240 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
to the great benefit of Trinidad, and which is certain to have a 
important port here at Las Tablas. Here are iron mines oi 
extraordinary richness. Here are virtually inexhaustible supplies 
of balata gum. There is the tonga bean country, a valuable 
product which, I am told, fetches $2 a pound in New York; over 
this area is found the almost as valuable rubber, the only limit 
to whose supply is labour for collecting it. Away up here is some 
of the finest coffee in the world — Trujillo coffee, — which is at 
present exported at great expense through Maracaibo. That pors 
exports nearly 30,000 tons of coffee a year, about 5,000 tons oi 
which comes from this district, and there is every reason to hop# 
that at least that much will before very long come through 
Trinidad. There are steamers trading from Bolivar upwards, 
by the Apure and Meta. An English company has now 
acquired these, and it is intended to increase the fleet a <w 
extend its operations. The same company is about to establish 
trading stations on the rivers, and there exchange imported gooffi 
for produce. Already earnest has been given by the h' aDS ' 
mission this year to London through Trinidad of about 50 toffl 
of rubber, worth .£15,000, an interesting fact in connection with 
the transaction being that this was the first occasion on which 
rubber came by the Orinoco. It has hitherto invariably gonehj 
the Amazon. This has been the route (shewing it on the map)' 
All enterprise of this sort must be to the advantage of Trinidad, 
this island being bound to be the centre of any business on the 
Orinoco, owing to the impossibility of large vessels passing ® 
bar at the mouth of the river. 
As everybody here knows, we already do a consiaenw* 
business _ with Venezuela, the total for 1896, excluding bullion, 
being £530,000. This is independent of the goods transferred 
m our harbour from one vessel to another, and which, as I have 
shown, bring us many benefits, direct and indirect. This class of 
goods is now for the first time being taken into account, and 1 
nna that it amounts in value to about a million sterling yearly 
hat £530,000 is rather less than it was twenty years ago, 
TV,”" ^e wh° le the state of our Venezuelan trade is unsatB- 
evnnrf 7 l f m J ear IS05, it was estimated that we 
made nn C0l ! ntr y goods of the value of a million dollars, 
mainlv of i,!fj Cllf -hs of textiles, and the remaining two-tenths 
the trade was ' Ta , re .‘ ® ven if the figures be not strictly accurate, 
t -r^ considerable at that period, and included 
•aS.'* STS2. ’25? *« gone elsewhere h* 
their Roods Wo , i , have long since gone elsewhere 
Barcefona wf^ice itw “handle by the Gurapichc 
trade i coa ™yed to Caracas. Now, our direct 
trade is virtually limited t0 ^ aracas - Now, our di 
Delta of the Orinoco 16 coas *' between Margarita and 
the 
[derail 
to 
