20 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



There is no need to comment upon this, it bears its 

 own commentary, and in view of the fact that the city 

 has expended about 250,000 upon a reduced copy of 

 the Paris Opera House, its own condemnation also. 

 Yet Costa Rica is about the most enlightened and 

 progressive of all the South American Eepublics, with 

 the sole exception of Mexico. 



The great republic of Brazil and the colonies of 

 Guiana receive but little assistance from the winds of 

 the Atlantic, from their unfavourable situation on the 

 eastern side of the broadest part of the South American 

 continent. Richest in natural productions of all the 

 countries of the world, and favoured beyond most 

 tropical regions by the nearness of the great centres of 

 civilization, the vast wealth of these immense regions 

 has been barely touched as yet. The character of the 

 rulers has something to do with this in the case of 

 Brazil, but not so much after all, because the same 

 causes which make that mighty land so inordinately 

 rich prevent humanity from taking full advantage of 

 those riches. The healing winds from the Pacific 

 cannot penetrate those gigantic forests fostered by 

 heat and fed by the most copious rainfall imaginable. 

 Here is a river system, fed from the Andes, which has 

 not its peer in the world ; minor tributaries here attain 

 a length and volume equal to almost any of the great 

 rivers of the ancient (so-called) world. But when that 

 day has arrived, which seems now to be within measur- 

 able distance, that the teeming millions of the more 

 densely inhabited parts of the earth begin to feel the 

 pinch of hunger, owing to the inability of their own 

 country to produce sufficient food for their needs, 

 eager eyes will turn to this continent with its 



