344 APPENDIX A 



the excellent use to which such an observer can put his experience is 

 afforded by the volume of Mr. Bryce. Of course, such a trip represents 

 travelling of essentially the same kind as travelling by railroad from 

 Atlanta to Calgary or from Madrid to Moscow, 



Next there are the travellers who visit the long-settled districts and 

 colonial cities of the interior, travelling over land or river highways 

 which have been traversed for centuries but which are still primitive 

 as regards the inns and the modes of conveyance. Such travelling is 

 difficult in the sense that travelling in parts of Spain or southern Italy 

 or the Balkan states is difficult. Men and women who have a taste for 

 travel in out-of-the-way places and who, therefore, do not mind slight 

 discomforts and inconveniences have the chance themselves to enjoy, 

 and to make others profit by, travels of this kind in South America. 

 In economic, social, and political matters the studies and observations 

 of these travellers are essential in order to supplement, and sometimes 

 to correct, those of travellers of the first category; for it is not safe to 

 generalize overmuch about any country merely from a visit to its capi- 

 tal or its chief seaport. These travellers of the second category can 

 give us most interesting and valuable information about quaint little 

 belated cities; about backward country folk, kindly or the reverse, 

 who show a mixture of the ideas of savagery with the ideas of an an- 

 cient peasantry; and about rough old highways of travel which in com- 

 fort do not differ much from those of mediaeval Europe. The travellers 

 who go up or down the highway rivers that have been travelled for 

 from one to four hundred years — rivers like the Paraguay and Parana, 

 the Amazon, the Tapajos, the Madeira, the lower Orinoco — come in this 

 category. They can add little to our geographical knowledge; but if 

 they are competent zoologists or archaeologists, especially if they live 

 or sojourn long in a locality, their work may be invaluable from the 

 scientific standpoint. The work of the archaeologists among the im- 

 measurably ancient ruins of the lowland forests and the Andean pla- 

 teaux is of this kind. What Agassiz did for the fishes of the Amazon 

 and what Hudson did for the birds of the Argentine are other instances 

 of the work that can thus be done. Burton's writings on the interior 

 of Brazil offer an excellent instance of the value of a sojourn or trip of 

 this type, even without any especial scientific object. 



Of course travellers of this kind need to remember that their experi- 

 ences in themselves do not qualify them to speak as wilderness explorers. 



