Birdseye Views of Far Lands

by James T. Nichols

All along this coast strip of Venezuela are plantations generally covered with cocoa trees. From the beans of this tree are made cocoa and chocolate. Coffee is also a staple crop. At the piers will be noticed bags of coffee and cocoa beans, great quantities of rubber and piles of hides. As we are nearer to them than other foreign countries we now use much of their products. The population of this great country is only a little more than that of the state of Iowa.

Back only six or eight miles, in a direct line, from La Guaira and the blue waters of the Caribbean sea, high up in the mountains is a great valley in which is located the capital city of Venezuela. This city, Caracas, is about as large as Sioux City, Iowa, but to get to it is some job. It is only about twenty-five miles by rail and this railroad was about as difficult to build as any of our mountain railroads. The tracks cling to the mountain sides almost like vines cling to brick walls, and the curves are so short that one riding in the end coach can nearly reach the engineer. One can look hundreds of feet into caverns and gorges that seem almost like the bottomless pit.

Venezuela got its name from Venice, Italy, in the following way. One of the earliest explorers sailing along the coast saw the Indian villages built on piles in the water along the shore and was reminded of the Italian city and called the country Venezuela, which means "little Venice."

Here lived Las Casas, a priest who was the Indian's greatest champion in the early days and who is said to be the father of African Slavery in the new world. It was he who suggested that negroes be imported to labor in the fields and mines that the Indians might have an easier time. Brought from Africa to work that the Indians might rest, these black people became the slaves of all.

Venezuela was the birthplace of the great Simon Bolivar and other patriots who were fired with enthusiasm against Spanish oppression and literally gave their lives that the colonies might be free. Even the coins of the old days were stamped with Bolivar's name and everywhere he is revered as the George Washington of that country.

In one of the large museums is a room in which are kept the great liberator's clothing, saddle, boots and spears and these things are as sacred to them as the Ark of the Covenant was to the Jews. In this same room is a portrait of Washington upon which is 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."

Through this country runs one of the world's greatest rivers, the Orinoco, which with its tributaries furnishes more than four thousand miles of navigable rivers. This great river system drains a territory of three hundred and sixty thousand square miles.

It is rather strange that in this country with lovely and productive valleys whose irrigated orchards and gardens make a regular paradise, that the farming classes should be poor and ignorant, without ambition or education and be satisfied to live in comfortless, tumble-down huts without furniture or any of the improvements that make life worth living. But such is the case. Here where there are millions of coffee trees, fields of sugar cane and orchards of oranges, lemons and all kinds of tropical fruit, where the farmer could be happiest, he is about the most miserable creature that could be found. In his miserable home he has no lamp or candle, no books or papers of any sort.

While Venezuela is rich in mines and forests, grain and livestock, coffee and rubber, dyes and medicines, gold and copper, lead and coal, to say nothing of tropical fruits and vegetables, she has another product that makes her known the world around. This is asphalt, or mineral pitch as it is sometimes called. This makes the smoothest street paving of any material known. It is also used extensively for calking vessels, making waterproof roofs, lining cold storage plants, making varnishes as well as shoe blacking as well as in a hundred other ways.