38 
it, conducting it to quiet lakes, and preserving it for the service of 
man, never allowing it to become his master, much less his oppressor 
and destroyer. Thus the works of the old Incas follow them, and 
testify that not unto themselves only but unto ns they ministered of 
things belonging unto peace. In those early times, certainly as much 
as five centuries ago, cotton was cultivated in Portobcllo, and spun 
in Guanachani, in Cuba, and Jamaica. The Indians of Uraba were 
clothed in cotton. Yucatan, Guatemala, Santa Marta, Venezuela, 
and the Sierra Nevada*—Quito and Cundinamarca, were famous for 
their cotton plantations and cotton fabrics. Indeed, as far as the 
old kingdoms of Moxos and the Gran Chaco, even unto Tlaxcala, 
this raw material was largely cultivated, though it chiefly grew spon¬ 
taneously. That is, from 16 deg. N. to 36 deg. S. latitude, cotton 
trees supplied clothing to a hundred millions of our race. No doubt 
to the cotton tree which yields a splendid yearly harvest for twenty 
years, together with the remarkable rainless climate peculiar to the 
Peruvian coast, so suitable to the cultivation of this delicate fibre, 
are to be attributed the extent and excellence of those once cele¬ 
brated cotton fields. But though no devastating rain there ever 
sweeps away the crops, or fierce hurricanes destroy the fruits of the 
field, although along the whole coast of Peru the atmosphere is 
almost uniformly in a state of repose, yet the mildness of the ele¬ 
ments above-ground is frightfully counterbalanced by their subter¬ 
ranean fury, therefore it must not be supposed that the Peruvian 
planter had no enemy to encounter, no exertion to put forth, if he 
would reap a profitable harvest. The effects of earthquakes on the 
fertility of the soil are so great, that in many cases after very violent 
shocks the most luxuriant lands have become barren wastes, and for 
several years afterwards yielded no thriving vegetation. All kinds 
of grain appear to be susceptible to the changes produced by earth¬ 
quakes, and if any great commotion takes place beneath a field in 
full bloom the whole crop will wither in a few days. And with 
respect to the plantations of the interior, as well as those on the 
coast of the Caribbean Sea, difficulties and dangers had to he over¬ 
come of even greater magnitude than prevailed on the Pacific shores. 
So that hard work, perseverance, skill, aud foresight, were required 
to keep those sources of wealth from destruction. But now those 
once mighty fields of floretted snow are either burnt up or become 
lairs of the jaguar. We have heard of a cotton famine at home pro¬ 
ducing disease, pestilence, and death. Men have been made to feel 
that the insanity begotten of greed in depending on one source alone 
for the supply of a material involving life or death to millions was 
to have its reward, aud that the iniquity of enslaving men in order 
to make that supply a more exact or accurate commercial transaction 
was to be overtaken by a terrible avenging Nemesis. We still hear 
of Lancashire distress, and the protracted strife in America. As yet 
we do not know whether cotton is again to be king, and his throne 
to be again planted on the necks of millions of men, women, and 
