Cable Facilities
On the North Coast, Cartagena has direct cable connection with Colon and so with New York. To Puerto Colombia a cable has been laid, which, however, December, 1921, has not yet been opened. A French company has a line from Salinas near Pará to Cayenne, Paramaribo, and Martinique, another from La Guaira, to Curaçao, and Santo Domingo. The Venezuelan Government has its own cable along the coast from Maracaibo, to La Guaira, Barcelona, and other points. A British line connects Georgetown, Guiana, with the Port of Spain, Trinidad.
The West Coast is connected with North America by three lines of the All America system: one from Nicaragua and two from Panamá to Santa Elena, Ecuador, one of the latter by way of Buenaventura and Esmeraldas. The three lines continue south to Callao, one touching at Paita. Two go on to Iquique and Valparaiso, one touching at Antofagasta, while a branch comes north from Iquique to Arica to make connection with La Paz. A cable of another company from Callao touches at Mollendo, Arica, Antofagasta, La Serena, Valparaiso, and Concepción.
The East Coast is connected with the cables of the West Coast by three private wires of the All America Cables over the Andes from Valparaiso to Buenos Aires, so that they can handle messages to the Argentine metropolis, 7452 miles from New York, by automatic methods in 15 minutes. Another cable company has a land line from Valparaiso to La Plata, where connection is made with its Trans-Atlantic cable to Africa and Europe. Both companies have short lines to Montevideo, the focus of the East Coast lines. From here the All America has a cable to Santos and one to Rio de Janeiro. The other, the Western Telegraph, has one to Chuy, Uruguay, thence to Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catharina, Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Fortaleza, Maranhão, and Pará, Brazil; and one from Chuy direct to Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco. Four cables from the latter port connect with Africa and Europe. The Western Telegraph was to lay a cable from Maranhão to Barbados, there to connect with the Western Union line to Florida. The All America expects to lay a cable from Cuba south to Rio de Janeiro. The Amazon Company has a cable up that river from Pará.