[156.—5.] The colors of the Peruvian flag are red and white, mainly red. The red,—symbolical of bloodshed,—shall be largely replaced by the golden color of ripening grain,—symbolical of industry.
[8.] Caracas, where Bolivar was born, lies at the foot of Mount Ávila.
[11.] This line, and line 16, would indicate that Atlántida was written soon after the war, begun in 1876, between Chile and the allied forces of Bolivia and Peru, in which Chile was victorious.
[12-15.] When this was written there was little immediate prospect of other railways than the narrow-gage road from Oruro to the Chilean frontier, about five hundred miles in length; but now Bolivia has the promise of becoming the railway center of lines connecting both Argentina and Chile with Peru. These lines are now completed or building.
[27.] Andrade died in 1882, and seven years after his death, in 1889, the emperor Dom Pedro II was deposed, and a republican form of government was adopted by Brazil.
[157.]—3. Andrade now sings of his own country, hence ¡De pie para cantarla!
[8.] There is a larger immigration of Europeans into Argentina than into any other South-American country. The immigrants come mostly from northern Italy and from Spain.
[12-16.] As the Atlántida was the last poetic work of Andrade, these lines may refer to the treaty of 1881 between Argentina and Chile, by which Argentina acquired all the territory east of the Andes, including Patagonia and the eastern part of Tierra del Fuego.
By the conquest and settlement of the broad plains (pampas) and the frozen region of the south, a new world was created, much as in the United States of America a new world was created by the acquirement and settlement of the western plains, mountain lands and Pacific coast.
[21.] Vast areas in Argentina are given over to the cultivation of wheat, barley and oats.