Chap. XII. REMARKS ON CENTRAL AMERICA. 193 
all this within the reach of the two great Oceans of the 
world ; a country rich in many of the most precious and 
valuable productions of the mineral kingdom, nourishing 
millions of the most useful domestic animals, and capable 
of producing the most valuable commodities of the vegetable 
kingdom of every zone — from the potato, barley, and oats 
of Ireland and Scotland, up to the sugar, coffee, and 
chocolate, the cotton and indigo, the banana, the cocoa- 
nut and spices of the Eastern Archipelago ; a country 
inhabited by a people unable to govern themselves, it is 
true, either in politics or in industrial pursuits, but a people 
of excellent and very useful qualities, if well directed by 
superior intellect, and eminently fitted, by the gradations 
of caste arising from the mixture of three great races, 
to correspond to the wants of a topographical character so 
diversified. And this country is thrown by providence in 
the midst of the main stream in which the expanding 
civilization of our age has begun to move. All these com- 
bined advantages are without a parallel, and I have no 
hesitation in avowing that, according to my conviction, 
Central America, everything taken into consideration, is 
the most favoured spot on the surface of the globe ; and is 
destined to act an important and glorious part in the 
history of the future. 
The North Americans, who in such matters are gifted 
with the instinct of the pioneer — an instinct by which they 
discover the most eligible site for a new town, in what 
direction it will extend, and in what street the building 
lots will be most valuable : — the North Americans have 
understood the splendid character of Central American 
prospects ; while, if anything is beyond the conception of 
common sense, it is the system followed by England in 
this magnificent country. If England, instead of having 
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