Part 23
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_
CHILE, HISTORY OF. _Anson Uriel Hancock_
CHILE, ITS HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT. _G. F. Scott Elliot_
CHILE, THE REPUBLIC OF. _Marie Robinson Wright_
CHILE OF TO-DAY. (By the Chilean Consul-General in New York.) _Adolfo Ortuzar_
COLOMBIA. (Pamphlet.) _John Barrett_
COLOMBIA, JOURNAL OF EXPEDITION ACROSS VENEZUELA AND. _Hiram Bingham_
COLOMBIA, THE REPUBLIC OF. _F. Loraine Petre_
COLOMBIAN AND VENEZUELAN REPUBLICS, THE. _William E. Scruggs_
COUNTRIES OF THE KING’S AWARD, THE. _Sir Thomas H. Holdich_
CUZCO AND LIMA. _Sir Clements R. Markham_
ECUADOR, A HANDBOOK ISSUED BY. _The Pan American Union_
INCAS OF PERU, THE. _Sir Clements R. Markham_
INCAS, ROYAL COMMENTARIES ON. (Translated.) _Garcilaso de la Vega_
ISLANDS OF TITICACA AND KOATI. _Adolf F. Bandelier_
PARAGUAY. (Translated.) _E. de Bourgade la Dardye_
PARAGUAY, A HANDBOOK ISSUED BY. _The Pan American Union_
PARAGUAY, HISTORY OF. _Charles A. Washburn_
PERU, CHRONICLES OF. (Translated.) _Pedro de Cieza de Leon_
PERU, HISTORY OF. _Sir Clements R. Markham_
PERU, HISTORIA GENERAL. (Translated.) _Garcilaso de la Vega_
PERU, HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF. _William H. Prescott_
PERU: INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN THE LAND OF THE INCAS. _E. George Squier_
PERU, THE OLD AND THE NEW. _Marie Robinson Wright_
PURPLE LAND THAT ENGLAND LOST, THE. _W. H. Hudson_
TRAVELS AMONGST THE GREAT ANDES OF THE EQUATOR. _Sir Edward Whymper_
TRAVELS IN THE WILDS OF ECUADOR. _Alfred Simpson_
URUGUAY. _W. H. Koebel_
URUGUAY, A HANDBOOK ISSUED BY. _The Pan American Union_
VENEZUELA. _William Eleroy Curtis_
VENEZUELAN REPUBLICS, THE COLOMBIAN AND. _William L. Scruggs_
VENEZUELA AND COLOMBIA, JOURNAL OF AN EXPEDITION ACROSS. _Hiram Bingham_
WILDERNESS, OUR SEARCH FOR A. _Mary Blair and W. C. Beebe_
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.
Almagro, Diego de, 38, 41, 42, 43, 68, 75-76; leads expedition into Chile, 76; disappointed and repulsed in Chile, returns to Peru and wars against the Pizarro brothers, 79-81; death of, 81; followers of, assassinate Pizarro, 83-85.
Alpaca, the, in Peru, 47; in Argentina, 216.
Altar, El, volcano, Ecuador, 367.
Alvarado, Alonso de, 82.
Alvarado, Pedro de, 75-76.
Amambay Mountains, 241.
Amazon River, discovery of, 81; description of, 137 ff.; sources of, in Peruvian Andes, 322.
Andes Mountains, nature of, in Chile, 277-288; railway through the, 280; in Peru, 321; in Colombia, 375-376.
Animals of Amazon country, 141.
Antofagasta, city of, 292, 293-295.
Antofagasta, Province of, 287, 290.
Antofagasta-La Paz railway, 261.
_Araucana_ of Ercilla, 102-103.
Araucanian Indians, 101 ff.; wars of the Spanish with, 102-103; customs, religion, and dress, 104-105; Valdivia’s war with, 106-109; treaties between Spanish and, 110-111.
Architecture, styles of, in South American cities, 232-233.
Arequipa, city of, 82, 332-333; Harvard Observatory at, 333-334.