326 TO THE AMAZON AND HOME [chap, x 



outline route of my entire South American trip. The 

 course of the new river is given separately. 



The work of the commission, much the greatest 

 work of the kind ever done in South America, is one of 

 the many, many achievements which the republican 

 government of Brazil has to its credit. Brazil has been 

 blessed beyond the average of her Spanish- American 

 sisters because she won her way to repubhcanism by 

 evolution rather than revolution. They plunged into 

 the extremely difficult experiment of democratic, of 

 popular, self-government, after enduring the atrophy 

 of every quahty of self-control, self-reliance, and initia- 

 tive throughout three withering centuries of existence 

 under the worst and most foolish form of colonial 

 government, both from the ci^^l and the religious stand- 

 point, that has ever existed. The marvel is not that 

 some of them failed, but that some of them have 

 eventually succeeded in such striking fashion. Brazil, 

 on the contrary, when she achieved independence, first 

 exercised it under he form of an authoritative empire, 

 then under the form of a liberal empire. When the 

 repubUc came, the people were reasonably ripe for it. 

 The great progress of Brazil — and it has been an aston- 

 ishing progress — has been made under the republic. I 

 could give innumerable examples and illustrations of 

 this. The change that has converted Rio Janeiro from 

 a picturesque pest-hole into a singularly beautiful, 

 healthy, clean, and efficient modern great city is one of 

 these. Another is the work of the Telegraphic Com- 

 mission. 



We put upon the map a river some fifteen hundred 

 kilometres in length, of which the upper course was 

 not merely utterly unknown to, but unguessed at by, 

 anybody ; while the lower course, although known for 



