402 Voyage of the Novara. 



in which a sounder policy is preserved, it is invariably found 

 that they are of purer Spanish descent than their sister re- 

 publics in tropical South America.* 



Owing to their political organization, these various states 

 can scarcely fail to be powerfully affected by the impulses of 

 our time. They have no other prospect than that of becom- 

 ing either an integral portion of the immense North Ameri- 

 can Federation, or of once more being consolidated into a 

 monarchy under the sceptre of some scion of a European 

 royal family. In all probability, whether they be North 

 Americans, or English, or Germans, they will always be 

 children of some of a more powerful race, who must ultimate- 

 ly subvert the races of the Southern type, awaken a new 

 spirit of energy, and so carry out that which the lazy mixed 

 races of the present time have neither the power nor the in- 

 clination to effect. An immigration of skilled Northerners can 

 alone raise these countries politically and commercially, de- 

 velope their natural resources, and restore them to the 

 grade of civilized states. 



One of the most important as well as useful plants of Peru, 

 and with samjjles of which I provided myself on leaving 

 Peru, for the purpose of future analysis, is the Coca {Ery- 

 throxylon Coca), the leaves of which mixed with chalk or ashes 

 of plants, form so important an article of diet as well as a 

 masticatory among some Indian races of Peru and Bolivia. 



* Thus too it is the predominance of the pure Spanish tj^e and the extent of 

 foreign immigration, which render the future of Chile so hopeful. 



