MEDIUM OP INTERCOURSE. 87 



between countries remote from each other, the 

 means by which the benefits it confers on all lands 

 as the primary source of rivers are reciprocated 

 between one nation and another. 



" With every wind it wafts large commerce on, 

 Joins pole to pole, consociates severed worlds, 

 And links in bonds of intercourse and love 

 Earth's universal family." 



The waters of the ocean indeed unite shore 

 with shore, connecting together the most distant 

 regions of the inhabited world, and rendering every 

 land they wash easy of access. It is evident that 

 if the earth consisted only of dry land, and life 

 could exist under such circumstances, intercourse 

 between remote countries would be impossible; 

 and when we reflect upon the difficulties which 

 travellers find in passing over a few hundred miles 

 in the centre of Africa, or the interior of South 

 America, when there is no transit by water, and 

 that in the latter continent there are, on both sides 

 of the Amazon, thousands of square miles of country 

 through which the most adventurous traveller can- 

 not penetrate, it is not too much to suppose, that, 

 were there neither seas nor rivers, we should have 

 to this day remained in ignorance of all countries 

 at a great distance from our own. 



It is plain likewise that as the means of com- 

 munication between different nations, the ocean 

 must be regarded as the means of a rapid increase 

 in knowledge and civilisation. By its instrumen- 

 tality the temperate regions of the earth can 



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