be developed by irrigation, and lie at a distance from one another, so that foreign immigrants could not enjoy congenial neighbourhood. There remain, of course, the states of Colombia, Venezuela, and the three Guianas. The richest parts of these, the valleys of the Orinoco, the Magdalena, and smaller rivers, are all either swamps or liable to inundation: districts that may, at some future day, maintain a population of many millions, but in which small bodies of foreign immigrants would find, under worse climatic conditions, what Dickens painted in his sketch of Eden. Venezuela is graphically described by Eastwick as "a forest larger than France, steppes like those of Gobi, and mountain tracts which it would take many Switzerlands to match."[1] Last of all, it must be remembered that it is more than doubtful if native governments or populations would encourage or tolerate immigration on a large scale. The Church would oppose an influx of heretics, and the Spanish governing caste would hesitate lest they should see the precedent of Texas repeated.
Brazil stands by itself among South American states in one important particular. Its indigenous Indians were to a great extent less docile and reclaimable than the Aztecs, the Quichuas, and the Guaranis of Paraguay have proved themselves. Brazil accordingly has a large element of negro population; how large may be estimated from the fact that, in 1850, the slaves were set down at 2,500,000. It seems probable that negroes and negro half-castes compose the better half of the 12,000,000 who are calculated to people Brazil; the pure Indians are estimated by a liberal calculation at 1,000,000; while the Portuguese, Germans, and half-caste or civilised Indians make up the
