Investments
Among the various opportunities for the investment of foreign capital, including all of the industries mentioned, the safest are agriculture and stock raising; perhaps also small factories. Land is so cheap that little capital is needed for the agriculturist unless engaging on a very large scale. Coffee, cacao, sugar cane, castor beans, and many other articles may be raised with profit. Factories large or small may be operated to advantage. Cumaná and Puerto Cabello are good places for canning tropical fruits. Oil may be extracted for edible or industrial purposes from coconuts, peanuts, and other fruits or vegetables. Chocolate may be made, cotton mills established. A mill is suggested for Margarita, where fine cotton is grown. Rope and bag factories might employ Venezuelan cocuiza or henequen to make the 2,000,000 bags needed annually in the country. Saw mills at Cumaná, Maracaibo, La Ceiba, Tucacas, etc., would be extremely useful.
Large capitalists may find opportunities for the construction of public utilities such as street railways, electric light and power plants, water works, sewers; also in bridge building, railway construction, etc. Some might be interested in mining, especially of iron, which is found favorably located for transportation within half a mile of a navigable river about 50 miles from the mouth of the Orinoco. To individuals with small capital the gold region would be more attractive. An important development of the large deposits of bauxite is attracting much attention.
CHAPTER XII
GUIANA AS A WHOLE: BRITISH GUIANA
The name Guiana has been applied to the entire country between the Orinoco and the Amazon. We have observed that in Venezuela the region south of the Orinoco is called the Guiana Highlands. We shall notice later that the section south of the dividing mountain range and north of the Amazon as far west as the Rio Negro is called Brazilian Guiana; but the country which is more strictly Guiana is east and north of these, though here, too, adjectives are applied as there are three divisions: British, Dutch, and French Guiana, the British on the west, the French farthest east.
Area
The area of them all is about 170,000 square miles, of which British Guiana has 90,000, Dutch 46,000, and French 33,000 square miles.
As these countries are colonies instead of republics their governments are naturally different.
Although sighted by Columbus in 1498 and visited not long afterward by traders, as there was a large Indian population, the country was settled later than Venezuela and Colombia. After various vicissitudes the earliest colonies were abandoned. The difficulties of the later settlements, the changes, insurrections, massacres, wars, and troubles of various kinds following are too numerous to recount, and we come immediately to conditions of the present time.