t is surprising to know that Venezuela is as large as Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, the two Virginias, North and South
Carolina and Georgia combined. It is a country that has a thousand
rivers. In some parts of it you can travel for days in regions where as
yet no white man has ever set his foot. One writer says that of all the
countries in the world Venezuela is the one for which God has done the
most and man has done the least.

This great country has been called the hunting ground of South America.
This is not so much because of the abundance of game, although all kinds
of wild animals are plentiful; it has been given this appellation
because of its unstable government. Its treasury has been looted again
and again. Even the president of Venezuela was for years a criminal. He
robbed merchants of other countries who tried to do business with his
government. He imprisoned those who refused to assist him and ran things
in a high-handed way. Business firms of other lands found this out and
did not care to do business with such a country or help develop its
resources in any way.

We are not ashamed of our revolution in 1776 for its purpose was to gain
our independence. During the past seventy or eighty years Venezuela has
had more than a half hundred revolutions but generally they were gotten
up to give an excuse for pillage and robbery rather than to make a
better country or government. Things are better now, however, and a new
day is dawning for these unhappy people.

The main port or entrance to this country is La Guaira and sailors say
it is about the worst port to enter in the world. This port city
contains about fifteen thousand people and has but a single street. The
high mountains are so near the sea that there is only a narrow strip of
land at the foot and on this narrow strip the city is built. The sea is
nearly always rough and the weather always hot. How people can endure
such extreme heat all the time is a mystery.

All along this coast strip of Venezuela are plantations generally
covered with cocoa trees. From the beans of this tree are made cocoa and
chocolate. Coffee is also a staple crop. At the piers will be noticed
bags of coffee and cocoa beans, great quantities of rubber and piles of
hides. As we are nearer to them than other foreign countries we now use
much of their products. The population of this great count