In Carácas a system of electric tramways not only provides rapid transit from one part of the city to the other but also runs out southwards to the suburb of El Valle. There are also lines of varying motive power and efficiency in Valencia, Puerto Cabello, Maracaibo, Ciudad Bolivar, Barquisimeto, Carúpano, and Cumaná. In view of the quantity of available water-power in the mountain districts of Venezuela, one imagines that electric traction will one day be very widely used, but, like many of the possibilities of Venezuela, this lies almost entirely in the future. Descending to the less rapid methods of travelling by road, we find the whole country is in much the same condition as England or Western Europe four hundred years ago, for, with the exception of some ten carreteras of very indifferent quality, the roads of Venezuela are bridle-paths, and occasionally hardly worthy even of that title. [Illustration: COUNTRY COACH: BARQUISIMETO.] [Illustration: ON THE BOLIVAR RAILWAY.] Such cart-roads as there are have to some extent been engineered, but none are macadamised. The best is that from La Guaira to Carácas, 35·4 kilometres long, but even this is little used by wheel traffic. One of the longest is the high-road from Carácas to Valencia, 168 kilometres, but this is exceeded by that connecting San Felix, on the Orinoco, with Guasipati, which has a length of 219 kilometres, with a 25-kilometre extension to Callao; the whole road is in a fearfully bad state in the rains, however, as to which matter enough has been said in Chapter XIV. From Carácas another main road goes eastward 70 kilometres down the Guaire valley to Santa Lucia, and yet another south-east to Charallave, 47 kilometres away. From Valencia, also, cart-roads radiate to Puerto Cabello (70 kilometres), to Nirgua (90 kilometres), to Güigüe for Villa de Cura (34 kilometres), and to San Carlos (99 kilometres). There are also cart-roads under construction from Puerto Cabello to San Felipe, between Uracá and San Cristobal, and one or two in other parts of the Andes.