all manner of savage animals, venomous snakes and poisonous reptiles, where a road would have to be cut every foot of the way through the most luxuriant and gigantic tropical vegetation to be found on the face of the globe. Therefore we regard its accessibility as another reason for believing that the Nephites did not leave the great backbone of the continent to descend into the unexplored depths of the region whose character they aptly sum up in the one word, wilderness.
It must be remembered that there were two lands called by the name of Nephi. The one was a limited district immediately surrounding the city of Lehi-Nephi or Nephi. There Mosiah and the Nephites dwelt, about two hundred years before Christ. The other land of Nephi occupied the whole of the continent south of the great wilderness. This wilderness formed its northern boundary, and its frontier thereon ran in a straight course from the east to the west sea, or, to use our modern geographical names, in a straight line from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
As this wilderness, though of great length east and west, was but a narrow strip north and south, and its northern edge ran close to the head waters of the River Sidon (or Magdalena), it is evident that the land of Nephi covered by far the greater portion of South America. Within its wide boundaries was situated the original land of Nephi, as well as many other lands called by various local names.
It is very obvious how there grew to be these two lands of Nephi. At first, the small district around the capital city comprised all the territory occupied by the Nephites. As they spread out, whatever valley, plain, etc., they reclaimed from the wilderness was considered a part of that land; and thus, year by year, its borders grew wider and wider, while for convenience sake or govermental purposes, the newly built cities and
