The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-10-31
CIUDAD BOLIVAR.
A REMOTE TOWN, BUT THE
GREAT EMPORIUM
OF All the Commerce of the OrinOeO
and Rio Nsgra Rtvsrs-Businss $
Chances for Americans In Venezuela.

| Ciudad Bolivar. Venezuela. Sept. 80
This metropolis of interior Venezuela.
of which the outside world hears very
little, is situated five hundred and for
ty-three miles above the mouth of the
Orinoco, at a point where the mighty
| river is less than mile wide The city
is literally founded upon a rock"-a
big, black, dome-shaped rock, on the
left bank of the stream; and directly
opposite, connected by ferry-boat, is a
smaller town. appropriately named
Soledad,- Spanish for Solitude"
Viewed from the deck of a passing
steamer, Ciudad Bolivar presents an
attractive appearance, its pink, blue,
yellow and purple walls topped with
bright red roofs. shining in the sun
upon terraces cut into the cliff. The
name, by the way-bestowed in honor Of
the patriot who liberated Venezuela-is
pronounced as if spelled Bo-lee-var,
accenting the second syllable. The
most prominent features of the town
are a brand new theater, apparently
much too large for the place: a big,
barn-like hospital on top of the hill:
vast, gray, moldy-looking cathedral
lower down; and lower yet, a surprising
array of commercial houses. The
streets are paved, but grass-grown, be-
ing so steep that wheels cannot be used
and even horseback riding is dangerous.
All the finest shops and best hotels. as
we'll as the wholesale warehouses, the
shipping offices and the crowded Gus
TOM house, (Which is second in impor
lance in the republic), are found on the
lowest street, facing the river, while the
residences rise, tier above tier, on the
terraces.
Water for the city's supply is pumped
from the coffee-colored Orinoco, filtered
and forced into mains. A pretty park
near the top of the hill has a bronze
statue of Bolivar on a high marble pc
destal; and in the heart of the town a
much finer one, erected by Guzman
Blanco in honor of himself, proclaims
the late dictators praises on marble
tablets set into the pedestal. This re-
mote city is bound to become, sooner or
later, one of the important commercial
markets of the world. 1t is the empo-
rum of all the commerce of the Orinoco
and Rio Negro rivers and carries on an
extensive trade in cattle hides, rubber,
balata (the famous substitute for rub
ber), TONGA beans, vanilla beans and
other tropical products. All the large
commercial houses belong to foreigners,
Germans, Frenchmen, Italians and
Americans in the order named. They
trade chiefly in supplies and provisions,
furnishing the miners and cattle-lnen;
and in the wet season, when the river
runs high, revictualling, by means Of
small sailing craft, all the Indian viii
lagos as far as the boundaries of Co.
lombia. 1t should be remembered that
the river falls a great many feet during
the dry seoson, when its banks at this
point rise smooth and high. A fleet of
steamers for the up-river service are al
ways anchored hereabouts-most of
them stern wheelers of light draught,
owned by an Anglo American company
and controlled by an energetic Yankee
named Olcott. They were built in the
United States, especially for the SER
vice; and besides plying between Port
of-Spain, Trinidad and Ciudad Bolivar,
they go an incredible distance up the
Orinoco and its tributaries.
Accustomed as we of Gods country"
are to great things, 1t is nevertheless
difficult for Americans to realize the
magnitude Of the vast body of water
that pours It's tide through Venezuela.
Having the Mississippi, the Missouri,
the Columbia, the st. Lawrence, Mag
ara Falls, the Grand Canyon of the Col
| orado and numberless other natural
wonders within our own borders, we are
not to be astonished by the length of the
| Orinoco, which is variously stated be-
tween fifteen hundred and two thousand
miles. But in a tropical country where
during half the year rains are almost
| incessant and descend in volumes of
which we can form no conception, the
length of a river furnishes no criterion
of it's size The delta of the Orinoco
alone covers an area equal to that of
the state of Massachusetts, Connecticut
and Rhode Island combined, and its
great mouth the principal outlet to
the sea, is over sixty miles wide. Tt has
upwards of four hundred navigable
tributaries, and six of them are each
wider and deeper than the Missouri
where it unites with the Mississippi.
Sex hundred miles above it's delta the
Orinoco is still three miles wide and be-
tween three and four hundred feet deep.
An ocean steamer can easily go up sew
en- hundred miles. At one point it COM
municates with the Rio Negro, a tribu-
tary of the Amazon, by a stream over a
mile wide; this making possible steam
ship communication directly through
the heart Of South America, crossing
the continene twice, from the Caribbean
sea and the Orinoco almost to the Pa
! cific coast, via the Rio Negro and the
| Amazon to the Atlantic. Our boosted
Father of Waters" may be longer but
it bears no comparison to even fifteen
hundred-mile river which has an an
nual flood of from thirty-five to one
hundred and twenty feet above low
tide! The greater part of the Orinocos
course is through a vast alluvial plain,
which is really a continuation of the
| north of the valley of the Amazon,-a
plain bounded on one side by ranges Of
hills rich in gold, and on the other side
| by the towering submits of the Andes
! The Orinoco plains are described as
"alluvial," but "Africa's sunny foun-
| DO; lo I.oI1 I,o1