every part of America north of the twentieth parallel, it followed that, until that line was passed, civilization could gain no restingplace; and there never has been found, and we may confidently assert never will be found, any evidence that even a single ancient nation, in the whole of that enormous continent, was able to make much progress in the arts of life, or organize itself into a fixed and permanent society.

Thus far as to the physical agents which controlled the early destinies of North America. But in reference to South America, a different train of circumstances came into play; for the law by virtue of which the eastern coasts are colder than the western, is not only inapplicable to the southern hemisphere, but is replaced by another law precisely the reverse. North of the equator, the east is colder than the west; south of the equator, the east is hotter than the west.143 If, now, we connect this fact with what has been noticed respecting the vast river-system which distinguishes the east of America from the west, it becomes evident that in South America there exists that co-operation of heat and humidity in which North America is deficient. The result is, that the soil in the eastern part of South America is remarkable for its exuberance, not only within the tropic, but considerably beyond it; the South of Brazil, and even part of Uruguay, possessing a fertility not to be found in any country of North America situated under a corresponding latitude.

On a hasty view of the preceding generalizations, it might be expected that the eastern side of South America, being thus richly endowed by nature," would have been the seat of one of those civilizations which, in other parts of the world, similar causes produced. But if we look a little further, we shall find that what has just been pointed out, by no means exhausts even the physical bearings of this subject, and that we must take into consideration a third great agent, which has sufficed to neutralize the natural results of the other two, and to retain in barbarism the inhabitants of what otherwise would have been the most flourishing of all the countries of the New World.

143 The difference between the climates of the east and west coasts of continents and islands, has also been observed in the southern hemisphere; but here the west coasts are colder than the east, while in the northern hemisphere the east coasts are the colder." Meyen's Geography of Plants, 1846, p. 24.

144 Mr. Darwin, who has written one of the most valuable works ever published on South America, was struck by this superiority of the eastern coast; and he mentions that "fruits which ripen well and are very abundant, such as the grape and fig, in latitude 41° on the east coast, succeed very poorly in a lower latitude on the opposite side of the continent." Darwin's Journal of Researches, Lond. 1840, p. 268. Compare Meyen's Geog. of Plants, pp. 25, 188. So that the proposition of Daniell (Meteorological Essays, p. 104, sec. xiv.) is expressed too generally, and should be confined to continents north of the equator.

The agent to which I allude is the trade-wind; a striking phenomenon, by which, as we shall hereafter see, all the civilizations anterior to those of Europe were greatly and injuriously influenced. This wind covers no less than 56° of latitude; 28° north of the equator, and 28° south of it. 145 In this large tract, which comprises some of the most fertile countries in the world, the trade-wind blows, during the whole year, either from the north-east or from the south-east. 146 The causes of this regularity are now well understood, and are known to depend partly on the displacement of air at the equator, and partly on the motion of the earth; for the cold air from the poles is constantly flowing towards the equator, and thus producing northerly winds in the northern hemisphere, and southerly winds in the southern. These winds are, however, deflected from their natural course by the movement of the earth, as it revolves on its axis from west to east. And as the rotation of the earth is, of course, more rapid at the equator than elsewhere, it happens that in the neighbourhood of the equator the speed is so great as to outstrip the movements of the atmosphere from the poles, and forcing them into another direction, gives rise to those easterly currents which are called trade-winds. 147 What, however, we are now rather concerned with, is not so much an explanation of the trade-winds, as an account of the way in which this great physical phenomenon is connected with the history of South America.

145 The trade-winds sometimes reach the thirtieth parallel. See Daniell's Meteorological Essays, p. 469. Dr. Traill (Physical Geography, Edin. 1838, p. 200) says, "they extend to about 30° on each side of the equator: but I believe they are rarely found so high; though Robertson is certainly wrong in supposing that they are peculiar to the tropics; History of America, book iv. in Robertson's Works, p. 781.

146In the northern hemisphere the trade-wind blows from the north-east, and in the southern from the south-east." Meyen's Geog. of Plants, p. 42. Compare Walsh's Brazil, vol. i. p. 112, vol. ii. p. 494; and on the "tropical east-wind" of the Gulf of Mexico, see Forry's Climate of the United States, p. 206. Dr. Forry says that it has given to the growth of the trees "an inclination from the sea."

47 Respecting the causes of the trade-winds, see Somerville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences, pp. 136, 137; Leslie's Natural Philosophy, p. 518; Daniell's Meteorological Essays, pp. 44, 102, 476-481; Kaemtz's Meteorology, pp. 37-39; Prout's Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 254-256. The discovery of the true theory is often ascribed to Mr. Daniell; but Hadley was the real discoverer. Note in Prout, p. 257. The monsoons, which popular writers frequently confuse with the trade-winds, are said to be caused by the predominance of land, and by the difference between its temperature and that of the sea: see Kaemtz, pp. 42-45. On what may be called the conversion of the trades into monsoons, according to the laws very recently promul gated by M. Dove, see Report of British Association for 1847 (Transac. of Sections, p. 30), and Report for 1848, p. 94. The monsoons are noticed in Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 485; Asiatic Researches, vol. xviii. part i. p. 261; Thirlwall's History of Greece, vol. vii. pp. 13, 55; Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. ii. p. 90, vol. iv. pp. 8-9, 148, 149, 169, vol. xi. p. 162, vol. xv. p. 146-149, vol. xvi. p. 185, vol. xviii. pp. 67, 68, vol. xxiii. p. 112; Low's Sarawak, p. 30.

The trade-wind, blowing on the eastern coast of South America, and proceeding from the east, crosses the Atlantic ocean, and therefore reaches the land surcharged with the vapours accumulated in its passage. These vapours, on touching the shore, are, at periodical intervals, condensed into rain; and as their progress westward is checked by that gigantic chain of the Andes, which they are unable to pass, 148 they pour the whole of their moisture on Brazil, which, in consequence, is often deluged by the most destructive torrents. 149 This abundant supply, being aided by that vast river-system peculiar to the eastern part of America, and being also accompanied by heat, has stimulated the soil into an activity unequalled in any other part of the world. 150 Brazil, which is nearly as large as the whole of Europe, is covered with a vegetation of incredible profusion. Indeed, so rank and luxuriant is the growth, that Nature seems to riot in the very wantonness of power. A great part of this immense country is filled with dense and tangled forests, whose noble trees, blossoming in unrivalled beauty, and exquisite with a thousand hues, throw out their produce in endless prodigality. On their summit are perched birds of gorgeous plumage, which nestle in their dark and lofty recesses. Below, their base and trunks are crowded with brushwood, creeping plants, innumerable parasites, all swarming with life. There, too, are myriads of insects of every variety; reptiles of strange and singular form; serpents and lizards, spotted with deadly beauty: all of which find means of existence in this vast workshop and repository of NaAnd that nothing may be wanting to this land of marvels, the forests are skirted by enormous meadows, which, reeking with heat and moisture, supply nourishment to countless herds of wild cattle, that browse and fatten on their herbage; while

ture.

148 Lyell's Principles of Geology, pp. 201, 714, 715: see also Somerville's Physical Geography, vol. ii. p. 71. And on this confining power of the Cordillera of the Andes, see Azara, Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale, vol. i. p. 33. According to Dr. Tschudi, the eastern chain is properly the Andes, and the western the Cordillera; but this distinction is rarely made. Tschudi's Travels in Peru, p. 290.

149 On the rain of Brazil, see Daniell's Meteorological Essays, p. 335; Darwin's Journal, pp. 11, 33; Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil, vol. ii. p. 113; Gardner's Travels in Brazil, pp. 53, 99, 114, 175, 233, 394.

150 Dr. Gardner, who looked at these things with the eye of a botanist, says that near Rio de Janeiro the heat and moisture are sufficient to compensate even the poorest soil; so that "rocks, on which scarcely a trace of earth is to be observed, are covered with vellozias, tillandsias, melastomaceæ, cacti, orchidea, and ferns, and all in the vigour of life." Gardner's Travels in Brazil, p. 9. See also on this combination, Walsh's Brazil, vol. ii. pp. 297, 298, a curious description of the rainy season: "For eight or nine hours a day, during some weeks, I never had a dry shirt on me; and the clothes I divested myself of at night, I put on quite wet in the morning. When it did not rain, which was very rare, there shone out in some places a burning sun; and we went smoking along, the wet exhaling by the heat, as if we were dissolving into vapour."

the adjoining plains, rich in another form of life, are the chosen abode of the subtlest and most ferocious animals, which prey on each other, but which it might almost seem no human power can hope to extirpate. 151

Such is the flow and abundance of life by which Brazil is marked above all the other countries of the earth. 152 But, amid this pomp and splendour of Nature, no place is left for Man. He is reduced to insignificance by the majesty with which he is surrounded. The forces that oppose him are so formidable, that he has never been able to make head against them, never able to rally against their accumulated pressure. The whole of Brazil, notwithstanding its immense apparent advantages, has always remained entirely uncivilized; its inhabitants wandering savages, incompetent to resist those obstacles which the very bounty of Nature had put in their way. For the natives, like every people in the infancy of society, are averse to enterprise; and being unacquainted with the arts by which physical impediments are removed, they have never attempted to grapple with the difficulties that stopped their social progress. Indeed, those difficulties are so serious, that during more than three hundred years the resources of European knowledge have been vainly employed in endeavouring to get rid of them. Along the coast of Brazil, there has been introduced from Europe a certain amount of that civilization, which the natives by their own efforts could never have reached. But such civilization, in itself very imperfect, has never penetrated the recesses of the country; and in the interior there is still found a state of things similar to that which has always existed. The people, ignorant, and therefore brutal, practising no restraint, and recognizing no law, continue to live on in their old and inveterate barbarism. 15 3 In their

151 On the natural history of Brazil, I have compared a few notices in Swainson's Geography of Animals, pp. 75-87, with Cuvier, Règne Animal, vol. i. p. 480, vol. ii. pp. 28, 65, 66, 89, vol. iv. pp. 51, 75, 258, 320, 394, 485, 561, vol. v. pp. 40, 195, 272, 334, 553; Azara, Amérique Méridionale, vol. i. pp. 244-388, and the greater part of vols. iii. and iv.; Winckler, Geschichte der Botanik, pp. 378, 576-578; Southey's History of Brazil, vol. i. p. 27, vol. iii. pp. 315, 823; Gardner's Brazil, pp. 18, 32-34, 41-44, 131, 330; Spix and Martius's Brazil, vol. i. pp. 207-209, 238-248, vol. ii. pp. 131, 160-163. And as to the forests, which are among the wonders of the world, Somerville's Physical Geog. vol. ii. pp. 204-206; Prichard's Physical History, vol. v. p. 497; Darwin's Journal, pp. 11, 24; Walsh's Brazil, vol. i. p. 145, vol. ii. pp. 29, 30, 253.

192 This extraordinary richness has excited the astonishment of all who have seen it. Mr. Walsh, who had travelled in some very fertile countries, mentions "the exceeding fecundity of nature which characterizes Brazil." Walsh's Brazil, vol. ii. p. 19. And a very eminent naturalist, Mr. Darwin, says (Journal, p. 29), “In England, any person fond of natural history enjoys in his walks a great advantage, by always having something to attract his attention; but in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous that he is scarcely able to walk at all."

183 Azara (Amérique Méridionale, vol. ii. pp. 1-168) gives a curious, but occasion

country, the physical causes are so active, and do their work on a scale of such unrivalled magnitude, that it has hitherto been found impossible to escape from the effects of their united action. The progress of agriculture is stopped by impassable forests, and the harvests are destroyed by innumerable insects. 154 The mountains are too high to scale, the rivers are too wide to bridge; every thing is contrived to keep back the human mind, and repress its rising ambition. It is thus that the energies of Nature have hampered the spirit of Man. Nowhere else is there so painful a contrast between the grandeur of the external world and the littleness of the internal. And the mind, cowed by this unequal struggle, has not only been unable to advance, but without foreign aid it would undoubtedly have receded. For even at present, with all the improvements constantly introduced from Europe, there are no signs of real progress; while notwithstanding the frequency of colonial settlements, less than one-fifteenth of the land is cultivated. 155 The habits of the people are as barbarous as ever; and as to their numbers, it is well worthy of remark, that Brazil, the country where, of all others, physical resources are most powerful, where both vegetables and animals are most abundant, where the soil is watered by the noblest rivers, and the coast studded by the finest harbours,-this immense territory, which is more than twelve times the size of France, contains a population not exceeding six millions of people. 156

ally a disgusting account of the savage natives in that part of Brazil south of 16°, to which his observations were limited. And as to the inhabitants of other parts, see Henderson's History of Brazil, pp. 28, 29, 107, 173, 248, 315, 473; M'Culloh's Researches concerning America, p. 77; and the more recent account of Dr. Martius, in Journal of Geograph. Society, vol. ii. pp. 191-199. Even in 1817, it was rare to see a native in Rio de Janeiro (Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil, vol. i. p. 142); and Dr. Gardner (Travels in Brazil, pp. 61, 62) says, that "more than one nation of Indians in Brazil" have returned to that savage life from which they had apparently

been reclaimed.

104 Sir C. Lyell (Principles of Geology, p. 682) notices "the incredible number of insects which lay waste the crops in Brazil;" and Mr. Swainson, who had travelled in that country, says, "The red ants of Brazil are so destructive, and at the same time so prolific, that they frequently dispute possession of the ground with the husbandman, befy all his skill to extirpate their colonies, and fairly compel him to leave his fields uncultivated." Swainson on the Geography and Classification of Animals, p. 87. See more about these insects in Darwin's Journal, pp. 37-43; Southey's History of Brazil, vol. i. pp. 144, 256, 333-335, 343, vol. ii. pp. 365, 642, vol. iii. p. 876; Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil, vol. i. p. 259, vol. ii. p. 117; Cuvier, Règne Animal, vol. iv. p. 320.

156 The cultivated land is estimated at from 1 to 2 per cent. See M'Culloh's Geog. Dict., 1849, vol. i. p. 430.

ise During the present century, the population of Brazil has been differently stated at different times; the highest computation being 7,000,000, and the lowest 4,000,000. Comp. Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. ii. p. 855; Gardner's Brazil, p. 12; M'Culloch's Geog. Dict., 1849, vol. i. pp. 430, 434. Mr. Walsh describes Brazil as "abounding in lands of the most exuberant fertility, but nearly destitute of inhabitants." Walsh's Brazil,vol. i. p. 248. This was in 1828 and 1829, since which the European population has increased; but, on the whole, 6,000,000 seems to be a fair estimate of what