474 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE GREATEST LIBERTY MAN 



HAS EVER TAKEN WITH 



NATURE.* 



.AiS a boy Mr. Bryce pored over the books of 

 old travellers in the Andes, such as Humboldt, 

 and the accounts of the primitive American 

 people as given in Prescott's " Conquest of 

 Peru," so that when the opportunity of a four 

 months' journey presented itself it was eagerly 

 grasped. One result is a record of the first 

 impressions of a man pre-eminently accurate in 

 essential information, and with a judgment, 

 based upon keen observation and international 

 knowledge, tempered with the tact which 

 belongs to the great Ambassador. The story 

 opens with his railway journey across the isth- 

 mus of Panama and a description of the Canal 

 works, " that greatest liberty man has ever 

 taken with Nature." About half way through 

 he saw the hill of Balboa, from the top of which, 

 he was told, both oceans could be seen if the 

 weather were propitious. In picturesque lan- 

 guage he describes the approach to Colon, the 

 .Atlantic town, and Panama on the Pacific. In 

 no measured fashion Mr. Bryce describes the 

 care the United States Government has taken 

 for the health of the people working in that 

 region, formerly so pestiferous. The houses, 

 he says, 



.ire each of them surrounded on every floor by a line 

 wire neltiug which, while freely admitting the air, 

 excludes winged insects. All the hospitals have been 

 netted so carefully that no insect can enter to carry out 

 infection from a patient. Every path and every yard is 

 scrupulously clean and neat. Not a puddle of water i^ 

 left where mosquitoes can breed, for every slope and 

 bottom has been carefully drained. Even on the grass 

 slopes that surround the villas at Ancon there are little 

 tile drains laid to carry off the rain. 



.'\nd his comment is that to have made one of the 

 pt-st-houses of the world as healthy as Boston 

 or London is an achievement of which the 

 .American medical staff, and their country for 

 them, may well be proud. From Panama Mr. 

 Bryce travelled to Peru, which is no longer an 

 Hldorado, for its chief riches have gone either 

 to fire-eating adventurers or have become the 

 portion of a rival government. Contrasting old 

 and later Peru, he says : 



The break between the old Peru of the Incas and 

 ihe newer Pern was as complete as it was sudden. The 

 <!:\rlier had passed on nothing to the later, because the 

 spirit of the race was too hopelessly broken to enable it 

 to give anything. There remains only the submissive- 

 ness of a downtrodden peasantry, and its pathetic fidelity 



* South America: Observations and Impres- 

 sions. By James Bryce. (Macmillan. 8s. 6d. 

 net.) 



to its primitive superstitions. Some old evils passed 

 away, some new evils appeared. Human sacrifices ended 

 and the burning of heretics began. 



Of Arequipa, three days from Lima, he writes : 

 " It was an oasis like Tadmore in the wilder- 

 ness," and he tells a delightful love story of the 

 old Colonial days. 



Unfortunately, space prevents a longer de- 

 scription of the impressions taken in the further 

 journey down to the Straits of Magellan. This 

 last is, perhaps, the most memorable portion of 

 the book, as it concerns a part of the world and 

 a part of our possessions so little known. The 

 Argentine, Uruguay, Brazil, all receive notice, 

 but not until nearing his journey's end does Mr. 

 Bryce indulge in comment, commercial or 

 political. He queries : " May not territories be 

 developed too quickly? Might it not have been 

 better for the United States if their growth had 

 been slower, if their public lands had not been 

 so hastily disposed of, if in their eagerness to 

 obtain the labour they needed they had not 

 drawn in a multitude of ignorant immigrants 

 from central and southern Europe? With so 

 long a life in prospect as men of science grant 

 to our planet, why should we seek to open all 

 the mines and cut down all the forests and 

 leave nothing in the exploitation of natural 

 resources to succeeding generations? " 



Of the Monroe Doctrine he says : 



So long as there was any tear of an attempt of the 

 fiuropean Powers to overthrow Republican Government 

 in any of the American States, the protection promised 

 was welcome, and the United States felt a corresponding 

 interest in their clients. " But circumstances alter 

 cases," the South American Republics say, " and since 

 there are no longer rain-clouds coming up from the 

 East, why should a friend, however well-intentioned, 

 insist on holding an umbrella over us? We are quite 

 able to do that for ourselves if necessary." 



Neither does Mr. Bryce find much evidence of 

 solidarity of interest amongst the South Ameri- 

 can peoples, and certainly race-consciousness 

 is not so patent and potent as in North 

 .America. He does not give a very favourable 

 report of the young Englishmen who emigrate 

 as compared with the Gcrmnns. 



"They care less for their work," so my informants 

 declared, " and they do it less thoroughly; Their interests 

 at school in England have lain rhic-lly in playing or in 

 reading about cricket and football, not in any pursuit 

 needing mental exertion: and here, where cricket nr.i 

 football are not to be had, they become listless and will 

 not, like the young Germans, spend their time in master- 

 ing the language and the business conditions of the 

 country." What truth there is in this I had no means 

 of testing, but ValparMiso is not the only foreign port 

 in which one bears snch things said 



— a truth which it is a pity the \i)ung men in 

 question do not take more to he.irl. 



