38 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



choke and prevent the growth of useful vegetation. 

 And Mexico is certainly one of the most highly 

 favoured countries that the world can show. Every 

 form of mineral and agricultural wealth that can be 

 named is there in abundance, only needing the care 

 of man to yield up their treasures ; and this, it is 

 pleasant to add, they are at present receiving, with 

 the result that Mexico is advancing by mighty strides 

 to her destined place among the nations. 



When, however, we come farther south, we find a 

 very different condition of things obtaining. Favoured 

 to an almost incredible degree by Nature, the Central 

 American lands have long been cursed by the inepti- 

 tude of their people, apparently unable to value how 

 goodly a heritage they have, or how highly favoured 

 they are. They behave, without a thought for to- 

 morrow, like unruly children let loose in a lovely 

 garden wherein grows spontaneously all that the heart 

 of man can desire; and the most pitiful sight of all 

 to see is the manner in which, by careless, indolent 

 ignorance, they frustrate the efforts of Nature to keep 

 the land sweet and healthful. In these wonderful 

 countries Nature only needs man's co-operation to create 

 a paradise. She does not get it. Instead, man makes 

 of the land a sink, takes not the most elementary 

 precautions against the defilement that an aggregation 

 of lazy humanity must make wherever they are, and 

 in consequence these beautiful republics, instead of 

 being ideal dwelling-places, are hotbeds of disease. 

 And as if that were not enough to prevent any pro- 

 gress, the chief recreation of these extraordinary people 

 is bloodshed in periodical revolutions, the land being 

 always in a state of anarchy. 



