8 



INTRODUCTORY. 



mine, and of the English naval officer, Smyth, and lastly the works of 

 the Count of Castelnau, who descended the Amazon from Cuzco. 



The scientific and hydrographical works of these travellers persuade 

 me that the " Purus " will be the best channel of interior commerce, 

 and will put the centre of Peru in communication with the industrial, 

 commercial, and manufacturing nations of Europe and North America. 



For this effect it is proper not only to speak of and familiarize people 

 with this easy line of communication, but also to stimulate foreign 

 emigration, and the civilization of the inhabitants of our forests — a 

 people of a gentle disposition and an active intelligence. 



The first sight I had of steam in the United States of America, in 

 1818, gave me the idea that our rivers were equally susceptible with 

 theirs of this motive power, so that, in a work which I published in 

 New York in 1819, I said that the day would arrive in which vessels 

 moved by steam would navigate upon the gold-bearing rivers of Peru, 

 as upon the fabulous Pactolus. This prediction is not now to me a fable, 

 and, therefore, my conviction is unshaken, as will be seen by a letter 

 which I have written to ^ the President of the republic, Prince Louis 

 Napoleon Bonaparte. The note to which I refer in it is very long, 

 which prevents me from copying it, but some day it will be published. 



In the mean time, I congratulate you, and your government, that in 

 its administration should have taken place a measure so necessary for 

 the common good. 



Permit me, also, to offer you my respects, and to subscribe myself, 

 Your obedient servant, 



VICENTE PAZOS. 



Buenos Ayres, February 2, 1850. 

 To His Excellency Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 

 President of the French Republic. 

 Prince : In bringing to the notice of your excellency the adjoined 

 copy, which is a duplicate of my note, laid before the executive power 

 which governed republican France in June, 1848, my object is to call 

 the attention of your excellency to the same project which Napoleon, 

 your august uncle, conceived for the aggrandizement of the most impor- 

 tant colony which France possesses in the New World — French Guyana. 

 Before the application of steam to navigation, this tutelar genius of- 

 France comprehended that Cayenne would some day be the key to a 

 vast commerce in all those regions, where might be created great em- 

 pires. 



