A regular service is maintained by several lines of steamers between New York, New Orleans and Venezuelan ports, and European lines to the Caribbean Sea have La Guaira as a port of call. The Fluvial and Coastwise Navigation Company of Venezuela has ar ranged with the government to establish a regular semi-monthly steamship service on the Orinoco River and its tributaries, extending to Port of Spain, Trinidad, as well as between Ciudad Bolivar and Maracaibo, touching at Cristobal Colon, Port Sucre, Cariipano, Guanta, La Guaira, Puerto Cabello, La Vela, and possi bly at intermediate points.
There are 309 post offices scattered through out Venezuela, and the telephone and the tele graph are both steadily increasing in use. The number of telegraph stations is given as 211, with wire extending 5,455 miles. The telephone services have about 13,000 miles of wire.
Population.— The number of inhabitants was about 2,850,000 in 1917 — averaging rather more than seven to the square mile. As Mr. Dalton has written, the Indians have in general been absorbed into the Spanish-speaking na tion. Aboriginal inhabitants who preserve their habits and racial customs unchanged are found principally or only along the northwest frontier and in the forests of the southeast and south. The Goajiros dwell as an independent tribe among the mountains along the Colombian frontier; the Caribs inhabit forests along the banks of the Caroni and the upper Orinoco and its tributaries; and in the remote southern re gions of forest and highland there are about 16 tribes of other native races. The vital statis tics for 1916 show 6,696 marriages, 74,816 births, 66,186 deaths, 8,596 immigrants and 7,637 emigrants.
History.— Dr. H. J. Spinden, of the Ameri can Museum of Natural History, writes in the Scientific American, 19 Aug. 1916, that the re gion now called Venezuela *is generally recog nized (by archaeologists) as the point of de parture for the original culture of the West In dies.* It is probable, also, that long before the disc4ery of the New World the tribes or peo ples of the mainland, from the plateau of Bo gota to the valley of Mexico, held communica tion with tribes inhabiting the lower valleys of the Venezuelan Andes and the Caribbean Hills. Nevertheless the aborigines had advanced very little beyond mere savagery when Columbus, on 31 July 1498, coasted along the south side of the Peninsula of Paria. In 1499 Alonso de Ojeda, Amerigo Vespucci and others set sail, and, after landing several times on the penin sula just mentioned, continued the voyage west ward to Coquibacoa (lake of Maracaibo), where the Indian pile-dwellings on the shores of the lake attracted special attention, recalling Venice, on a very small scale; and (perhaps by Arnerigo's suggestion) the name Little Venice, or Venezuela, was bestowed upon that region.
Another group of voyagers in the same year touched at Margarita Island and obtained pearls from the natives. In 1500 about 50 adventurers, sailing from Hispaniola, established a settle ment on Cubagua Island, near Margarita, and naturally an. uncontrolled exploitation of the pearl fisheries began. At Cumana, Manjar and a point near Barcelona on the mainland coast, there were settlements of a different character in 1513, 1518 and 1520: Franciscan and Domini can monks, engaged in missionary work at these continental stations, laid down their lives as martyrs in a noble cause. It was after studying the situation here that Bartolome de las Casas used all the force of his great talent for the suppression of the traffic in Indian slaves. Nueva Cordoba, the modern Cumank, was founded in 1521; Cori in 1527. The rule of the Welser (the bankers of Augsburg to whom Charles V granted the privilege of exploiting the province of Venezuela) was endured during two miserable decades, practically ending in 1545, though the grant was not formally with drawn until 1558. In 1561 occurred the rebellion of Lope de Aguirre. Caracas, or Santiago de Leon de Caracas, was founded in 1567 (pre sumably, though the exact date has not been recorded) beside the Villa de San Francisco which Faxardo had built in 1560. In 1595 Sir IA alter Raleigh first visited these regions of the aOronoca," as he wrote the name (compare (Archmologia,) Vol. XVI, pp. 188-192, London, Society of Antiquaries, 1812). Berrio y Orufia in 1615 led an expedition from San Thome, east of the mouth of the Caroni, in quest of the fabled city of Manoa. In 1656 a station was again founded at Barcelona by Franciscan monks, and organized attempts to civilize the Indians were so largely successful that within 150 years the Franciscans founded 38 towns with 25,1000 Indian inhabitants. Other orders estab lished missions in 1686. The University of Caracas was founded by Philip V in 1721. The whole of what is now Venezuela (with the ex ception of the Maracaibo region) was in 1731 included in a new Capitania-General, to which Maracaibo was added in 1777.