122 French Scientific Mission to the Pampa del Sacramento. 
are in a wretchedly-low state of civilization, and their habits 
are probably as unfavourable to longevity as any other cause. 
Science and industry, too, may do much to counteract the 
morbific effects of a hot and humid atmosphere. The re- 
mains of pottery found in the woods, inscriptions left on the 
face of the hardest rocks, traces of causeways Jaid across 
swampy plains, attest the former existence in those regions 
of a more numerous, civilized, and energetic race than is now 
to be found there. May not another such race yet inhabit 
this vast region and make it another China, teeming with in- 
habitants, uniting the enterprise and inventive powers of the 
European with the plodding and methodical industry of some 
of the Asiatic races, Should those low ledges of granite, 
which Humboldt found traversing the Llanos of the Oroo- 
noko, extend through the wooded and, as yet, little known 
basin of the Amazon, abundant materials may be found for 
facilitating communications by means of causeways and 
bridges, and for aiding the natural drainage of the country 
with canals. 
Our interest in such a territory, and our hopes of its be- 
coming an extensive seat of civilization and useful industry, 
are modified of course by the accounts we receive of the In- 
dians who now inhabit it, and who are known chiefly through 
the Roman Catholic missions that have been established 
amongst them; but we must not judge of the capacity of a 
savage people for receiving Christianity and civilization by 
the experience of such missions. According to what Hum- 
boldt was told and believed, some of the Selva tribes are can- 
nibals,—no unlikely thing, since the New Zealanders, who 
seem to have come originally from South America, were 
notoriously such down to our own days. But are we to 
despair of the cannibals of South America, after the com- 
plete success of our Protestant missions in New Zealand, 
because the Roman Catholic missions have failed to Chris- 
tianize them? This would be preposterous, considering how 
totally different the whole policy of these respective mis- 
sions has been. Previous, indeed, to Humboldt’s disclo- 
sures, the most extravagant ideas were propagated even 
in Britain as to the enlightened efforts of the Spanish Ro- 
