In all South America there are hardly any extensive highways built and maintained with substantial paving materials, such as are com mon in the United States and Europe. Wheeled vehicles are mostly carts, which are used in many places to bring the country produce to market and to do heavy hauling in the towns and cities. This lack of roads is due in part to the expense of constructing them, in part to the general disposition of South Americans to allow foreign enterprise to develop their re sources. There is, -however, a very widespread interest in the subject of good roads, and several governments have included substantial sums in their budgets to be devoted to build ing them. It is likely that the continent is on the eve of an era of extensive highway con struction, one of the things now most needed to open up the resources of the various po tentially wealthy countries. The coming of the automobile is to be credited with much of the interest now being displayed in good roads.
Of the beasts of burden used to transport freight into the mountainous districts of the Andean highlands the llama is most distinct ive but the mule is most useful. The llama is not a strong animal and can carry only about 100 pounds. • It is very tractable and finds its own forage by the wayside, It knows its load, however, and will usually refuse to go on if a few pounds extra weight are added to its burden. • The mule as much as • 250
pounds at a load, but as the pack is arranged so as to distribute the load evenly on each side it adds greatly to the convenience of the im porter to.have•the goods in cases of 120 or 125 pounds each. Packages should 'not be over three feet long, or 14 inches in dimen sions. Indians carry heavy loads . on their backs and go long distances with little to eat. although a pouch of cocoa leaves on which to chew is considered practically a necessity.
Conditions in Central America are prac tically the same as in America so far as interior transportation goes, in one case at least an excellent automobile road has been built. This is the highway called eCarretera del Sur,* 90 miles long, leading from the Pacific coast of Honduras to Teguci galpa. There is much interest in road building in Honduras, but comparatively little con struction of a permanent character has been effected. In Mexico road building and rail road construction have made much more ad• vance, but mule trains are used throughout the country, particularly for carrying supplies into mining camps and bringing out ore. • Otto Chief of Latin-American Division, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Washing ton, D. C.