I will not dwell on the different results that have attended different courses of action with reference to the conquered territories of North and South America; nor attempt to trace the decline of one power at the expense of another. Spain and Portugal, unfortunately for themselves, dealt with their gifts on purely selfish principles; and the consequence of such a system was, not only the loss of the greater part of their colonies, but an almost total estrangement between the parent and child, never afterwards thoroughly healed. We attempted the same game in North America, and the giant-like progress of the United States has followed; only that, wiser in our generation, more forgiving, and actuated by true commercial principles, we have cultivated, to the utmost extent, relations of amity and good-will with the new power, and both countries are largely gainers thereby, and will continue to be so while the same feelings of mutual concession and respect actuate both.
Whilst, therefore, North America has made such astonishing progress, and completely outstrips the Old World in rapidity of thought and execution, carrying her commerce and people to the limits of the habitable globe, the states to the southward have had many severe ordeals to go through—arising, in the first place, from the cause just mentioned, viz., that the mother countries considered their colonies as mere appanages, and prevented communication, in some cases even intercourse, with other nations. Secondly, from the disseverment of the link which united them to Europe, having an entirely new phase to pass through, new forms of government to establish, and fresh relations to cultivate; whilst another immediate effect of the revolution was to drive away most of the wealthy inhabitants who, being Spanish and Portuguese citizens, were not a little vain of their superiority in that respect to their colonial-born brethren. This fruitful source of dissent and violence in nearly all the disturbances by which the several states were torn is by no means wholly obliterated to this day, any more than in some of the transmarine possessions of Great Britain, in either hemisphere. Then came intestine divisions among the American-born colonists themselves, raging between the upstart leaders of mushroom parties, whose very names it taxed the memory of men at the time to remember; and, as a matter of course, there followed all the thousand drawbacks resulting from a state of anarchic confusion. Hence, as is obvious must have been the case under such circumstances, material progress has been slow, and political progress for a long time almost imperceptible, if not frequently retrogressive, if one may use a phrase so seemingly contradictory. Moreover, until of late years very little was known of the internal resources of South America, with the exception of the Brazils—a country to which a variety of circumstances conspired to impart an impetus along the groove of civilization and consequent advancement. Paramount amongst those aids was undoubtedly the establishment there, in 1806, of the old Portuguese monarchy, consequent upon the European troubles of the house of Braganza. The inappreciable advantage of this regular form of government, arising out of local monarchic institutions, that country has retained, though under a new sovereign and with a liberalized system of administration, ever since, with every guarantee for continuously rapid but enduring improvement. Still, even Brazil was, to Europeans, comparatively speaking, an unknown region, to which, in incongruous confusion, attached associations of the soft and the savage, of barbarism and luxury, of the majestic and the feeble, in the minds of all nearly whose reading about her was not corrected by personal familiarity with the country itself. But ignorance so arising is being happily fast dissipated; and it shall not be the author’s fault if its departure be not further expedited on some points to which it still adheres.
Both the Spaniards and Portuguese possess works of rare merit, far exceeding in magnitude and minuteness any we can boast of, illustrating the achievements of their early navigators, and the rise and progress of their former colonial possessions. But few of these works have been rendered familiar to the British public, and are very imperfectly known, even to those writers who profess to treat of the same or similar subjects. Of course we except Prescott, the appreciation of whose invaluable volumes on the Conquest of Peru, the Conquest of Mexico, and the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, is testified by the exhaustion of six large and expensive editions, and one cheaper edition, in this country, besides the incorporation of the fruits of his extraordinary research in a thousand publications that have since been issued on either side of the Atlantic. Previously, however, to Prescott, and in nearly as large a degree, in respect to the territory described, were we indebted to Southey, for his History of Brazil;[14] to Koster for valuable details of his travels in the northern provinces of the same empire; and to Gardner, for a most elaborate research into its botanical treasures, as also a graphic description of the interior of the empire, which he traversed from north to south.[15] The hygiene of the same region has been thoroughly investigated, and its rationale expounded with consummate ability and simplicity of style, by my learned and accomplished fellow-townsman, Dr. Dundas, than whom no man was more competent for the task; and I rejoice to see that, though the subject is necessarily of a very circumscribed range, comparatively speaking, and one not very likely to command public attention, its treatment was so masterly, that nearly all the professional journals in the kingdom received it as an important contribution to medical literature.[16] Its perusal, however, may be also recommended to the general reader as containing notices of Brazilian life and manners and scenery nowhere else to be met with, and which the peculiar facilities enjoyed by the author enabled him to describe with a life-like minuteness whose truthfulness at once stamps its accuracy both on the stranger at a distance and on the most experienced Brazilian resident or native. In speaking thus, I am merely echoing well-recognized facts; my opinion, which would of course be utterly valueless in a medical sense, being in no degree warped by the personal obligation Dr. Dundas has placed me under from the circumstance of his having kindly consented to enrich this volume with a special chapter on a theme analogous to that which his ‘Sketches’ are devoted to.
It is, however, the now patriarchal, or, as he calls himself, ‘Antediluvian’ Humboldt, who has showered upon European understanding the light of scientific knowledge concerning the vast South American continent, and his inimitable descriptions of the country and its natural resources have scarcely been appreciated amongst us as they deserve. It is only when confronted with the great fact, so long regarded as the sentimental aspiration of utopiaists, that South America is actually becoming an additional field for our industry and enterprise—when its magnificent fluvial highways are about being traversed by an endless succession of steamers, and its plains by railways—that we really discover how infinitesimal is our knowledge of those resources or capabilities to whose development these means can alone effectually conduce. As a medium of forming an estimate of the material position, as well as of the natural features of the countries described by him, Humboldt cannot be too highly commended, as the author, of all others, whose flowing narrative, profundity of reflection, and copiousness of illustration—commensurate with the greatness of the subject itself—will amply repay all ordinary curiosity; apart from that superabounding erudition and scientific affluence which pervade the whole works of the great living father of historical philosophers, though singularly freed, like the treatises of our own Herschel, from technicalities that repel the uninitiated. As relates to the Rio Plata and its immense tributaries, we have had, in the course of the preceding year, Sir W. Parish’s elaborate and excellent volume,[17] whose only, though it is undoubtedly a great drawback, is, that having been written obviously from inspiration of Rosas, and through the sources that personage opened to him for the purpose at Buenos Ayres, events are recorded in a light entirely in conformity with the views of the Dictator, whose whole past policy is upheld, and his intended plans prospectively eulogised in a manner to which subsequent events, and the judgment pronounced upon them, furnish a significant commentary. In harmony with Rosas’s principle of representing Buenos Ayres as virtually constituting the whole Argentine Confederation, and himself as the exponent of public opinion and the embodiment of actual power therein, Sir Woodbine almost altogether ignores the existence of Monte Video, and scarcely alludes to such a state as the Banda Oriental. Hence, as regards the latter province and its capital, and all pertaining to them, Sir Woodbine’s book is a blank, or something worse—a deficiency which it is one of the objects of the present volume, in some degree, to supply. Of the condition of some of the interior provinces, likewise, Sir Woodbine, being obliged to take his information, not only at second hand, but through a channel in which every thing was conductive to the one end, that of exalting Rosas, or depreciating his opponents, gives us particulars not merely inaccurate, but leading to conclusions the very reverse of what a true state of the case would warrant. On this head, especially as regards by far the most important of all the interior states—Paraguay—it is hoped that the present volume will be found to contain much new and reliable information. For this, the writer is mainly indebted to notes of observations made on the route to, and during a residence in, Assumption, by parties personally cognizant of the late most successful and important mission sent out by Lord Malmesbury, whose prescience, in foreseeing the right moment—and in selecting the right agent, Sir C. Hotham, for urging negociations towards that object—the author had the satisfaction of hearing emphatically panegyrized in all commercial circles—whether native, British, or foreign—in the course of his late visit to South America.
Lastly, Mr. M’Cann,[18] whose previous work on the Plate had evinced great knowledge of the subject, has recorded his later experience of some of the Riverine provinces in a very agreeable and instructive work, partly formed on the model of Sir F. Bond Head’s fascinating Rough Rides on the Pampas, and embracing a review of mercantile matters and prospects in those countries. Written with that knowledge of trade which only a mercantile man can be expected to possess, its spirit is so dispassionate as to be quite unique in a critic, on topics which would seem to impart their partizan atmosphere to all who endeavour to detail their position to those at a distance. Neither must I, by any means, omit to mention the labours of another of my townsmen, Mr. Thomas Baines, who, with that mastery of detail and facility of statistic exposition which seem to be an heir-loom in the family of the late estimable member for Leeds, placed in a very lucid light, some years ago, a subject to which it was difficult at the time to draw general attention, and a popular elucidation of which could only be expected from a pen so qualified.
But of all portions of South America, there is one perhaps concerning which our knowledge is most imperfect, and with which it is most essential that it should be extended, because of the rapid extension of both native and European enterprise in that quarter. We especially allude to that district of the vast region watered by the Amazon of which Pará (city) may be considered the entrepot. Fortunately, two very admirable volumes have recently been directed to supplying our deficiency on this head.[19] The obligations due to these sources will be found amply acknowledged in the chapter devoted to a consideration of the subject. Our own text is enriched with matter drawn from original authorities, long resident on the spot, and in every way calculated to supply trustworthy intelligence. From these the reader will draw his own deductions, as our informants, not encumbering their data with disquisition, have left their facts to speak for themselves.
Notwithstanding the number of publications enumerated as being lately issued upon South America, and not taking into account others published in the United States, still there is a field of immense extent, as yet comparatively unexplored and hidden, which requires to be opened up to view, in order to enable us to form a sufficiently accurate judgment of the character and capabilities of such countries as Brazil and the republics bordering on the river Plate and its affluents. The main design, therefore, towards this end on the part of the writer in revisiting the scenes of his early youth, is to endeavour to present some fresh sources of information; partly derived from his own actual observation, and partly from the experience of others, who, possessing the best opportunities, have converted them to the best use in furtherance of the purpose now sought to be attained—viz., the elimination of what shall serve for a compact but comprehensive precis of the general condition of the countries named in the title page, and particularly their commercial status and prospective indications of a mercantile complexion. To refresh the memory on such analogous subjects as may prove interesting in connection with these matters, there is appended what it is hoped will prove a mass of desirable information, in the shape of a collection of notes, bringing down incidents to the latest practicable period antecedent to publication. In order to interfere as little as possible with the current of the narrative, in which it has been deemed expedient to convey the accompanying observations, the writer intends offering his memoranda in the shape of a record of his voyage, taking in all points touched upon as they naturally arose in connection with it; and incidentally referring to those authors who have exhibited the greatest acquaintance with the topics embraced.