TRADE— KAILW AYS OF VENEZUELA. 



129 



Communications. 



The coasting trade carried on between the Venezuelan ports adds about 

 £4,000,000 to the total of the annual exchanges. In 1888 nearly 13,000 vessels 

 of over 2,000,000 tons, including 927 steamers, entered and cleared from these 

 ports, and the traffic of the republic with the Antilles, North America, and Europe 

 already suffices to support nine regular lines of steamers. 



But the development of the inland communications must tend to increase the 

 general movement of commerce far more rapidly than the expansion of its foreign 

 trade. Even recently the so-called highways were for the most part mere paths, 

 by-ways or the broad beaten track of animals crossing the llanos. But now, as 



Fio:. 47. — La. Guaiea ; View taken at Cabvonal. 



in so many other newly-settled lands, the people are beginning to develop a railway 

 system before they have had time to build ordinary roads. A first line, boldly con- 

 structed up a steep incline and following the windings of savage gorges, connects 

 the capital with its port of La Guaira. Another, scarcely less indispensable^ puts 

 Valencia and its rich plantations in direct communication with Puerto Cabello. 



Other ports, such as Guanta, Carenero, Tucacas and Ceiba, are connected with 

 inland towns by various branches of afar from completed network. Unfortunately 

 the progress of the trunk line, which is to effect a junction between the two chief 

 seaports and the two cities of Caracas and Valencia across highly productive cacao 

 and coffee plantations, has been interrupted by another civil war (1892-3), 

 10 



