C. Reginald Enock

“ The sombre green of forest or prairie everywhere hides the rocks; the soil stripped bare by the roads, is of a dull, uniform red; even the dust is red. Bright colours and broken lines are equally rare. One travels continually among rounded hillocks of green; the humid climate hides or softens the contour of hill and valley alike. The memories of one's journey's blend and grow confused; reminiscences of forests, skirted or traversed; clumps of banana-palms near fordable streams; windings of the twisted trail in the midst of undulating prairies. ”

“ From time to time the suggestions of the North are strangely compelling. Thus, when the heavy flower-cones of the horse-chestnut stand out boldly next to the snow-white circles of the elder-tree, with a grove of oaks as a background, it is with something akin to a shock that the succeeding clumps of paraiso and eucalyptus-trees, and the fleshly leaves of the aloe and prickly-pear bring the traveller back to reality and the land of warm sunshine. ”

“ It would be a great mistake to suppose that this class, by itself, is Brazil. I have done my best to see beyond it, and to keep in mind the populace, which is both more numerous and more diversified; a confused mass of people upon whom, before all else, the whole future of Brazil depends. It lives under a benign climate; or at least under a climate which makes impossible what we call poverty in Europe. It is also a rural class; all the agricultural labour of the country is performed by its hands. ”

“ If you cannot withstand the petty discomforts of the trail for the sake of the ever-shifting panorama of snow-peaks, rugged mountains, cosy valleys, smiling woodlands, trim little valleys, then you are not worthy to be exhilarated by the sun-kissed winds of the Andes, or soothed by the languorous tropical moonlight of the lower lands, or to partake of the open-handed hospitality which will greet you. ”

“ No pen can describe the beauty of the broad smiling valley, as seen from favourable points on either range, with its broad green pastures, yellow fields of sugar-cane, dark woodlands, its towns nestling at the foothills, the Cauca River in the midst, silvered by the reflected sun, and looking across the lomas of the rapidly ascending foothills, with cameo-cut country houses, topped by the dense forests of the upper reaches of the mountains, rising to majestic heights. ”

“ Rippling streams flow from inviting woodland glades untrodden by man, and high cascades send their showers of sparkling drops amid the foliage and over the fortress-like rocks around. Wafted along by sail or paddle, guided by the expert Indian boatmen, the craft weathers all dangers, and the passenger sees pass before him a panorama of the wilds whose impression will always remain upon his mind. Thus the charm of exploration never fails, and, borne upon the bosom of some half-unknown stream, the traveller's cup of adventure may on the Orinoco be filled to the brim. ”

“ In the dry season snags and sandbanks render navigation almost impossible on many of these tributaries, and in some cases in the remote districts the hordes of savages who dwell on the banks add to the dangers of the voyager. There are miles of rapids on certain of the waterways, and great cataracts, whilst the forest comes down to the water's edge, forming an impenetrable screen of tropical vegetation, in which the traveller who strays from his way is lost. This jungle is flooded in the rainy season, the waters driving back all animal life to the higher ground. ”

“ We have seen that the Latin American nations have been dowered by Providence with everything that could make a people prosperous and contented, if wisely disposed. In some respects their circumstances are superior to those of Europe and Asia. They have no over-powerful or rapacious neighbours, no chasms of race or religion to divide them, no insensate trade rivalries—things such as in the Old World have wrought such havoc with mankind. ”

“ Others, undulating in the wind, waving their palmated crests, seem like the parks of some destroyed Eden; they are often so burdened with flowers that when the wind blows it is as though the snow were falling. Some of these forests are incessantly alive with myriads of splendidly coloured birds and monkeys of every species; others, on the contrary, are so full of silence and shadow and mysterious solitude that the traveller might believe himself in a virgin world. ”

“ Buenos Ayres is a handsome city, a source of pride to Argentina, and an instance of the civic possibilities of the Spanish American race.
Before reaching Buenos Ayres we shall have entered Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, the smallest of the South American States, a seaport and city more beautifully situated, extending around the shore of its bay, with a rocky headland jutting out in the west. Here the Atlantic breezes blow freely over the city—situated on its rolling lands, a city one of the cleanest in the world and one of the most pleasing in South America. ”

“ The immense pines of the Paraná, with straight trunks and wide, flattened crests, whose shape is rather reminiscent of that of a candelabrum with seven branches, cover with their sombre grey the wooded portions of the plateau from the Paranápanema to beyond the Uruguay. With their open foliage, pervious to the light, these woods resemble the pinewoods of Europe.
"To find the tropical forest once more we must push as far as the Serra Geral, whose southern slopes run down towards the prairies of Rio Grande, as on the east they descend towards the sea. ”

“ So much for the immediate surroundings up to the point where the more intricate markings become merged in the broader tints of the landscape. Down in the hollows are bands of dark, close green formed by the trees that shade the streams. With scarcely a break in the narrow walls of verdure they run from valley to valley, accurately defining the banks of the small rivers [188] whose waters they conceal. Within these leafy lanes lurk the only spots upon the Campo, save for the rare woodland, that do not stare frankly upwards, exposing all their earthly soul to the blue sky. ”

“ One nation to-day is almost as far from such a philosophy as another, although to-morrow might see the turning of a page which should disclose its beginnings. In this evolving book of life the Latin American Republics have their opportunity, as far as the possible exercise of principle goes, with all other nations.
The problem for these nations is to bring on their own culture, avoiding, if possible, the errors of Europe and the United States: that is, avoiding the factors of industrial unrest and economic waste that have accompanied progress. ”

“ Colombia, like Peru or Mexico, or Ecuador or other of the sisterhood of nations in our survey, [19] is a land of great contrasts, whether of Nature or man. The unhealthy lowlands of the coast give place to the delightful valleys of higher elevations, which in their turn merge into the bitter cold of the melancholy paramos, or upland passes, and tablelands of the Andes. Or the cultivated lands pass to savage forests, where roam tribes of natives who perhaps have never looked upon the face of the white man. ”

“ It is a vast land which we thus approach. Brazil spreads like a giant across its continent. Its arms are flung westwards over South America for over two thousand miles to the base of the Andes, and from above the Equator to beyond the Tropic of Capricorn, crowding its smaller neighbours—if crowding be possible here—into the extremities of the continent, an area in which the countries of Europe might be more than contained, and which is larger than the vast Anglo-American Republic, the United States. ”

“ To sum up: the moral and economic inferiority of the negro population of Brazil is incontestable. The puerility of the negroes is extreme. [154] They have no foresight, and are innocent of any form of ambition, the sole motive-power of progress. They are modest in their desires and easily satisfied. Whoever has heard, in the streets of Bahia, the sincere, sonorous, joyful laughter of some negro woman cannot fail to have experienced the mixture of contempt, indulgence and envy with which this nation of children inspires the Caucasian. Their imagination is strong and nimble ”

“ A few sticks and branches and tufts of grass are already fast in the embrace of the powerful stems and green leaves, while at the end that faces the stream the water-driven sand has risen at the obstacle, and has shyly protruded a small round hump or two above the ripples. The life of the thing is as uncertain as that of a seedling or of a human child. Under favourable conditions it will grow and solidify year by year until from the few leaves and sticks will have extended some square miles of tree-covered soil. ”

“ The well-meaning foreigner in such places, with some small capital, becomes one of the most esteemed and predominant personages of the locality. He could acquire and profit by flocks, herds, plantations, mines. There is plenty of labour, among the Indian and other folk, to be obtained—labour, that is, in small local undertakings, not for over-greedy or absorbent joint-stock operations—under the relation of master and servant. Here is an opportunity, then, for those good English and other folk who complain so hardly of heavy taxation and other burdens of life! ”

“ Latin America is a territory whose wealth and population are growing. There is an increasing class demanding the things of luxury and necessity which Europe and North America produce, and which Japan produces—for it will be unwise to leave these sharp-witted traders of Asia out of our survey. The Latin American peoples are plastic and emotional, imitative, pleasure-loving, fond of personal adornment. They are emerging from the poverty and austerity of the influence of the Colonial period. ”

“ We may gain an idea of the size of the region drained by the Amazon by noting that it covers four-tenths of the entire area of South America. Yet less than a hundred square miles of it is cultivated, and its "population"—if the term may be used for the bands of savage or semi-savage Indians that dwell there and the few white settlements—number perhaps half of that of the city of London: a few million souls, who are lost in this immensity of forest, jungle and river. ”

“ Indeed, did one judge of the winged pests of these neighbourhoods by the myriads which abound above the fervid waters, the outlook would be sufficiently unpromising even to the most mosquito-hardened of men. The song of this plague is continuous of an evening now, and when the daylight has vanished in the abrupt fashion in which it is wont to fade away in these latitudes, the electric globes of the steamer are all but obscured by the insects that dance about them so thickly as to resemble dense clouds of smoke that roll in confused masses about a half-seen flame! ”