At the end of his “swing around the circle” of South American countries (having begun with Brazil), the traveler comes to Venezuela—the huge republic that bulges out into the northernmost nub of the continent, where the terminal ranges of the Andes turn eastward to meet the great Guiana Highlands and form those high-flung ramparts that protect the fertile, low-lying Amazon plains from the Atlantic. This black, mountainous front runs along the Caribbean coast line for some fifteen hundred miles, broken at intervals, however, where the lovely blue of the tropical sea sweeps inland to meet the bright green of some great river basin.

Southward, Venezuela spreads down over an irregularly shaped territory extending from twelve degrees north latitude to the equator. Her varied topography, too, produces almost every change of climate, from the cold of the mountains—some of whose peaks reach high enough to earn the title of nevada—down through the temperate zone of the llanos, or rolling plains that slope off into the great Orinoco basins, where wheat, corn, and cattle abound, and the country’s great staples, coffee, cotton, and tobacco are grown, to the hot Orinoco jungles that trail off to the south, where rubber and cacao trees luxuriate without cultivation, and sugar cane, oranges, fruits, and pineapples thrive in the clearings. More than half of Venezuela’s territory may be ignored from the commercial standpoint of to-day, for it is either Alaskan or Amazonian in character and can be reserved for later needs of the human family if, as Humboldt prophesied, the Amazon valley should become the feeding ground of mankind.

No description has ever done justice to the beauties of Venezuela’s landscape of mountain and valley and mighty rivers, of warm green pastures and blue skies, and the mystic shimmering white of an occasional snow-capped peak. The country that so appeals to the traveler’s interest is nearly six hundred thousand square miles in area, and could include within its confines the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio. Its mountainous coast saw the beginning of the European invasion of the new world. Columbus, Vespucci, and Ojeda touched here. Ojeda gave the country its name. When, on his way west from the Orinoco, he rounded Cape San Roman and turned into the Gulf of Maracaibo, he saw Indian villages composed of houses built on piles in the water along the shores, which suggested something of a resemblance to Venice, and he called the place Venezuela (Little Venice); and soon the whole coast, and eventually the country beyond, became so known—a region larger than all Italy and Spain combined. This coast and the white-walled cities nestling in the heights among the magnificent trees formed the storied Spanish Main.

CumanÁ, in the middle east, is the oldest European settlement in South America; it was in its old church that Las Casas preached—the saintly priest who was the Indian’s ablest champion in the early days of Spanish devastation, but who, with regret be it said, is reputed also to have been the father of African slavery in the new world, for it was he, so the chroniclers say, who suggested that negroes be imported to labor in the fields and mines and relieve the Indians of a burden they were both temperamentally and physically unfitted to bear. Venezuela was the birthplace of the resistance to Spain’s oppression of her colonies, and of Miranda, BolÍvar, SucrÉ, and the fiery young patriot, YÁÑez—the men who led the van of that resistance. Through her land flows one of the world’s greatest rivers, the Orinoco, with its four thousand miles of navigable waters. The vast productiveness of the country and its stores of mineral wealth are sufficient to sustain twenty times its present population of two millions and a half. And, finally, Venezuela is nearer to us than any other country in South America.

A most agreeable route for the traveler leaving Colombian ports for Venezuela is by the steamers which zigzag around the Caribbean Sea for ten days or more on the way to Europe, and touch at many of the once famous old ports before reaching La Guayra, the sea gateway to Caracas. Immediately after leaving Colombian waters and rounding the Guajira peninsula, the ship enters the great Gulf of Maracaibo, one hundred and fifty miles in extent from east to west, and sixty miles from north to south. Passing along in through a narrow strait, the almost equally large Lake of Maracaibo swells out before the traveler. This great body of water drains an extensive basin lying between two terminal spurs of the Andes—the Sierra de Parija and the Sierra MÉrida—and into it flow many rivers having their source in the surrounding mountains. Inside, on the east bank of the strait, lies the city of Maracaibo, now one of the most important centers on the north coast, for here is shipped the produce of the vast fertile region of western Venezuela—coffee, cacao, tobacco, castor beans, hardwood timber, and dyewoods. Much of the produce of the eastern slope of Colombia also finds its way to Europe and the States through this port; fully half of what is known in our markets as “Maracaibo coffee” is really a Colombian product.

The tropical scenery of the plains sloping down to the lake, and the mountains, with their suggestion of snowy freshness, make the setting of this port one of the most interesting on the continent. A dozen or more of the peaks in the MÉrida range are snow-capped, and two of them—Concha and Coluna—rise to a height of over fifteen thousand feet. Years ago a passing visitor to Maracaibo, mistaking the discomforts of the humidity and heat for general dissolution, pronounced the place “the graveyard of Europeans.” Such hasty judgment is a great injustice, for the rate of mortality here is less than in many of the other tropical ports.

Rounding the eastern enclosure of the Gulf, the Paraguana peninsula, the traveler comes upon the quaint old town of Coro, founded in 1527, and one of the very first of the European settlements. It was this town that the governor, sent out by the Germans to whom the King of Spain at first leased the country, made his capital, and from which he undertook his disastrous expeditions in search of El Dorado. Afterward, until 1576, it was the seat of Spain’s government of the colony, and is now the capital of the State of FalcÓn. Here, also, Miranda made his first resistance to Spanish misrule at the beginning of the revolutionary war. Coro is but a few miles south of the Dutch Island of CuraÇao, that most picturesque fragment of Amsterdam perched on a coral rock.

Sweeping out eastward over the sea, as if in continuation of the MÉrida range, is the Cordillera de la Silla (the “Saddle Range”), which terminates abruptly at Cape Codera. Midway between this cape and Coro, lies the important seaboard city of Puerto Cabello. Its environment is not only remarkably attractive—like an oasis to the traveler who has sailed along the bleak coast range for many hours—but it is to-day one of the finest harbors in the world, as it was in the days of the early navigators, who said of it that “a vessel is safe here, anchored by a single hair (cabello).” The city is connected by rail, over the Silla Cordillera, with the prosperous little city of Valencia, some fifty miles distant, and thence, by waters of Lake Valencia, with Cura and other important inland towns which are commercial centers of a large part of the region that slopes inland from the coast range. Puerto Cabello is, therefore, the export depot of the States of Carabobo, Lara, and Zamora, three of the most productive commonwealths of the Venezuelan federal union. It was once a rendezvous of the buccaneers and, later, the scene of General PÁez’s astonishing night attack on the Royalist forces during the revolution, when, with his small command, he forced the surrender of General Calzada’s entire army. To-day the city has a population of about ten thousand, and many modern improvements—electricity, water supply, well-paved streets, and a number of attractive new buildings, that harmonize, however, with the fine old plazas and colonial residences.

Eastward, some sixty-five miles toward Cape Codera, and halfway the length of the Silla range, the traveler sights the great peak of Picacho rising from the water’s edge to a height of over seven thousand feet. Along this promontory, on a narrow strip of beach, are scattered groups of sixteenth century houses, white and red-topped for the most part; some of them nestle inland in coves of the mountains or look over the blue Caribbean from shelves of the cliffs above. This is La Guayra, the seaport of the republic’s capital. High above, overhanging the business center of the town, stands the ancient and picturesque Spanish fortress of early colonial days, and just below, on another bench of rock, is the old bull ring. Overlooking all, on a high bluff, are the ruins of the old castle which was the residence of the Captain-General during the Spanish rÉgime. To those who have enjoyed Kingsley’s great historical novel, “Westward Ho!” the old ruins will have a romantic interest, for it was from the walls of this fortress-castle that Amyas Leigh escaped after his vain attempt to rescue the Rose of Devon.

Baron von Humboldt said that there is but one place in the world that can rival La Guayra in the splendor of its setting—Santa Cruz de Teneriffe, which points one of the Canary Islands off the Moroccan coast. La Guayra is now all business, but not business of the feverish, bustling kind, as the visitor will find, after an entire morning spent in passing from one leisurely official to another in the effort to enter the country. The port usually serves the traveler merely as a landing place on his way to Caracas. If for any reason, however, he should prefer to delay his visit to the capital, he would do well to run up the coast some three miles east of the port city, to the pleasant little watering place, Macuto, the resort of the leisure class of the near-by capital.

Caracas is but seven miles inland from the port as the crow flies, but the actual distance by rail is twenty-two miles. The steep, winding road was started by American enterprise, and at a cost of over $100,000 per mile. It is now controlled by Englishmen, and so great is the traffic, that the little line never fails to be busy. For two hours the train zigzags up the perilous ascent to a height of three thousand feet before it turns sharply around a dizzy precipice and enters the beautiful valley of Caracas. Until this turn is made the traveler is rarely ever shut off from the gorgeous blue of the Caribbean. So superb is the constantly changing view, that he will feel more than repaid for the sensations of giddiness that may assail him as the train swings around the many curves on the route, and the yawning chasms overlooked from the car windows are but added beauties to the scene, instead of death traps, for so excellent is the construction and so efficient the management that there has never been an accident along the entire length.

Caracas is usually much on the visitor’s mind during the days of his approach. His mental picture doubtless will have been colored from some newspaper cut of a dirty, tatterdemalion crew, entitled “The President’s Body Guard,” or by some equally deceptive idea of chaotic civic affairs. But he will by this time have learned, from his visits to other Venezuelan centers, that this charming and progressive country has been greatly maligned by our North American press. He will be entirely reassured the instant the train comes to a stop and he descends at the clean, pleasant little station and, in cab or trolley car, enters the fine old Spanish metropolis, rich in creature comforts, dignity, history, and civic pride. The population of the city now exceeds 70,000, in which there is but a very small percentage of citizens of foreign birth.

Unquestionably Caracas is one of the most delightful places of residence in the world. It lies in a valley three thousand feet up from the sea, on either side of which towers a range of mountains, one about seven, the other nine thousand feet. The tropical heat is tempered to a springlike mildness by the high altitude, and the luxuriant fertility resulting from the misty rains wafted down from the mountains, make of the city and its environs a garden of astonishing beauty. One old gentleman, retired from the British diplomatic service after many years in Caracas, preferred to end his days here, where, he said, it was “but a step to Paradise.”

The city is laid out in the usual Spanish colonial scheme—in streets 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.

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.