far, in spite of its nearness to the United States.
A better acquaintance between our people and the Venezuelan land of
promise should result from the opening of the Panamá Canal. This most
desirable consummation will operate to the benefit of both peoples, for,
being but six days from New York and four from Charleston, the flow of
the country’s trade should turn our way with increasing volume as our
merchants become familiar with the ports of the Spanish Main en route to
the canal. So far Venezuela is almost wholly unknown to us. Less than
ten years ago, a bill was introduced in our Congress to consolidate the
diplomatic missions to the republics of Venezuela and Guatemala, under
the impression that the countries were adjacent! and during the debate
one member arose and asked in all seriousness, “Where is Venezuela,
anyhow?”
Like Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, Venezuela is a federation of states.
In this respect it differs from the other Latin American republics,
except Brazil. Its government is modeled closely on our own, although
more centralized, the governors of the states being appointed by the
federal executive. The country is on a gold basis; its national debt is
not excessive; its administration of the postal, telegraph, and customs
services is efficient and progressive, and, underlying the whole
structure, is the sure guarantee of inexhaustible wealth. With each new
crisis in her history, Venezuela has advanced to a higher plane, and has
maintained her footing. The men who have lifted her up the steps of her
career—Bolívar, Páez, Vargas, Guzmán Blanco, Crespo, and the little
Andean general who has recently come again into international notice
after a brief eclipse, Cipriano Castro—have been honest in their purpose
and patriots first, whatever they may have been in their private lives.
Many other names may be written on her roll of fame: the romantic, but
visionary, Miranda, the fiery young patriot Yáñez, and the Venezuelan of
all others who survived the revolution without question or
reproach—Bolívar’s great lieutenant, Sucré, who became the first
president of Bolivia.
Of all her latter day sons, Guzmán Blanco accomplished most for his
country. After serving in the diplomatic corps in Europe, he returned in
1870 able to assume the supreme authority with an understanding of the
needs of his disordered country and the knowledge and forcefulness with
which to supply them. During his practical dictatorship of eighteen
years, he ruled with a rod of iron; he enriched himself and his
favorites, and stamped his personality ineradicably on the country, it
may be—but he made Venezuela a thriving country. He beautified and
practically rebuilt the capital, subsidized and fostered the railroads,
opened the door to foreign capital and traders who learned to believe in
his stable government, and improved the ports. Under his energetic
administration the production of coffee reached phenomenal proportions;
shipping made rapid progress; the population increased in normal ratio,
and the homes of the people improved in every way. The work he did
lasted.
Castro, also, worked hard to build up a spirit of nationalism with which
to withstand the impositions of foreign governments, whose citizens in
many instances had sought by fraudulent claims to enrich themselves. He,
too, won a good fight and in some respects advanced Venezuela to a
higher place in the family of nations. His patriotism has been made
grotesque in our public press, but those who know him well have no doubt
that it was sincere. He is well born and able and has shown many of the
elements of statesmanship. Venezuela unquestionably has suffered
injustice at the hands of European governments, and of our own, in the
demands they have sought to enforce on behalf of adventurers who have
attempted to exploit the country to their own advantage and without
regard to her interests—notably in the cases of her dispute with Great
Britain over the boundary with British Guiana, and the French cable
company.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII
THE GUIANAS
On the northeastern shoulder of the continent lies a huge block of
territory as large as France and Spain combined. It is in reality an
island, since it is bounded on the north and east by the Caribbean Sea
and Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Amazon River, and on the
northwest and west by the continuous waterway formed by the Orinoco, the
Casiquiare and the Negro rivers, the last named an affluent of the
Amazon. Like the north Andean republics, the Guiana country is made up
of mountains, highlands, and low-lying plains, and lies wholly in the
tropics; its productiveness thus embraces nearly every cereal and
vegetable found in the three great zones of the earth.
Guiana was discovered, named, and first occupied by the Spanish in the
very beginning of things in South America. It acquired fame in the
latter part of the sixteenth century as one of the regions in which the
home of El Dorado was supposed to be located—the fateful
will-o’-the-wisp that was chased by the early fortune hunters all over
the region from the mountain fastnesses about Bogotá, in Colombia, to
the Paraná, in southern Brazil, the lure which brought disaster even to
such men of intelligence and practical common sense as Sir Walter
Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. The long-sought Lake Guatavita (now known
to be located near Bogotá), in whose sacred waters El Dorado bathed his
gilded body, was once supposed to lie near the source of the Orinoco in
the Parima Mountains, and, indeed, geologists now contend that such a
lake did exist ages ago in these mountainous heights, and it is
unquestionably true that on the line northward from this point runs a
vein of gold richer than any in the known world, and that this vein had
been worked by the Indians from time immemorial.
The lure of the gold, purged, however, of its myth, has survived to our
own day, for we all remember Great Britain’s effort, in her boundary
dispute with Venezuela, to extend her Guiana boundary over the rich gold
fields south of the Orinoco delta.
Until 1624, the Spanish succeeded in holding Guiana against all comers;
but in that year the Dutch West India Company gained a foothold at the
head of the Essequibo delta, and was confirmed in its possession by the
treaty of Münster in 1648, at the close of the war between Spain and the
Netherlands. After this opening, other nations made haste to share in a
partition of the rich territory. The French established a colony at
Cayenne; the English made a settlement and called it Surreyham, after
the Earl of Surrey—whence the present name of Surinam—and eventually the
country was partitioned among the five nations: Brazil became the owner
of that portion trailing off southward to the Amazon which Portugal had
wrested from Spain, and which is now sometimes called Brazilian Guiana,
although it is an integral part of the United States of Brazil; France
still retains Cayenne, now known as French Guiana; the Dutch are now
installed in the Surinam colony, which came into their possession at the
time of the British occupation of New York, and is now called Dutch
Guiana; Great Britain owns the three settlements at Demerara, Berbice,
and Essequibo, captured in 1803 from the Dutch and afterward ceded to
her by the treaty of 1814, and which now constitute British Guiana, and,
lastly, Venezuela, as successor to the title of Spain, owns the rest of
the highlands, south of Parima and Pacarima, the territory formerly
known as Spanish Guiana until the revolution of the Venezuelan
colonists.
British Guiana is 109,000 square miles in area—larger than the United
Kingdom—and has a population of about 300,000, made up of 150,000
negroes, 100,000 East Indians, 15,000 Portuguese, 10,000 British and
Europeans, and the balance of _mestizos_. It is divided into three
counties, which correspond to the old settlements—Demerara, Berbice, and
Essequibo. Georgetown, the capital, is on the right bank of the Demerara
River at its mouth. It is an attractive port city of about 60,000
inhabitants, heavily shaded with tropical trees, and presents the
substantial appearance of most British colonial centers. Just now its
interests are being rather neglected, but, as the shipping point of a
sugar area productive enough to supply the mother country, it could be
developed into one of the great ports of the Caribbean.
The area of Dutch Guiana is 46,060 square miles, and its population
numbers about 70,000. The capital, Paramaribo, is a city of some 30,000
inhabitants, located at the junction of the Surinam and Commewine
rivers, about ten miles from the sea. The colony’s trade in coffee,
cacao, rubber, timber, and gold has not yet been developed to such
proportions as to make it self-supporting; it is still subsidized by the
mother country.
French Guiana is known to us principally as a penal settlement. Since
the days of the French Revolution, Devil’s Island, off the coast, has
been used by the French government as a penal establishment, and in
recent years the world has become familiar with its supposed terrors by
reading the account of Captain Dreyfus’s sufferings. Nevertheless,
French Guiana has all the capabilities of the other Guianas, and could
be made richly productive. Its area is 31,000 square miles and its
population about 25,000; that of its capital, the city of St. Louis, on
the Island of Cayenne, now numbers slightly over 15,000.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL
ALONG THE ANDES. _A. Petrocokino_
ALONG THE ANDES AND DOWN THE AMAZON. _H. J. Mozans_
ANCIENT AMERICA. _John D. Baldwin_
ANDES AND THE AMAZON, THE. _James Orton_
ANDES AND THE AMAZON, THE. _Reginald C. Enock_
AROUND THE CARIBBEAN AND ACROSS PANAMA. _Francis C. Nicholas_
BETWEEN THE ANDES AND THE OCEAN. _William Eleroy Curtis_
CAPITALS OF SOUTH AMERICA, THE. _William Eleroy Curtis_
COMMERCIAL TRAVELER IN SOUTH AMERICA. _Frank Wiborg_
CONTINENT OF OPPORTUNITY, THE. _Francis E. Clark_
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, THE. _John Fiske_
DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF AMERICA, A
COLLECTION OF RARE DOCUMENTS CONCERNING. _E. George Squier_
EXPLORATION OF THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. _William Lewis Herndon_
GREAT STATES OF SOUTH AMERICA, THE. _Charles W. Domville-Fife_
LAND OF TO-MORROW, THE. (Pamphlet.) _John Barrett_
LATIN AMERICA OF TO-DAY AND ITS RELATIONS TO
THE UNITED STATES. (Pamphlet.) _John Barrett_
LATIN AMERICA, A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO. _Albert Hale_
NORTHERN REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA, THE.
(Pamphlet.) _John Barrett_
ORINOCO, UP THE, AND DOWN THE MAGDALENA. _H. J. Mozans_
OTHER AMERICANS, THE. _Arthur Ruhl_
PANAMA TO PATAGONIA. _Charles M. Pepper_
SOUTH AMERICA. (Translated.) _Antonio D. Ulloa_
SOUTH AMERICA. _A. H. Keane_
SOUTH AMERICA, HISTORY OF. _Adnah D. Jones_
SOUTH AMERICA, HISTORY OF. _Charles E. Akers_
SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS, THE. _Thomas C. Dawson_
SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS, THE INDEPENDENCE
OF. _Francis L. Paxson_
SOUTH AMERICANS, THE. _Albert Hale_
SPANISH AMERICA. _Julian Hawthorne_
SPANISH CONQUEST IN AMERICA, THE. _Sir Arthur Helps_
BY COUNTRIES
ACONCAGUA AND TIERRA DEL FUEGO. _Sir Martin Conway_
ARGENTINA. _W. A. Hirst_
ARGENTINA AND HER PEOPLE OF TO-DAY. _Nevin O. Winter_
ARGENTINA, MODERN. _W. H. Koebel_
ARGENTINA, THE REPUBLIC OF. _A. Stuart Pennington_
BOLIVIA. _Marie Robinson Wright_
BOLIVIA, A HANDBOOK ISSUED BY. _The Pan American Union_
BOLIVIAN ANDES, THE. _Sir Martin Conway_
BRAZIL AND THE BRAZILIANS. _James C. Fletcher and D. P.
Kidder_
BRAZIL, A JOURNEY IN. _Louis Agassiz_
BRAZIL, THE NEW. _Marie Robinson Wright_
BRAZIL OF TO-DAY. (Translated.) _Arthur Dias_
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CHILE, THE REPUBLIC OF. _Marie Robinson Wright_
CHILE OF TO-DAY. (By the Chilean
Consul-General in New York.) _Adolfo Ortuzar_
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CUZCO AND LIMA. _Sir Clements R. Markham_
ECUADOR, A HANDBOOK ISSUED BY. _The Pan American Union_
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ISLANDS OF TITICACA AND KOATI. _Adolf F. Bandelier_
PARAGUAY. (Translated.) _E. de Bourgade la Dardye_
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URUGUAY. _W. H. Koebel_
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VENEZUELA. _William Eleroy Curtis_
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VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA, JOURNAL OF AN
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX
Aconcagua, Mt., 280-282, 283-284, 366.
Agassiz, Louis, exploration of Amazon by, 139-140.
Agriculture, in Brazil, 136;
in Argentina, 191-192;
in Uruguay, 235;
in Bolivia, 262-264;
in Ecuador, 355-359;
in Colombia, 379-380;
in Venezuela, 418-419.
Alcantara, Francisco, 42, 84.