On the model farm of General Gomez at Maracay, splendid cattle of British breeding fill the beautifully planned and kept stables; at the aerodrome a score of French planes form the nucleus of the military aviation schools. There is a big wireless installation, which enables Venezuela to speak with points all over the Caribbean. The military hospital is a perfect copy of a European model. A paper factory makes pulp from the rushes growing thickly about the margin of Lake Valencia, a large and lovely sheet of water, dotted with islands, ringed with villages, that lies a stone’s throw from Maracay. From a highway running northward to the Caribbean, upon a mountain crest three thousand feet above sea-level, shaded with enormous tropical trees festooned with orchids and climbing ferns, you look down a sweeping declivity to the blue, sparkling bay of Ocumare.

Above: Common mode of travel in the mountains of Venezuela. The roads of Venezuela are rarely worthy of the name; with the exception of a few high-roads, only bridle-paths are available to the traveller, and these are often of very indifferent quality and some are scarcely passable for mud. The donkey is the chief pack-animal, and is often seen carrying not only country produce and its own provender, but its master as well

Below: Venezuelan water-carrier starts his rounds. In the streets of Venezuelan cities cooling “frescoes” are seldom lacking, and inviting drinks concocted from delicious fruits are refreshing, though not always effective thirst-quenchers. On his patient beast – almost every burden is borne by donkeys in Venezuela – the water-carrier makes his rounds, and has many customers, for in the torrid climate a glass of cold water is a boon

All this Maracay region is a centre of efficiency, typical of the ease with which. modem equipment and up-to-date public services can create a new atmosphere in South American towns. Water-power is plentiful, and since the coal-beds of South America have only in a few instances served for public utilities, and the making of gas for illuminating purposes is limited, upon the whole continent, to towns whose number can be counted upon one hand, the installation of electric systems is simplicity itself. The house built of adobe – dried mud brick – with a tiled or thatched roof, the home-made dip candle, the cooking fire of charcoal or sticks, is readily scrapped in exchange for reinforced cement, electric lamps and electric cookers, just as human labour is exchanged for the Diesel engine, or long line transmission.

Above: Balling cotton in a settlement of Venezuelan aborigines. The settlements of the Waiomgomo Indians, scattered about the vast dense forests of Guayana, are sometimes little more than a collection of miserable huts consisting chiefly of thatched roofs on supports, but providing, nevertheless, shelters for numbers of primitive creatures to whom they stand for home. Handmade hammocks, earthenware pots, and calabashes lie promiscuously about the earth floor

Before Ronald Ross discovered the guilt of the mosquito as a fever carrier, all the Caribbean margin was a hot-bed of such virulent diseases as yellow and blackwater fevers; La Guayra was a pest-hole and the sister ports only less dangerous in proportion to their diminished size. But to-day, with the “vigorous operation of sanitary services, the worst of the fever plagues have been banished, and careful measures are being taken to reduce infant mortality, to check contagious diseases by vaccination and inoculation, and to raise the standard of public health by regular inspection of foodstuffs and milk. Too much credit cannot be given to the Venezuelan, Dr. Chacin Itriago, trained in England and formerly the head of a department in St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, for the creation of these nation-wide services in Venezuela. In so far as it is possible to counteract the result of an insouciant negro element in the coastal towns, and of a persistently hot chmate, Venezuela has benefited enormously from the few years of trained attention to civic sanitation.

Above: Making arrows, primitive pastime of a primitive people. The Waiomgono Indians branch of the Caribs, still inhabit their original haunts around the river Caura. In the more fertile regions, they cultivate miniature plantations, while in some of the higher forest land the collecting of the odoriferous tonka bean constitutes their chief industry. They generally shun civilization, caring nothing for its comforts and conveniences.

Work such as this, and the construction of the far-reaching network of roads, demands a good deal of money, and in Venezuela the government revenues are mainly obtained from indirect taxation – that is, from export and import dues and from internal dues upon sugar, tobacco and alcoholic liquors.

Nearly two-thirds of the national revenues have their origin in the Custom House, and there is also a yield to official pockets, for any flaw which can be detected in the invoice of goods brought into the country results in such goods being impounded without redress, and the hawk-eyed individual who discovers the error receives a halfshare of the value.

Above: A lake dweller. Dull, heavy faces are comon among the women of the Indian races who live in pile dwellings around Lake Maracaibo.

The bolivar, the national unit of currency in Venezuela, takes its name from that Venezuelan-born soldier of fortune, the Libertador of the Independence struggle, Simon Bolivar, who, having seen Napoleon enter Paris on one occasion during the Corsican’s heyday, became imbued with the same grandiose schemes; you will see in Carácas the house where he was brought up, with some delightful colonial period furniture, and you may see upon the walls of a government hall some rather excruciating paintings of the glorious victories obtained over the Mother Country; and, seeing these, you may remember, if you happen to have seen it, the old farmhouse among the banana groves of Santa. Marta in Colombia, where the disillusioned Libertador ended an embittered life, exiled and overthrown by the very people for whom he had done so much, and among whom he had posed as a semidivine hero.

Above: Women of the Maquiritare tribe. Near relatives of, if not identical with, the Waiomgomo, the Maquiritare occupy remote parts of the hinterland of Guayana. Convention makes little or no demand upon them and a practical absence of dress is one of their tribal characterisitics

Speaking generally, life is expensive in Venezuela for those who eat and drink, wear, and furnish their dwellings with, imported commodities; it is cheap for those who make the country provide them with all they need. The contrast between Venezuelan houses, built, for example, in the airy upland capital and upon themargin of Lake Maracaibo, displays a difference that is one of kind rather than of degree.