XIII. 

 THE BEAR WITH SPECTACLES. 



And now let us go down to near the 

 mouth of the Father of Waters, to "Barra 

 Tarra Land" or Barren Land, as it was 

 called of old by Cervantes, in the kingdom of 

 Sancho Panza. Strange how little the 

 great men of the old world knew of this 

 new world! In one of his plays Shakes- 

 peare speaks of ships from Mexico; in an- 

 other he means to mention the Bermudas. 

 Burns speaks of a Newfoundland dog as 



"Whelped in a country far abroad 

 Where boatmen gang to fish for cod," 



and Byron gets in a whole lot about Daniel 

 Boone; but as a rule we were ignored. 



Barra Tarra, so called, is the very richest 

 part of this globe. It must have been rich 

 always, rich as the delta of the Nile; but 

 now, with the fertility of more than a dozen 



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