144

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE.

argument applies to New Andalusia or Guiana, which are governed by intendants named by the president. It may be said that these provinces have hitherto been in a position differing but little from those territories of the United States which have a population below 60,000 souls. Peculiar circumstances, which cannot be justly appreciated at such a distance, have doubtless rendered great centralization necessary in the civil administration; every change would be dangerous as long as the state has external enemies; but the forms useful for defence, are not always those which, after the struggle, sufficiently favour individual liberty, and the development of public prosperity.

The powerful union of North America has long been insulated, and without contact with any states having analogous institutions. Although the progress America is making from east to west, is considerably retarded near the right bank of the Mississippi, she will advance without interruption towards the internal provinces of Mexico, and will there find a European people of another race, other manners, and a different religious faith. Will the feeble population of those provinces, belonging to another dawning federation, resist; or will it be absorbed by the torrent from the east and transformed into an Anglo-American state, like the inhabitants of Lower Louisiana? The future will soon solve this problem. On the other hand, Mexico is separated from Columbia only by Guatemala, a country and extreme fertility, which has recently assumed the denomination of the republic of Central America. The political divisions between Oaxaca and Chiapa, Costa Rica and Veragua, are not founded either on the natural limits, or the manners and languages of the natives, but solely on the habit of dependence on the Spanish chiefs who resided at Mexico, Guatemala, or Santa Fé de Bogota. It seems natural that Guatemala should one day join the isthmuses of Veragua and Panama to the isthmus of Costa Rica; and that Quito should connect New Grenada with Peru, as La Paz, Charcas, and Potosi link Peru with Buenos-Ayres. The intermediate parts from Chiapa to the Cordilleras of Upper Peru, form a passage from one political association to another, like those transitory forms which link together the various groups of the organie kingdom in nature. In

POLITICAL CHANGES.

145

neighbouring monarchies the provinces that adjoin each other present those striking demarcations which are the effect of great centralization of power: in federal republics, states situated at the extremities of each system are some time before they acquire a stable equilibrium. It would be almost a matter of indifference to the provinces between Arkansas and the Rio del Norte, whether they send their deputies to Mexico or to Washington. Were Spanish America one day to shew a more uniform tendency towards the spirit of federalism, which the example of the United States has created on several points, there would result from the contact of so many systems, or groups of states, confederations variously graduated. I here only touch on the relations that arise from this assemblage of colonies on an uninterrupted line of 1600 leagues in length. We have seen, in North America, one of the old Atlantic states divided into two, and each having a different representation. The separation of Maine and Massachusets, in 1820, was effected in the most peaceable manner. Schisms of this kind will, it may be feared, render such changes turbulent. It may also be observed, that the importance of the geographical divisions of Spanish America, founded at the same time on the relations of local position and the habits of several centuries, have prevented the mother-country from retarding the separation of the colonies by attempting to establish Spanish princes in the New World. In order to rule such vast possessions it would have been requisite to form six or seven centres of government; and that multiplicity of centres was hostile to the establishment of new dynasties, at the period when they might still have been salutary to the mother country.

Bacon somewhere observes, that it would be happy if nations would always follow the example of time, the greatest of all innovators, but who acts calmly, and almost without being perceived. This happiness does not belong to colonies when they reach the critical juncture of emancipation; and least of all to Spanish America, engaged in the struggle at first, not to obtain complete independence, but to escape from a foreign yoke. May these party agitations be succeeded by a lasting tranquillity! May the germ of civil discord, disseminated during three centuries

VOL. III.

L

146

CAPABILITY OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.

to secure the dominion of the mother-country, gradually, perish; and may productive and commercial Europe be convinced that to perpetuate the political agitations of the New World would be to impoverish herself by diminishing the consumption of her productions, and losing a market which already yields more than seventy millions of piastres. Many years must no doubt elapse before seventeen millions of inhabitants, spread over a surface one-fifth greater than the whole of Europe, will have found a stable equilibrium in governing themselves. The most critical moment is that when nations, after long oppression, find themselves suddenly at liberty to promote their own prosperity. The Spanish Americans, it is unceasingly repeated, are not sufficiently advanced in intellectual cultivation to be fitted for free institutions. I remember that at a period not very remote, the same reasoning was applied to other nations, who were said to have made too great an advance in civilization. Experience, no doubt, proves that nations, like individuals, find that intellect and learning do not always lead to happiness; but without denying the necessity of a certain mass of knowledge and popular instruction for the stability of republics or constitutional monarchies, we believe that stability depends much less on the degree of intellectual improvement than on the strength of the national character; on that balance of energy and tranquillity of ardour and patience, which maintains and perpetuates new institutions; on the local circumstances in which a nation is placed; and on the political relations of a country with neighbouring states.

VOYAGE TO THE HAVANNAH.

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CHAPTER XXVIII.

Passage from the Coast of Venezuela to the Havannah.-General View of the Population of the West India Islands, compared with the Population of the New Continent, with respect to diversity of races, personal liberty, language, and worship.

WE sailed from Nueva Barcelona on the 24th of November, at nine o'clock in the evening; and we doubled the small rocky island of Borachita. The night was marked by that coolness which characterizes the nights of the tropics, and the agreeable effect of which can only be conceived by comparing the nocturnal temperature, from 23° to 24° centigrade, with the mean temperature of the day, which in those latitudes is generally, even on the coast, from 28° to 29°. Next day, soon after the observation of noon, we reached the meridian of the island of Tortugas. It is destitute of vegetation; and like the little islands of Coche and Cabagua, is remarkable for its small elevation above the level of the sea.

In the forenoon of the 26th we began to lose sight of the island of Marguerita, and I endeavoured to verify the height of the rocky group of Macanao. It appeared under an angle of 0° 16' 35"; which in a distance estimated at sixty miles, would give the mica-slate group of Macanao the elevation of about 660 toises, a result which, in a zone where the terrestrial refractions are so unchanging, leads me to think that the island was less distant than we supposed. The dome of the Silla of Caracas, lying 62° to the S.W., long fixed our attention. At those times when the coast is not loaded with vapours, the Silla must be visible at sea, without reckoning the effects of refraction, at thirty-three leagues distance. During the 26th, and the three following days, the sea was covered with a bluish film, which, when examined by a compound microscope, appeared formed of an innumerable quantity of filaments. We frequently find these filaments in the Gulf-stream, and the Channel of Bahama, as well as near the coast of Buenos Ayres. Some naturalists are of opinion that they are vestiges of the eggs of mollusca: but they appear to be more like fragments of fuci. The phosphorescence of sea-water seems however to

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THE ISLAND OF ORCHILA.

be augmented by their presence, especially between 28° and 30° of north latitude, which indicates an origin of some sort of animal nature.

On the 27th, we slowly approached the island of Orchila. Like all the small islands in the vicinity of the fertile coast of the continent, it has never been inhabited. I found the latitude of the northern cape, 11° 51′ 44′′ and the longitude of the eastern cape, 68° 26' 5" (supposing Nueva Barcelona to be 67° 4′ 48′′). Opposite the western cape there is a small rock against which the waves beat turbulently. Some angles taken with the sextant, gave, for the length of the island from east to west, 84 miles (950 toises); and for the breadth scarcely three miles. The island of Orchila, which, from its name, I figured to myself as a bare rock covered with lichens, was at that period beautifully verdant. The hills of gneiss were covered with grasses. It appears that the geological constitution of Orchila reserables, on a small scale, that of Marguerita. It consists of two groups of rocks joined by a neck of land; it is an isthmus covered with sand, which seems to have issued from the floods by the successive lowering of the level of the sea. The rocks, like all those which are perpendicular and insulated in the middle of the sea, appear much more elevated than they really are, for they scarcely exceed from 80 to 90 toises. The Punta rasa stretches to the north-west, and is lost, like a sandbank, below the waters. It is dangerous for navigators, and so is likewise the Mogote, which, at the distance of two miles from the western cape, is surrounded by breakers. On a very near examination of these rocks, we saw the strata of gneiss inclined towards the northwest, and crossed by thick layers of quartz. The destuction of these layers has doubtless created the sands of the surrounding beach. Some clumps of trees shade the valleys, the summits of the hills are crowned with fan-leaved palmtrees; probably the palma de sombrero of the Llanos (Corypha tectorum). Rain is not abundant in these countries; but probably some springs might be found on the island of Orchila, if sought for with the same care as in the mica-slate rocks of Punta Araya. When we recollect how many bare and rocky islands are inhabited and cultivated between the 17th and 26th degrees of latitude in the