To conclude—the people, by which I mean the middling and higher classes, are of amiable dispositions, strong natural sense, eager for information, and ardent lovers of liberty; highly honoring their military chieftains, and often speaking with enthusiastic pride of the heroic and beloved Bolivar. The march of mind, in these vast territories, must keep pace with the rapid strides of liberty, and truth and knowledge will ultimately prevail over despotism and superstition. Living in this delightful clime, and possessing this fruitful soil, with their devoted love of country, and their ardent thirst for knowledge, the speculative and contemplative mind of the philosopher and philanthropist may look forward—piercing the veil of futurity—and behold the native of Paraguay and the rough Patagonian, enjoying with the Chilian and the Peruvian, the invaluable blessing of an enlightened government; and tribes yet unknown, filling, at the sound of the Sabbath bell, the consecrated temples of the Most High.
Far in the west, beneath auspicious skies,
In fertile vales, see mighty nations rise!
Where the stain’d savage chas’d the bounding deer,
See crowded marts and towering spires appear.
In eastern climes, though freedom’s torch expires,
Here it shall flame, and still increase its fires.
On fam’d Parnassus, tho’ extinct her light,
It proudly burns on Chimborazo’s height.
Sad Greece! with foes in fearful odds at bay,