120 
OBSTACLES TO CIVILIZATION. 
vast extent of tlie new coiitiuent between tlie lake of Nica- 
ragua and lake Ontario. I admit that the United States 
will contain above eighty millions of inhabitants a hundred 
years hence, allowing a progressive change in the period of 
doubling from twenty-five to thirty-five and forty years ; 
but, notwithstanding the elements of prosperity to be fouml 
in equinoctial America, I doubt whether the increase of 
the population in Venezuela, Spanish Guiana, New Gre- 
nada and Mexico, can be in general so rapid as iji tlie 
United States. The latter, which are situated entirely in 
the temperate zone, destitute of high chains of mountains, 
embrace an immense extent of country, easy of cultivation. 
The hordes of Indian hunters flee both from the colonists, 
whom they abhor, and the methodist missionaries, who 
oppose their taste for indolence and a vagabond life. The 
more fertile land of Spanish America produces indeed on the 
same surface a greater amount of nutritive substances. On 
the table lands of the equinoctial regions, whe.at doubtless 
yields annually from twenty to twenty-four for one; but 
Cordilleras furrowed by almost inaccessible crevices, bare 
and arid steppes, forests that resist both the axe and fire, 
and an atmospliero filled with venomous bisects, will long 
lu’escut powerful obstacles to agriculture and industry. 
The most active and enterprising colonists camiot, in the 
mountainous districts of Merida, Antioquia, and Los 
Pastos, in the llanos of Venezuela and Guaviare, in tlie 
Ibrests of the Kio Magdalena, the Orinoco, and the province 
of Las Esmeraldas, west of Quito, extend their agricultural 
conquests as they have done in the woody plains westward 
of the AUeghanies, from the sources of the Ohio, the 
Tennessee, and the Alabama, as far as the banks of the 
Missouri and the Arkansas. Calling to mind the account 
of my voyage on the Orinoco, it may be easy to appreciate 
the obstacles which nature opposes to the efibrts of man 
in hot and humid climates. In Mexico, large extents of 
soil are destitute of springs ; rain seldom falls, and the 
want of navigable rivers impedes communication. As 
the ancient native population is agricultural, and had been 
so long before the arrival of the Spaniards, the lands most 
easy ol access and cultivation have already their proprietors. 
Pertile tracts of country, at the disposal ofthe first occupier, 
