The population of Bolivia is estimated at 2,300,000, but no census has ever been taken, and it is doubtful if it has more than 1,500,000 inhabitants. Fully fifty per cent. of its people are docile, full-blooded Indians, living the most primitive life and speaking their own dialect with a few head men familiar with Spanish, which is the official or state tongue. The Beni, or white Indians of Bolivia, are a rather warlike race and have maintained their tribal laws, the control of their lands and customs, independent of all attempts to subjugate them. In fact, the Bolivians stand in awe of them. There are about 500,000 “cholos,” the native term for half-castes or mixed breeds, 250,000 whites of Spanish descent and perhaps 10,000 foreigners,—that is Americans and Europeans engaged in business.
Bolivia has been the scene of a remarkable railway development encouraged by the government. There are to-day about 900 miles of road in actual operation, about 400 miles in the process of construction and nearly 2,500 miles, plans and estimates for the completion of which are under consideration.
These railways maintain three arteries of commerce with the Pacific coast from the interior, and reach the ocean via Lake Titicaca at Mollendo, Peru; at Antofagasta, and also at Arica in Chile, the last named being the shortest and most direct route from the coast to the capital at La Paz, a distance of 274 miles, and only recently completed, requiring about 14 hours for the journey. To go to La Paz via Mollendo, or via Antofagasta is much longer in distance, requiring two days’ time, but repays the traveller in the magnificence of the scenery encountered all along the line.
Roads are in process of construction from Potosi to Sucre, in order to afford an outlet for the products of the mines located in this vicinity, and from Uyuni to Tupiza near the border line of Argentine, so that direct communication can be had with this country as well as Chile and Peru. Other roads are being built from Oruro to Banderani and Oruro and Cochabamba, also from La Paz to Yungas, from Yungas to Puerto Panda and from Cochabamba to Chimon. The government also intends building roads from Yacuiba to Santa Cruz, and thence to Puerto Saurez. Connecting lines will be built to the famous Mamore-Madeira R. R. in Brazil.
There is a perfect net work of rivers in Bolivia, located chiefly in the northeast and southeastern sections, many of which are navigable for light draught vessels and lighters. It is estimated that the Paraguay, Beni, Itenes, Mamore, Pilcomayo, Paragua, and other streams give a total water transportation of more than 11,000 miles. These streams, however, can be used more advantageously as commerce carriers toward Brazil, Paraguay and Argentine than to the West Coast countries. Various projects have been suggested for dredging them and providing locks so as to develop the territory drained by them, but it is doubtful if the next century will see this work started, although it is feasible.
Lake Titicaca is the highest body of navigable water in the world, the steamers which operate on it having been brought from Europe in sections and erected on its banks. It is one of the largest lakes in this hemisphere, covering an area of more than 4,000 square miles and being 160 miles long and 30 wide. While the steamers which ply on its surface carry passengers, they also bring all of the freight into or leaving the country via the port of Mollendo in Peru.
Bolivia may rightly be called the mineral storehouse of the world, for locked within the heart of her many mountains are untold riches, the tons which she has contributed to the universe being microscopic in proportion to what remains. Her inexhaustible dried lakes of borax and salt, glistening like snow in the pure air of the high elevation, have been scraped for centuries without apparently reducing their supply. There are many rich deposits of gold, silver, copper, tin, antimony, bismuth, borax, zinc, wolfram and coal.
In the production of tin, Bolivia ranks second, the chief producer being the Malay Peninsula. Tin forms about 70 per cent. of the total export of Bolivia, amounting in value to over $23,000,000, Great Britain taking about 90 per cent. of the output of the mines and selling it to the other nations of the world. There are yet enormous unworked deposits of this metal in this land.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
Lake Titicaca at Puno, Peru, with native balsas in the foreground. Balsas, which are made of reeds lashed together, are used for carrying freight and passengers