65 



illustration both in the past and present condition of 

 this country. At the period of its discovery it was 

 found in the occupation of two families of men, pre- 

 senting in respect to each other the strongest points 

 of contrast. Upon the high plateaus of the interior, 

 and upon the Pacific declivity of the continent, where 

 the rains are comparatively light, the country open, 

 and the climate relatively cool and salubrious, were 

 found great and populous nations far advanced in 

 civilisation, and maintaining a systematised religious 

 and civU organisation. Upon the Atlantic declivity, 

 on the other hand, among dense forests nourished by 

 constant rains iato rank vigour, on low coasts, where 

 marshes and lagoons, sweltering under a fierce sun, 

 generated deadly miasmatic damps, were found savage 

 tribes of men, without fixed abodes, living upon the 

 natural fruits of the soil and the precarious supplies 

 of fishing and the chase, without religion, and with 

 scarcely a semblance of social or political establish- 

 ments. 



" It is impossible to resist the conviction that the 

 contrasting conditions of these two great families 

 were principally due to the equally contrasting phy- 

 sical conditions of their respective countries. With 

 the primitive dwellers on the Atlantic declivity, no 

 considerable advance beyond the rudest habits of life 

 was possible. He was. powerless agaiast the exu- 

 F 



