I 
24 
New World, or rather when the first inva-, 
sion of the Spaniards took place, the Ame- 
ricans, who had made the greatest pro- 
gress in civilization, were the inhabitants 
of the mountains. Men, born in the plains 
under temperate climates, had followed 
the ridges of the Cordilleras, which rise 
in proportion as they approach the Equa- 
tor. In these elevated regions they found 
the temperature and the plants, which 
were congenial with those of their native 
soil. 
The faculties unfold themselves with 
more facility, wherever man, chained to a 
barren soil, compelled to struggle with the 
parsimony of nature, rises victorious from 
the lengthened contest.^ The arid moun- 
tains of Caucasus and central Asia are the 
refuges of free and barbarous nations. In 
the equinoxial parts of America, where 
savannahs^ clothed in perpetual verdure, 
are suspended above the region of the 
clouds, no civilized nations exist but those 
embosomed in the Cordilleras. Their first 
