Imports into Ecuador from Great Britain during the years ending December 31, 1886, 1888,

1890.*

Exports from Ecuador to Great Britain during the years ending December 31, 1886, 1888,

From the foregoing tables relative to the United States, it appears that our trade with Ecuador was less, both in imports and exports, in 1890 than two years before. Of the total amount of imports from us, amounting to $714,924, over 48.5 per cent, or $346,340, was in provi sions, a gain in this item over 1888 of $138,959, while the decrease in other articles amounted to $234,602, apparently showing that our farm products have the surest hold on the market of Ecuador. The decrease of trade and increase in agricultural exports are the only noticeable features in this connection, except that of the 11,000,000 pounds of sugar annually produced in Ecuador, mostly in the region of Guayaquil, none reached this country.

IMPORT DUTIES.

The import duties upon such articles of agricultural derivation as are of interest in this connection are as follows, the value of the peso of Ecuador being represented by 73.6 cents United States money:

INTERIOR COMMUNICATION.

There are no wagon roads in this country outside of the near vicinity of cities, and all kinds of burdens are borne upon the backs of horses, mules, asses, llamas, and men. Most of the paths which answer for highways are impassable, especially with weight, during the rainy season, and at the best they are execrable. The mountainous nature of the country where population exists is partly responsible for want of good roads, but the character of the population itself has much to do with the matter.

The construction of railways was commenced in 1872, according to a report made by Mr. Caamaño to the International American Conference, but up to the time of the report in 1890, only 13.6 miles were in operation, with 62 miles finished upon another line. Several concessions have been granted and some work has been done, intended to connect Quito, the capital, with the coast, and to connect various interior cities. There is some navigation of streams in and east of the mountains, and of the Guayas, on the west side, great use is made.

The capital is connected with Guayaquil by telegraph, and altogether there are about 1,200 miles of telegraph lines. Through Colombia the country is connected with the world by ocean cables. By the postal system over three million letters and packages are transmitted per year.

LABOR AND SUBSISTENCE.

The largest proportion of the people of Ecuador are engaged in rural industries. Nearly all agricultural labor is under the peonage system, the laborers being in bond to continual debt. Peon wages along the coast side of the Andes are $8 per month, and in the interior $4. However, the labor of three peons is only equivalent to that of one man in most parts of the United States.

Laborers are given 12 ounces of meat, 14 ounces of rice or beans, and a little lard or salt per day. The usual clothing consists of three coarse shirts and three coarse pairs of pantaloons per year, costing about $6. A tenth of the products of agriculture go to the church.

In the cities common laborers are paid 75 cents per day; carpenters, $1.50 to $2; masons, $1 to $1.50; painters, the same; blacksmiths, $1 to $2; boat builders, the same; and porters, cooks, and men servants employed by the month, receive from $10 to $12, with board. Women servants receive $6 to $10, with board. Tailors, shoemakers, printers, bakers, barbers, etc., are paid from $6 to $12 per week. These are the wages in the coast provinces, while in the interior they are about onethird less.

Meats are 10 to 15 cents per pound in the cities; fresh fish, 5 cents; sugar, 10 to 15; rice, 5; flour, 10; meat, 5; coffee, 10 to 12; bread and crackers, 15, home cheese, 8; potatoes, 2; and onions, 3 cents per

pound. Plantains and yams, which are very cheap, are used largely as substitutes for potatoes, and fruit is plentiful and cheap. Little butter is used, imported costing 50 to 70 cents per pound. Large quantities of lard from the United States are used in cooking, and retails at 20 cents per pound. Kerosene sells at $1 per gallon. Prices, like wages, are lowest in the interior.*

EDUCATION AND THE PRESS.

There are in Ecuador 856 primary schools and 37 secondary, with about 60,000 pupils. Primary instruction is obligatory and gratuitous. There is also a university at Quito, and there are university bodies at Guayaquil and Cuenca, and military, technical, and commercial schools. The scientific school at Quito has 11 professors and about 50 students. By the constitution the national religion is Roman Catholic, and the schools have such limitations as that religion sanctions.

There are 17 journals published in the several cities, 2 of which are daily, 3 triweekly, 11 weekly, and 1 monthly. Their presses and type were made in the United States, but Germany furnishes the paper and most of the ink for their use.

CONCLUSION.

Ecuador, naturally one of the richest and most favored of countries, scarcely requires or permits a summary of its resources, which are mainly undeveloped; its advantages, which are apparent at a glance, but which it has not the population to utilize; or its industrial achievements and their impress upon the commodity exchange of the world, which are as yet but slightly appreciable. The stir of progress around it has scarcely awakened it from its dream of centuries. What it is now can to some extent be judged fairly, it is hoped, from what is herein presented. When it will become different by assimilating stronger progressive tendencies can not be predicted, but such an era is sure to

come.

Reports of Consul Beach to the Department of State. 19152-No. 2-9

THE GUIANAS.

The regions on the northeastern coast of South America forming the only European possessions on its main land are a portion of a larger region discovered by Columbus in 1498, and later given the name of Guiana, Guyana, or Guayana. The greater portion of the large region belongs to Venezuela and Brazil, the whole being included between the Orinoco and the Amazon, and has been included in the consideration of the agriculture of those countries under their respective heads. The colonial regions are known now as British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, and French Guiana, and pertain as possessions to the respective countries indicated by their names. They are of comparatively small extent and importance, and for purposes of this article may be treated together in many of their features. They are each under the administration of a governor and subordinate officers appointed by the home government, and the first two have local legislatures.

AREA AND POPULATION.

The Guianas extend along the Atlantic from about latitude 4° to 70 north, or from the River Oyapok to the Essequibo, but in the interior the southern limit reaches to less than a degree of the equator. From east to west the extent is from 51° to about 58° west longitude. The area of the respective possessions in square miles, as given in the Encyclopædia Britannica, and the population of the two latter as given in the Almanach de Gotha for 1891, are as follows:

Of this population 4,400 are convicts in prison or liberated.

Since 1886 Great Britain has claimed and taken possession of 33,000 square miles, extending north to the mouth of the Orinoco, always previously in the possession of Venezuela and still claimed by that Republie, which area bears a population of nearly 30,000 inhabitants, according to the British calculation of 1890, in the Year Book for 1891.* The historic area stated in the foregoing table is 10,000 square miles greater

See article on Venezuela infra.

than that of Spain, and 5,000 greater than that of the New England States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland combined.

COLONIAL FINANCES.

The estimated receipts and expenditures of British Guiana for 1890– '91, and the actual of the other colonies for 1889, as stated in the Almanach de Gotha and the Statesman's Year Book for 1891, may be tabulated in United States values as follows:

The deficiencies of Dutch and French Guiana, which are of annual occurrence, are borne by the respective home governments, so that no standing debt is created. British Guiana had a public debt in 1889 of $3,588,555.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

The general appearance of the surface of the Guianas, from the coast line to the interior, indicates successive elevation of the land which has corresponding bench marks, showing former coast lines. The shore is also skirted by mud banks, the water on which decreases in depth shoreward, or by mangrove marshes, as in French Guiana, and there are bars of mud, quicksands, and rocks at the mouths of the rivers, so that much of the country is unapproachable to vessels of any considerable draft. The British colonial capital, Georgetown, has a mud bar under 8 feet of water at the mouth of its port; the French, Cayenne, has a shallow harbor; but the Dutch, Paramaribo, 5 miles up the Surinam River, which is there half a mile wide and 5 miles in width at its mouth, admits vessels of 18 feet draft, and is ámple in every respect.

The flat coast lands of British and Dutch Guiana are on a level with the sea at high water, and generally extend inland many miles. Back of this extensive level the land gradually swells to an elevation of 200 feet, forming the northern edge of the table lands. This generally ris ing plateau is intersected by parallel ranges of hills, extending to the mountain ranges in the extreme south, which are highest towards their western parts, the loftiest eminence, Mount Roraima, reaching 7,500 feet. This territory is drained by six large rivers and their numerous tributaries, the rivers being navigable in some cases for 100 miles. Fully half of this extensive region is covered with a dense tropical forest, and nearly all with a luxuriant vegetation. About one fourth *American Cyclopedia.