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CHAPTER XVI SOME REFLECTIONS AND FORECASTS Rapid filling up of the Cultivable Areas of the World 552 Regions available for Settlement in South America 555 The Temperate Regions 556 The Selvas of the Amazonian Plain 558 Possible Future Population of South America 563 Elements, Aboriginal and White, in the Population 564 Phenomena of Race Intermixture in South America 566 No Predominant Type in the South American Peoples 568 Spanish Americans misjudged because their Conditions at Time of Independence were not Understood 570 Evidences of Social and Political Advancement 573 South America has suffered from Want of Intellectual Contact with Other Countries 574 The Spanish Race stronger on the Practical than on the Intellectually Creative Side 577 Backwardness of Knowledge and Intelligence in the Rural Parts of Spanish America 580 Decline in the Influence of the Church and Religion 582 Continued Vigour of the Spanish-American Race 584 Note I. Some Books upon Latin America 587 Note II. A Few Remarks on travelling in South America 588 Index 591 Maps. South America.
The Isthmus of Panama.
Parts of Peru and Bolivia.
The Straits of Magellan.
Parts of Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

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INTRODUCTION

Whoever read as a boy the books of old travellers in the Andes, such as Humboldt's Aspects of Nature, or pored over such accounts of the primitive American peoples as are given in Prescott's Conquest of Peru must have longed to visit some day the countries that fired his imagination. These had been my experiences, and to them there was subsequently added a curiosity to learn the causes which produced so many revolutions and civil wars in Spanish America, and, still later, a sense that these countries, some of them issuing from a long period of turbulence, were becoming potent economic factors in the modern world. So when after many years the opportunity of having four clear months for a journey to South America presented itself, I spent those months in seeing as much as I could within the time, and was able to make some observations and form certain impressions regarding the seven republics I visited. These observations and impressions are contained in the following pages. They are, of course, merely first impressions, but the impressions which travel makes on a fresh mind have their value if they are tested by subsequent study and by being submitted to persons who know the country thoroughly. I have tried so to test these impressions of mine, and hope they may be of service to those who desire to learn something about South America, but have not time to peruse the many books of travel that have been written about each of its countries.

The chief points of interest which these countries have for Europeans and North Americans may be summed up as follows:—

1. The aspects of nature.

2. The inhabitants, the white part of whom are of Spanish origin, except the Brazilians, who come from Portugal.

3. The economic resources of the several countries.

4. The prospects for the development of industry and