MUTUAL DISTRUST. 
375 
proximity, has converted into an often hostile, and always 
rival power. 
If two nations adjacent to each other in Europe, the 
Spaniards and the Portuguese, have alike become neigh- 
bours in the New Continent, they are indebted for that 
circumstance to the spirit of enterprise and active courage 
which both displayed at the period of their military glory 
and political greatness. The Castilian language is now 
spoken in North and South America throughout an extent 
of more than one thousand nine hundred leagues in length ; 
if, however, we consider South America apart, we there find 
the Portuguese language spread over a larger space of 
ground, and spoken by a smaller number of individuals than 
the Castilian. It would seem as if the bond that so 
closely connects the fine languages of Camoens and Lope de 
Vega, had served oidy to separate two nations, who have 
become neighbours against their will. National hatred is 
not modified solely by a diversity of origin, of manners, and 
of progress in civilization; whenever it is powerful, it must 
be considered as the effect of geographical situation, and 
the conflicting interests thence resulting. Nations detest 
each other the less, hi proportion as they are distant ; and 
when, their languages being radically different, they do not 
even attempt to combine together. Travellers who have 
passed through New California, the interior provinces of 
Mexico, and the northern frontiers of Brazil, have been 
struck by these shades in the moral dispositions of border- 
ing nations. 
When I was in the Spanish Eio Negro, the divergent 
politics of the courts of Lisbon and Madrid had augmented 
that system of mistrust which, even in calmer times, the 
commanders of petty neighbouring forts love to encourage. 
Boats went up from Barcelos as far as the Spanish missions, 
but the communications were of rare occurrence. A com- 
mandant with sixteen or eighteen soldiers wearied ‘the 
garrison’ by measures of safety, which were dictated ‘ by the 
important state of affairs;’ if he were attacked, he hoped 
to ‘ surround the enemy.’ When we spoke of the indif- 
ference with which the Portuguese government doubtless 
regarded the four little villages founded by the monks of 
Saint Pranciseo, on the Upper Guainia, the inhabitants 
