180 



SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



The telegraph system alread}^ connects all the towns of the republic with the 

 rest of the world through the submarine cable which has its land terminus at La 

 Guaira. The various local lines, employed chiefly in the service of the adminis- 

 tration, are a heavy burden on the Treasury, owing to the backward state of 

 education and of commerce. In 1888 the returns showed only one despatch for 

 every five, and one letter for every two persons, a proportion inferior even to that 

 of Russia. 



The first printing-office and the first newspaper date only from the year 1808, 

 just before the outbreak of the War of Independence. Serious publications are 

 still rare, but periodicals, mostly short-lived, have greatly multiplied. According 



Fig. 48. — La Guaiea. 

 Scale 1 : 25.000. 



66°57' West oF Greenw ^v 



b6°58 



]ieptlis. 



Sands exposed 

 at low Witter. 



to 5 

 Fathoms. 



5 to 10 

 Fathoms. 



25 Miles. 



to the law, primary instruction should be " gratuitous and obligatory," yet scarcely 

 a twentieth part of the population attends the schools. 



Three high schools, those of Caracas, Merida, and Maracaibo, have been raised 

 to the rank of universities, but that of Caracas alone, founded in 1822, has any 

 claim to the honour — at least, since the middle of the century. Merida, a small 

 town lost amid the mountains, has too few resources for its university to support 

 a staff of pi'ofessors Hence most of the young men intended for the liberal 

 professions still continue to resort to Caracas. The lawyers, doctors, and especi- 

 ally " politicians," who have graduated at this institution, are reckoned by the 

 hundred, and many of these have completed their studies in Paris, or in other 

 European universities. 



