Yet to give life to the Orinoco, to establish a stream of natural products down its waters, and to facilitate the opening of the forests and mountains beyond the rapids, it would not be necessary to carry out work of a very stupendous nature, beyond the resources of the peoples and the nations most interested in the work. A cursory glance at the elements of the problem reveals the possibility of carrying out a plan, the general outlines of which might be the following:
A line of steamers should be established plying at least twice a month between Ciudad Bolivar and the highest accessible point for navigation below the Atures Rapids.
The old road along the rapids, which extended from that highest point of navigation to beyond Maipures where the river is again free and open, should be reconstructed. A railway could be built along either shore, the ground being mostly level and hard. It would not be necessary to undertake great engineering works, and the road-bed itself would require neither deep cuttings nor terracing, nor expensive culverts and works of drainage, and the few bridges required, being of short span, would not run into high figures.
Steam navigation should also be established beyond the rapids on the rivers forming the upper basin. This could be done at first by means of small steam-launches such as are used in the affluents of the Amazon River, but the service should be carried out faithfully and periodically, even though at first freight and passengers were lacking. People in Spanish America are generally very sceptical as to these enterprises, but once a feeling of confidence was created, explorers would flock both from Colombia and from Venezuela, as they would know that they would have an outlet for whatever products they might gather.
The Indians on the Vichada, and even those on the Meta, would supply abundant labour, and the exports of natural products would soon furnish all the freight that might be desired to make the whole arrangement of steamers above and below the rapids, and the railway along the same, a paying concern.
A line of steamers should also follow the course of the Meta River as far as La Cruz, a port situated about ninety miles from Bogotá, thus tapping the import and export trade of the most thickly-populated region of Colombia, the inhabitants of which in the three provinces of Santander, Boyacá, and Cundinamarca, are over 1,500,000 in number.