per cent of the amount of the import duty, and constituting a neat reversal of the octroi system of some other countries:

Malt

Beans, pease, lentils, haricots, kidney beans, potatoes, and all vegetables and garden produce

28

Beef jerked salted, in brine, or smoked, smoked or salted bacon or tongues, not otherwise mentioned.

Hams and bacon not imported in tins

Lard and butter.

Wines imported in demijohns and bottles, excepting Spanish and Bordeaux

red wines

Olives and capers

Barley, bruised or ground.

Hops

......

.75

842

Potato, maize, and rye flour..

Sausages, jams in tins, preserved foods, etc

Suet, raw, undressed, or pressed, etc..

Cheeses.

.75

84

[The bolivar is nominally of the value of 20 cents, but now is really worth but 13.8 cents, U. S. currency.]

MEANS OF COMMUNICATION.

Excepting the Orinoco and Lake Maracaibo the water courses are as yet little used, as those navigable for vessels are mostly away from centers of population. There are comparatively few carriage roads, and many mule paths. Previous to 1882 there was but one railroad, built for the convenience of a private enterprise in copper mining. Since that date much progress has been made in railway building, so that now the communications completed and under way are as follows:

Miles operated.-From La Guaira to Caracas, 23.75; Tucacas to Aroa, 56.25; La Ceiba to Sabana Mendoza, 25.31; Caracas to El Valle, 3.43; Maiquetia to Macuto, 4.38; Carenero to Rio Chico, 20; Caracas to Petare, 6.25; Caracas to Antimano, 5.63; Puerto Cabello to Valencia, 34; total length, 179.

Lines of railway in construction.-From Petare to Santa Lucia, 28

miles; Santa Cruz to La Fria, 56.25; Orinoco to Yuriari, 143; Barcelona to the Coal Mines, 12; total length, 239.25 miles.

Lines of railway contracted for.-From Puerto Cabello to the Apure River, 125 miles; La Luz to Barquisimeto, 50; Rio Escalente to Merida, 106; total length, 281 miles.

It thus appears that the total length of railways provided for, so far, in Venezuela is 699 miles, a considerable undertaking considering the sparseness of population and the difficulty of construction over some portions of the lines, as from La.Guaira to Caracas, where the line extends nearly 24 miles between two points but 9 miles apart in a straight line. Several of the short lines, separately constructed, are connecting roads, as those from Macuto to Maiquetia, La Guaira to Caracas, and thence to El Valle, to Petare, and to Antimano. In fact, the constructed and projected roads will nearly or quite form two separate systems, portions of which would enter into an intercontinental chain. and thus be of increased usefulness and decreased cost of operation. There is perhaps no country of its size in South America which would receive greater benefit than Venezuela from such an extended system, and none which would return more in proportion for such a benefit.

Foreign communication with the principal seaports is almost daily, and there were over 7,500 entries of vessels in 1888. Venezuela's marine numbers over 2,500 vessels of 25,317 tons burden, 26 of which are steamers of 2,523 tons, for sea and river navigation.

Generally speaking, the means of communication between haciendas and villages are by riding horses, mules, and donkeys, traversing the country by primitive paths; and from villages to cities by mule, oxcart, and donkey trains over roads in some cases rude and in others well constructed and maintained; winding along the bend of fertile valleys and the sides of wooded mountains; now amid charming scenes of cultivation, and now in the open shade of coffee plantations, or the semiobscurity of natural forests festooned with vines and florid with abundant varieties of orchids, edged with other varieties growing from the soil, among which may be found several kinds of the begonia growing to a height of 6 feet. The largest amount of freighting is upon the backs of donkeys, and such must continue to be the case between the mountain dwellings and the villages and many of the cities, whatever advancement may be made in other respects. As to the postal service, except where railroad lines are now in operation, the mails from the seaboard to the remote interior are still carried by Indian runners, who, each with a package of about 15 pounds weight or less, with light and scanty clothing to put on near the villages, hidden for the purpose, but naked through the woods, swiftly pursue the shortest and most secluded paths inaccessible to common travel, with unsurpassed fidelity to trust, unfailing regularity, and endurance such as would make the fortune of a professional walker. The express messenger is in an unusual sense a common carrier, being usually an ordinary habitual donkey driver.

POSTAL AND TELEGRAPH STATISTICS.

There are 162 post-offices in the country, being 44 more than there were in the United States a hundred years ago, when its population was greater than Venezuela's now is. The packages by post delivered in 1886 numbered 2,911,400. The rate on letters runs from 5 cents to $1, and on printed matter and samples of goods it is 1 cent per 30 grams. Payment must be made by affixed stamps. In most places mail is delivered at least daily. The cost of the postal service, including that of the postal union, is $116,774 per year. There are 2,612 miles of telegraph line belonging to the Government, with 80 offices, 128 officers, 109 guards, and 86 persons employed in delivery. Rates, in usual hours, up to 10 words, exclusive of signature or address, 20 cents; excess up to 5 words, 5 cents; on holidays, from 6 p. m., and in foreign languages, double rates; from 10 p. m. to 7 a. m., quadruple rates; in cipher, triple rates. Messages sent in 1886, official, 68,066; private, 174,320; total, 242,386. Receipts for the year, $47,810.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

In 1870 education was made free and compulsory, and for many years schools have increased at the rate of over 100 per year, and attendants at the rate of over 6,000, until the former now number 2,000, for primary instruction, and the latter over 100,000. There are 4 normal schools and a school of art and trades. There are besides, for higher education, 2 universities, 20 federal colleges, 9 colleges for girls, 1 polytechnic school, schools for fine arts and for music, and 28 private colleges and a nautical school. There are 2,300 primary school teachers and 594 professors in the various high schools and colleges. There are still only schools enough for about half the children between the ages of five and fifteen years. The average annual cost of the schools per scholar is $8.

NATIONAL DEBT.

In 1880 the public debt, created principally of loans from Europe, and particularly from England, amounted to over $54,000,000, upon which there was failure to pay interest. Since that time, by compromises and refunding, the debt has been reduced so that in 1889 it only amounted to $22,517,427, upon which interest at 4 per cent was regularly paid. Considerable public improvements show the use which has been made of much of this money, while some has been consumed in revolutionary movements. Happily, through the increasing stability of public affairs, consequent prosperity, and favorable readjustment of the debt, it has lost its place as a matter of principal importance.

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

The principal source of revenue to the Government is that of customs duties, which yield from $4,500,000 to over $5,000,000 per year, being in 1888, last reported, $5,945,763, to which the transit tax added the

next largest item of $1,386,310. The total revenue for the year was $8,144,906, and expenditure $8,650,990, leaving a deficit. Of the expenditure $1,867,666 was for public works, $857,502 for interest on the public debt, $811,530 for the Army, and $667,767 for public instruction. The revenue of the several States and the federal district for the same year was $1,601,885, and the expenditure $1,459,423, a considerable increase in both items over those of the preceding year.

UNEQUAL CONDITIONS.

Nearly one half of all Venezuela sells for export is sold to the United States, and nearly all that amount comes in free of duty here. There is, however, a tax on exports from Venezuela, forbidden by its constitution, but effectually collected, of varying amount according to the determination of executive decrees. The amount of this levy upon foreign consumers is difficult to determine, as is the ad valorem rate of import tax, as it is made up of varying items; as wharfage tax, trucking charges, state tax, etc., which varies with the charges where the tax is levied, and is not published in official reports. It is safe to assume that it amounts to as much as the export tax on coffee in Brazil, which is 16 per cent ad valorem. At that rate the export tax on goods sent to the United States in 1889 would return to Venezuela an income of $592,593 on the export branch of her trade with us. On the import side the duties are much higher; but as there is a varying rate, running though eight classes, from nearly 9 cents to $176 per 100 pounds gross weight of goods, this also can only be approximately determined as to average rate of ad valorem duty. This average, taking the record of imports and of duties collected for a series of years, and a range from 29.6 to 54.8, appears to be a little more than 40 per cent. At the rate of 40 per cent our exports to Venezuela paid duties to her in 1889 amounting to $1,481,482; to which add her export tax on shipments to us, and it appears that there was a pecuniary gain in duties on the whole trade with the United States of $2,034,075. This amount added to that of the duties remitted on our imports from Venezuela, before mentioned, amounting to $3,043,998, would give a total of $5,078,073, or about two thirds the amount of annual expenditure of the Venezuelan Government. Reciprocity is unquestionably desirable, to place our trade with Venezuela upon an equitable basis.

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

The total area of South America, as shown by the aggregate of statements of areas expressed herein, and tabulated further on, is 7,359,223 square miles. Of this area, which is half a million greater than that of North America, the Statesman's Year Book estimates 4,228,000 square miles to be fertile, and 2,564,000 as steppe or plains land, of dubious fertility. The total area is more than twice that of all Europe, and its annual contributions to the wants of portions of the world dif ferent in climate become increasingly important according to the increase of population, wealth, and surplus production of the countries differing from it.

On the other hand the productions of portions of the world having mainly a different climate are of less importance to South America, because nature makes continual provision for the satisfaction of the prime necessities of its people. Where an acre in bananas yields as much nutriment as would twenty in wheat, and the former grow often without cultivation, wheat becomes almost a luxury, and common people neither

The Statesman's Year Book for 1891 states in its introductory tables the total area of South America at 6,837,000 square miles; but the subsequent statements by countries therein foot up 7,472,937 square miles for all South America, more nearly agreeing with the figures herein preferred.

+ Excluding Newfoundland, the area of which is undetermined. Humboldt's estimate.