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not forget, that their peninsula was one of the 

 points first peopled by the Spaniards. They love 

 to talk of the pearl fishery ; of the ruins of the 

 castle of St. Jago, which they hope to see some 

 day rebuilt ; and of every thing that recalls to 

 mind the ancient splendour of those countries. 

 In China and Japan those inventions are con- 

 sidered as recent, which have not been known 

 above two thousand years ; in the European 

 colonies an event appears extremely old, if it 

 dates back three centuries, or about the period 

 of the discovery of America. 



This absence of memorials* which charac- 

 terizes new nations, both in the United States, 

 and in the Spanish and Portugueze possessions, 

 is well worthy of attention. The void has not 

 only something painful to the traveller, who 

 finds himself deprived of the most delightful en- 

 joyments of the imagination ; it has also an in- 

 fluence on the greater or less powerful ties, that 

 bind the colonist to the soil on which he dwells, 

 to the form of the rocks surrounding his hut, 

 and to the trees which have shaded his cradle. 



Among the ancients, the Phoenicians and the 

 Greeks, for instance, traditions and national re-, 

 membrances passed from the mother country, 

 to the colonies ; where, perpetuated from genera- 

 tion to generation, they never ceased to have a 

 favorable influence on the opinions, the man- 

 ners, and the policy of the colonists. The cli- 



