TJB OBSTACLES TO CIVILIZATION. 



vast extent of the new continent between the lake of Nica- 

 ragua and lake Ontario. I admit that the United States 

 will contain above eighty millions of inhabitants a hundred 

 years hence, allowing a progressive change in the period of 

 doubling from twenty-five to thirty-five and forty years ; 

 but, notwithstanding the elements of prosperity to be found 

 in equinoctial America, I doubt whether the increase of 

 the population in Venezuela, Spanish Guiana, New Gre- 

 nada and Mexico, can be in general so rapid as in the 

 United States. The latter, which are situated entirely in 

 the temperate zone, destitute of high chains of mountains, 

 embrace an immense extent of country, easy of cultivation. 

 The hordes of Indian hunters flee both from the colonists, 

 whom they abhor, and the methodist missionaries, who 

 oppose their taste for indolence and a vagabond life. The 

 more fertile land of Spanish America produces indeed on the 

 same surface a greater amount of nutritive substances. On 

 the table lands of the equinoctial regions, wheat doubtless 

 yields annually from twenty to twenty-four for one; but 

 Cordilleras furrowed by almost inaccessible crevices, bare 

 and arid steppes, forests that resist both the axe and fire, 

 and an atmosphere filled with venomous insects, will long 

 present powerful obstacles to agriculture and industry. 

 The most active and enterprising colonists cannot, in the 

 mountainous districts of Merida, Antioquia, and Los 

 Pastos, in the llanos of Venezuela and Guaviare, in the 

 forests of the Bio Magdalena, the Orinoco, and the province 

 of Las Esmeraldas, west of Quito, extend their agricultural 

 conquests as they have done in the woody plains westward 

 of the AUeghanies, from the sources of the Ohio, the 

 Tennessee, and the Alabama, as far as the banks of the 

 Missouri and the Arkansas. Calling to mind the account 

 of my voyage on the Orinoco, it may be easy to appreciate 

 the obstacles which nature opposes to the efforts of man 

 in hot and humid climates. In Mexico, large extents of 

 soil are destitute of springs; rain seldom falls, and the 

 want of navigable rivers impedes communication. As 

 the ancient native population is agricultural, and had been 

 so long before the arrival of the Spaniards, the lands most 

 easy oi access and cultivation have already their proprietors. 

 "Fertile tracts of country, at the disposal of the first occupier, 



