To Mexican east-coast ports four or five lines offer direct regular service from New York, and others take cargo for transshipment. The New York and Cuba Mail has a weekly service to Vera Cruz, Progreso and Puerto Mexico, and the American and Cuban Steam ship Line and the Atlantic Fruit Company serve Vera Cruz, Tampico and Frontera with frequent sailings. From New Orleans and Mobile three or four lines have weekly sailings to the chief east-coast ports of Mexico, and there are also a large number of tramp steamers plying between Mexican and United States Gulf ports. Several oil companies also operate tank steamers out of Tampico to United States and European ports. In normal times Dutch, British, German and other steamers afford a frequent service to Europe.
Lake and river 'transportation has not been extensively developed in Mexico or Central America, as there are no interior waterways of great importance. In Guatemala a certain amount of traffic is carrried on over Lake Izabal, and in Nicaragua Lake Nicaragua, Lake Managua and the San Juan River form a water 'highway that is considerably used In Mexico the Panuco River, leading hack from Tampico, is navigable for many miles.
Interior Transportation.—A casual study of the map will disclose that South America, although discovered by white men over 400 years ago, is as yet in large part only fringed with settlements, and the heart of the continent remains as it was before Columbus sailed. All along the coasts are scores of towns and cities, mostly comnununicating with each other and the outside world by water, which serve as inlet and outlet for the commerce of a com paratively narrow hinterland. In some cases the towns and villages of this hinterland are reached by railways, in others by river boats; but 'very often the only communicating road from the coast is a rough trail, where even wheeled vehicles will find no thoroughfare. Even where rail or river transportation is welldeveloped the terminal towns serve as distributing centres for settlements still farther in the interior, which must be reached by primitive means. These interior towns are not heavy consumers of manufactured goods from abroad, or at least the variety of such goods in demand is 'not wide. But such lines as cotton goods, boots and shoes, farm implements, house furnishings and hardware of various kinds, particularly cutlery, move constantly to the interior when they can be obtained from abroad. It is also a mistake to consider that these out lying villages offer no special market for lux uries or for articles usually associated with urban life. An American company has placed sewing machines in the houses of poor Indian laborers, and one instance is known where an American soda fountain was imported, al though the drums of carbonated water to .be used in it had to be carried regularly 100 miles or so by muleback. As a rule the American manufacturer exports his wares to South America in the same way as the German, British or other European manufacturer, that is through an export commission house, which attends to transportation details. Even where he shins direct his goods in most cases go to a native importing house in some large port, and this house, long established in the field, has its own connections with merchants of the interior. It will nevertheless be worth his while
to make such study as he can of the ultimate consumer in South America, and, if oppor tunity offers, to trace his goods by personal visit to their final destination in mountain or forest home. The necessity for complying closely with requirements as to trifling details in color or construction, for packing in con tainers of a certain weight and quality and for being liberal in granting credit terms to importers will undoubtedly be more clear to him after such visit.
The distributing centres for foreign goods in South America are in most cases coast cities at which the ocean liners discharge the cargo destined for the general region which they serve. Along the coast of Brazil there are six or eight of these centres, including Pare., Pernam buco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Santos, and to a lesser extent Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Florianopolis, Victoria, Maceio, Forta leza, Paranagua and others, while Manaos, over 900 miles up the Amazon, is for all prac tical purposes to be considered an ocean port. From these cities goods are distributed by coast vessels ranging in size from those of several hundred tons to the small sailing vessels or motor boats, which make the numerous small ports in between the larger centres, and from these the goods work their way back into the inland villages. In Uruguay all lines radiate from Montevideo and in Argentina Buenos Aires is the great open door to the whole in tenor. Goods destined for Patagonia may be routed by way of Bahia Blanca or Punta Are nas, but the greater part of imports for this section also will' probably be to pass through Buenos Aires. Along the Chilean coast are many nitrate towns and cities, each of which lives an independent existence, ob taining all its supplies from visiting ships. Besides three railway lines running to the Pacific, Bolivia is reached by two or three routes running up from the river Plata. This is the historic road over which a great amount of traffic passed in the Spanish colonial days, and it is still a convenient pathway for supplies going to eastern Bolivia. The route lies through either Buenos Aires or Rosario, then by rail to the border at La Quiaca, then by cart or animal to Tupita, 57 miles, or to Tarija, 82 miles, and then by such conveyance as offers to the final destination. Goods often reach the cities of Sucre or Potosi in this manner. Throughout all the region known as the temp district, embracing eastern Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and western Brazil, the method of moving produce is the same—that is, by rail, ocean steamer or river boat as far as these conveyances can take it, then by muleback, llama back or man power to the village in the mountain or forest. This is true also of Colom bia and Venezuela and the Guianas, to the north, where the general absence of rail trans portation makes the mule a necessity in coth municating with most districts off the coast.