59 
Chap. IV.— B. S.] THE FUTURE OF NICARAGUA. 
the uneducated whites often give vent to regrettable 
utterances, not calculated to improve the friendly re¬ 
lations that should exist between people inhabiting 
one country. There is also the fact staring the na¬ 
tives in the face that their own race—an amalga¬ 
mation, as it is, between white, Indian, and negro— 
is steadily decreasing, and that a day must come 
when the greater part of Spanish America will be 
cleared of its present occupants. I remember saying 
to a Nicaraguan gentleman who was admiring those 
noble monuments of architecture, the great bridges of 
London, “ Some day your republic will have bridges 
like these.” “ It will,” he replied, mournfully, “but 
they will be built after all my countrymen have 
passed away, and yours taken possession.” Much 
against my own conviction, I endeavoured to make 
him take a more cheerful view of the future of Nica¬ 
ragua ; but I found that he was as fully persuaded in 
his mind as I was in mine, that his presentiment 
would he borne out by subsequent events. We 
agreed, as all those must who regard the subject 
dispassionately, that tropical America is the field of 
colonization of the future. After the northern parts of 
the New World, Australia, and New Zealand shall have 
become fully peopled, our millions will pour into this 
long-neglected region, and found thriving colonies 
and happy homes along the magnificent mountain- 
ranges and on the splendid table-lands, while busy 
steamers will ascend the mighty rivers, railroads break 
in upon the stillness of the virgin forests, and silent 
telegraphs flash along intelligence, telling of the great 
