If we take a map of South America on which the political boundaries are clearly shown, Venezuela will be observed as a wedge of territory immediately to the east of the most northerly point of the continent, separating Colombia from our colony of British Guiana.

The United States of Venezuela, as this republic is officially called, lie wholly within the tropical zone, between latitude 0° 45´ N. and 12° 26´ N. and longitude 59° 35´ W. and 73° 20´ W. (from Greenwich). The area within these limits is some 1,020,400 square kilometres, or 394,000 square miles, according to the Statistical Year Book for 1908, published in Carácas in 1910. The total population, according to the same authority, is 2,664,241, these being the figures of the last census, that of 1891.

Turning to our map once more, it will be seen that the wedge is not a regular one, but suggests rather the lower half of a human head, with the Lower Orinoco as the line of the jaw. The features are easily observed to separate the territory of the republic into four main divisions: (1) the Guayana Highlands, including all the region corresponding to the part of the head below the jaw-line, i.e., south and east of the Orinoco; (2) the great central area of plains or Llanos, bounded on the north and west by (3) the north-eastern branch of the great Andine chain, and in the north-west of the country (4) a smaller low-lying region round the Lake of Maracaibo. Each of these divisions includes somewhat varying types of land surface, but has its main features of uniform character.

As already defined, the Guayana Highlands include the whole of that vast, more or less unexplored, tract of Venezuela lying on the right bank of the Orinoco and round the head-waters of that river. The area is primarily one huge elevated plateau about 1,000 feet or more above the sea, and from this rise a few principal mountain ranges, with some peaks over 8,000 feet high, while smaller hills and chains link up the larger systems. The highest ground is found on the Brazilian frontier, beginning at Mount Roraima (8,500 feet), where the three boundaries of Venezuela, British Guiana, and Brazil meet, and extends thence in the Sierras Pacaraima and Parima westward and southward to the head-waters of the Orinoco. From Roraima the Orinoco-Cuyuni watershed extends northward within Venezuela, along the Sierras Rincote and Usupamo and the Highlands of Puedpa, to the Sierra Piacoa, and thence south-east along the Sierra Imataca to the British limits again. The Sierra Maigualida forms the watershed between the Caura and the Ventuari.

The whole area, which amounts to some 204,600 square miles, is well watered by the upper Orinoco and the Ventuari, with the other great tributaries, the Cuchivero, Caura, Aro, Caroni, and their affluents. Large as these rivers are, they are so broken by rapids that travel along them is only possible for much of their length in small portable craft, and even then the passage is fraught with danger. Save for the districts in the immediate neighbourhood of the Orinoco, and scattered areas elsewhere, the whole region is thickly covered with forests of valuable timber, containing rubber, tonka-beans, brazil-nuts, copaiba, and all the varied natural produce of the South American tropics.

The great plains or Llanos of the Orinoco extend from the banks of the Meta in a broad arc parallel to the course of the Orinoco along its left bank. Westward they are bounded by the Cordillera of Mérida, and northward by the Cordillera of Carácas and the hills of Sucre, but between these ranges, at Barcelona, they virtually reach the sea for a short distance. To the east they merge into the low-lying tract of the Orinoco Delta. The total area of the Llanos proper is in the neighbourhood of 108,300 square miles, so that we have in these two thinly populated tracts about 80 per cent. of the territory of the republic.

Vast areas of the Llanos remain, for all practical purposes, still unexplored, and their general character can only be inferred from that of the regions bordering on the “roads.” The typical areas are wide grass plains, often stretching to the horizon on all sides without a break, but generally interrupted by little groups of palms and small trees, especially near the banks of the rivers. At some four or five points near the northern edge there are great forests or selvas, relics possibly of an earlier, more extensive woodland.

The elevation of the Llanos ranges up to 650 feet, and more than this in the mesas of the central region, these being gravel-capped plateaux, of varying extent, beginning in the west with the Mesa de Santa Clara, northward of Caicara, and extending thence in a continuous series eastward and northward to form the watershed between the Orinoco and the Unare-Aragua basin, which drains into the Caribbean Sea west of Barcelona. The lowest part of the Llanos is situated westward of this chain of tablelands, in the valley of the Portuguesa, the lower part of which has large tracts less than 300 feet above sea-level. East of the Mesa de Guanipa the ground falls comparatively rapidly to the Delta.

While severe drought is experienced over much of the Llano region in summer, the heavy rains, particularly in the western districts, produce floods over the low-lying plains, the mesas being dry at all times. The whole area is traversed by numerous streams and rivers, which rise either on the southern slopes of the Cordillera or in the mesas. North of the Meta, in addition to the large number of smaller streams which here and there broaden out into marshy lakes or cienagas, we have the navigable rivers Arauca (the main waterway to eastern Colombia) and Apure, flowing from the Andes to the Orinoco in an easterly direction. The Apure receives many tributaries on its left bank from the Venezuelan Andes, most important of which are the Portuguesa, rising in the plains of the same name south of Barquisimeto and joining the Apure at San Fernando, and the Guárico, whose mouth is east of the same town, flowing from south of Carácas through the State to which it gives its name, and receiving from the east the waters of the Orituco, whose source is less than thirty miles from the coast in longitude 66°. Of the Orinoco tributaries from the north beyond the Apure the most important is the Manapire, all the streams east of this rising in the mesas and having but short courses. The greater part of the eastern Llanos drains northward by the Unare and Aragua into the Caribbean Sea. A few large rivers rise on the east of the mesas, but flow for short distances only through the plains, emptying, not into the Orinoco itself but the caños of the Delta. This last-mentioned region of inundated forest, savannah and mangrove swamp, occupies about 11,500 square miles, bringing the total area of the central plains up to 119,800 square miles.

The third great tract, the north-eastern spur of the Andes, divides itself naturally into three parts—the Caribbean Hills, along the shores of the sea of the same name; the Segovia Highlands, linking the former to the higher mountains of western Venezuela; and the Cordillera of Mérida, or the Venezuelan Andes. The total area occupied by these mountain and hill tracts is about 41,800 square miles.

The Caribbean Hills give to the Venezuelan coast its splendid and almost unique aspect, for, save for the interruption near Barcelona, the range extends without much decrease in average height from west of longitude 68° to the east end of the peninsula of Paria, less than 62° west of Greenwich. Two main lines of elevation are plainly discernible in the Carácas region, known as the Serrania Costanera and the Serrania Interior; they continue throughout the range, but are less distinct in the Cumaná Hills. The greatest elevation of the outer line is reached near Carácas itself, a considerable area west of the city rising to over 6,500 feet, while to the east are the famous peaks of La Silla (de Carácas) and Naiguatá (8,620 feet and 9,100 feet respectively). In the inner range the greatest elevation is round Mount Turimquiri, south of Cumaná; the eastern portion of the coast range, in the peninsulas of Araya and Paria, does not rise above 3,200 feet. On the northern side the complex is drained only by mountain torrents falling rapidly throughout their short courses to the sea, while on the south are the head-waters of the Orinoco tributaries. Between the two ranges, however, we have longitudinal valleys with rivers of more or less importance—the Aragua, flowing westwards from Carácas into the lake of Valencia or Tacarigua, which overflows into the Paito, a tributary of the Portuguesa; and the Tuy, with its affluent the Guaire, flowing eastwards to the sea south of Cape Codera. In the Cumaná Hills we have the Manzanares and other smaller streams emptying their waters into the Gulf of Cariaco, and on the east the Lake of Putucual, though small, is similar in situation to that of Valencia, and its overflow forms the River San Juan, which empties into the Gulf of Paria, forming virtually part of the Orinoco drainage. The lower slopes of all these ranges, and the valleys, are clothed with rich forests, excepting the dry, barren coasts near Carácas, while the heights are bare, save for grass and a few small temperate trees.

Between the western extremity of the Caribbean Hills and the northern spurs of the Venezuelan Andes there is an elevated region, which, though subject to variations of level, possesses the main features of a tableland, and this type of surface extends in a broad belt northward through the States of Lara and Falcón. Their main extent is in the State of Lara, whose capital, Barquisimeto, had as its original name, before any territorial limits were defined round it, Nueva Segovia; it seems appropriate, therefore, to distinguish this area as the Segovia Highlands.

The level of most of the area so designated ranges from 1,500 to 3,500 feet, but the plateau type is best developed in the Barquisimeto region, the dry, barren plains of which, with their cactus vegetation, suggest by their general features the dry bed of an ancient lake, in whose waters the small scattered hills formed islands, while the Andine spurs to the south and the Sierra de Aroa and similar mountain masses north of Barquisimeto, constituted its limits. Beyond the latter, and north of the Tocuyo River, while the larger part of the area maintains its more or less uniform elevation, three well-defined ranges rise from the plateau, in the Cordilleras of Baragua, Agua Negra, and San Luis; the last named is the largest, and extends for 110 miles parallel to the Coro coast, overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela. Practically the whole of this region is drained by the Tocuyo and its tributaries, the other rivers rising merely on its outer edges and falling direct to the sea; from this generalisation should be excepted a small area round Barquisimeto, in the catchment area of the river of the same name, which contributes its waters to the volume of the Portuguesa, and so enters the Orinoco. The Tocuyo, whose principal affluents are the Carora and the Baragua on its left bank, rises in the Andes and flows for some 330 miles in a northerly direction, changing to easterly in the lower river, before it empties itself into the Caribbean. While the southern part of this area is barren, all the lower slopes of the northern hills are forest clad and fertile, with llanos in the Carora Valley and grass-covered summits above.

To the south we have the Venezuelan Andes, stretching for some 300 miles south-westward to the Colombian frontier, and forming the highest land in the whole country.

There are two main divisions of this mountain group, the Portuguesa chain south of Barquisimeto, and the Cordillera of Mérida constituting the more important and higher part. The Portuguesa chain reaches its greatest elevation (13,100 feet) in the south near the sources of the Tocuyo, the northern portion rising only to about 5,000 feet. A slight break in the mass is caused by the valley of the Boconó, beyond which the Cordillera of Mérida begins with peaks of nearly 13,000 feet on the north, rising to their maximum in the centre, where the summits of the Sierra Nevada of Mérida have an elevation of about 16,400 feet, and the top of the highest of all, La Columna, is 16,423 feet above sea-level. Southwards the elevations decrease again, until on the borders of Colombia the watershed is less than 5,000 feet above the sea. The streams of this chain, with its steep outer flanks so characteristic of the Andes, naturally belong for the most part to the catchment area of the Orinoco or the Maracaibo Lake, but there is a succession of longitudinal valleys within the chain which may be considered as pertaining more particularly to the Andes. The chief of these rivers are the Motatán, which, rising north of Mérida, flows northwards through Trujillo to the Lake of Maracaibo; the Chama, whose sources are in the same snows that supply the Motatán, though the stream flows southward past Mérida, bending then sharply northward to reach the south shore of the lake opposite the mouth of the Motatán; and the Torbes, flowing south-westward by San Cristobal, and turning there to the east to fall into the Uribante, a tributary of the Apure. Every type of vegetation occurs within this Andine tract, varying according to the geology of the ground and its elevation. At some points there are fertile valleys with tropical flora, others with temperate cereals; sometimes bare mountain slopes and hot gorges supporting only cactus and acacia, and little of these; sometimes grass-clad slopes and summits, with the peculiar heather-like and resinous plants of the “páramos,” and, lastly, the eternal snows of the peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

North of the mountain region of Venezuela lies what may be considered as the coastal plain, including the alluvial area of the Lake of Maracaibo, the Coro and Paraguana lowlands, and such few tracts of flat ground as may be found along the coast, with the numerous islands in the Caribbean which belong to Venezuela. The area of this division may be estimated as about 27,800 square miles. The lake has many points of similarity to the Delta, both in hydrography and general character. The southern part has innumerable rivers comparable to the caños, with open lagoons and swamps, bordered by dense forests more or less inundated in the rains. On the east and west shores to the north there are stretches of higher ground between the swamps, and frequent grass plains like the Llanos; the western side is bounded by the Sierra de Perija, forming the frontier of Colombia. Chief of the rivers traversing these plains are the Motatán and Chama, already mentioned as rising in the Andes, the Escalante, and the Catatumbo; the mouths of all are of a deltaic character, and all are navigable to a greater or lesser extent. The largest and most important is the Catatumbo, which, with its great tributary, the Zulia, rises in Colombia.

The Coro and Paraguana lowlands form a stretch of open, sandy, more or less barren and low hills, extending from the neighbourhood of the port of Maracaibo along the coast to Coro, and into the Paraguana peninsula; with them may be grouped the islands, which are similar in character, except Margarita, whose mountains resemble those of the Caribbean chain, though the open, cactus-covered lower ground is a repetition of the western coast (and Curaçao).

The climate of the 394,000 square miles naturally varies greatly according to latitude, elevation, and vegetation. The Guayana region, here also, stands by itself, both from its southern position and comparatively uniform elevation, so that over a wide area the temperature and rainfall are more or less the same. Naturally in those parts of Guayana where mountain ridges rise above the general level of the plateau the temperature is lower than the average, but these must constitute a small part of the whole. There is a marked difference in the meteorological conditions in the various river-valleys of the Orinoco basin, where the “white-water”—i.e., the swiftly flowing but muddy streams, with rocky beds—are always accompanied by a clear sky overhead, and mosquitoes and crocodiles abound; on the “black water”—the deep and slow rivers—the sky is continually clouded, but the air is free from mosquitoes. The Orinoco represents the former type, the Rio Negro the latter. The rainy season in Guayana begins in April and lasts till November; the remaining four months are fairly dry.

The better known region of the north is generally considered as divided, qua climate, into three regions, in common with tropical South America generally—that is to say, the hot, temperate, and cold zones. The hot zone or Tierra caliente is generally considered as ranging from sea-level to an elevation of 1,915 feet, where the mean annual temperature varies from 74° to 91° Fahr. The intermediate or temperate zone, the Tierra templada, lies between 1,915 and 7,030 feet above sea-level, and within those limits the mean annual temperature may fall as low as, or even lower than, 60° Fahr. The Tierra fria, or cold zone, including the highest peak of Venezuela, 16,423 feet, has mean annual temperatures ranging from 60° to below zero.

The Tierra caliente includes (in addition to the greater part of Guayana) the Llanos, the coastal plains, and the region of the Lake of Maracaibo, the lower slopes and part of the central valleys of the mountains, part of the Segovia Highlands, and the Caribbean islands. The higher ground naturally has a climate varying with elevation, but the typical hot country, the Llanos are the warmest, the islands the coolest. On the Llanos the central, northern, and eastern regions are cooler than the southern and western, the highest mean annual temperature being recorded in San Fernando de Apure. Over this area the rainfall is heavy, and the wet season lasts from April to November. Maracaibo has the highest temperature of the cities of the coastal region, and, while the rains in the greater part of the area last through the same months as in Guayana and the Llanos, the area round the lake is comparatively free from rain until August and September, when the heaviest falls are recorded. The Segovia highlands and the islands alike have a lower mean temperature and rainfall than the remainder of the zone, the position of the one region, behind the coastal range which has precipitated the moisture of the easterly winds, being paralleled by the distance of the islands from these heights in the opposite direction.

The Tierra templada includes the greater part of the inhabited region of the hills, in which the climate necessarily varies greatly according to situation, the bottoms of some of the Andine valleys within the zone being more oppressive than parts of the low countries.

In the eastern part of the Caribbean Hills the rains last during the same months as in the Llanos, but in the Andes, particularly to the south, the seasons vary, and it is generally considered that there are two rainy seasons; the first light rains from April to June, separated by “St. John’s little summer” (El Veranito de San Juan) from the later heavy rains which last from August to November; this arrangement applies rather to the eastern side of the watershed, the western side having an increasing similarity in seasons to the Llanos as one descends towards those plains.

Only the higher peaks and ridges of the Caribbean Hills are included in the Tierra fria, but between Tocuyo and the Colombian frontier the greater part of the area is situated above 7,030 feet. The prevalent strong winds and the sparse vegetation of the upper areas render them too unattractive to have become extensively colonised, but the products of the temperate zone grow readily in the lower parts below the timber-limit. Only the peaks of the Sierra Nevada are permanently snow-covered, the line having, it is said, retreated upwards of late years. The snow is apparently more abundant in the hotter months of the year, when the clouds which are dropping rain on the plain hide the peaks for many hours of the day, and then, lifting suddenly, show them white with snow far below the normal point, which is about 14,700 feet above sea-level. A very short period of exposure to the sun’s rays restores the mountains to their usual aspect.

From the point of view of health, Venezuela must be looked upon as holding a good record for a country in its latitude, where malaria is to be expected to prevail. The death-rate for the whole republic in 1908 is given in the Anuario Estadístico as 25·1 per 1,000, and of the 56,903 deaths in that year, about one-third were infants under four years of age, while malaria (paludismo) accounts for 8,239. Tuberculosis and gastric and nervous diseases are the most prevalent causes of death. Yellow fever, once so prevalent, is now rare, thanks to improved sanitary conditions. The Delta region and the lower parts of the Guayana valley are the most unhealthy from a general point of view, while the death-rate of the cities shows that the Llanos are by far the healthiest district, with the Andes next, followed by the Caribbean Hills. In some of the low-lying coast towns, where mangrove swamps abound in the neighbourhood, the death-rate is high, but as a general rule the northern coast, with its dry atmosphere and sea breezes, while hot, appears to be markedly healthy.