With regard to that expedition I shall only tell you, just now, that its goal is a waterfall five times higher than Niagara, that we shall take camp-kit and provisions, journey in a tent-boat, and be dependent for our very lives on the skill of Indians to paddle our little craft along a river which is a series of boiling rapids and fearsome falls. With Georgetown, the capital of British Guiana, as headquarters, we can make the return trip in eleven days. But we should need to spend several months, several years even, in carrying out innumerable other expeditions of a similar nature that explorers have already made within the undeveloped regions of South America; and there are portions of this vast Continent which have not yet been explored.

The European nations which have played a leading part in the history of South America are the Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English.

The Spaniards and the Portuguese were well to the fore in the discovery of the southern portion of the New World, and during the sixteenth century they obtained such widespread power therein—the Portuguese establishing themselves in Brazil and the Spaniards extending their conquests throughout the rest of the land—that onwards for, more or less, three hundred years they were masters of practically the whole of South America. Meanwhile the Dutch, French, and English made various raids on the Latin-American Colonies, partly inspired by a desire for empire-building, partly animated by personal ambition due to the enthusiasm of certain particularly adventuresome compatriots, and very considerably influenced by a spirit or national indignation against the strict trading laws which Spain and Portugal drew up with the object of preventing their neighbours from securing any share of the New World's wealth. Although the Dutch, French, and English all succeeded in getting a firm foothold in South America by establishing none of these rival nations was able to overthrow the rule of the pioneer conquerors in the New World. But, as you all know, each of these rivals to Spain and Portugal was ambitious to become the all-powerful nation in Europe, and in the struggle for European supremacy which took place, Spain and Portugal fell from their high estate. The hold of the enfeebled mother-countries on their South American colonies gradually weakened; gradually, too, the colonies began to realize their own growing strength, and one after another they all found an opportunity of successfully claiming their independence.

Thus it has come to pass that, as a result of many deeds of daring performed in the long-ago days by brave explorers, bold buccaneers, and enterprising traders in South America, Portugal can to-day merely claim that Portuguese is still the language used throughout the Republic of Brazil, and Spain that Spanish is the language used throughout the Republics of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela; whilst England, France, and Holland can boast that, although they share but a comparatively small corner of the Continent, they hold their respective shares—namely, British Guiana, French Guiana, and Dutch Guiana—as colonies. In addition to her mainland territory, Great Britain has the Falkland Islands as a colonial possession. And the United States of North America have recently acquired in Panama a strip of country, known as the Canal Zone, through which they have built the Panama Canal as a short cut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Each of the republics now has a population that forms a separate and distinct nation. The Chileans, for instance, are different in temperament, appearance, and habits from their neighbours in the Argentine, and the Bolivianos would object to being confused with the Panamanians, or vice versa, although all these four peoples are of Spanish origin. Difference of surroundings has favoured the growth of nationalities in South America, together with circumstances that have introduced into some regions numbers of negroes, and into others representatives of various European races.

Some of the present-day South Americans who have some Indian blood in their veins have inherited certain tribal characteristics, as, for instance, good fighting qualities. Otherwise, the native Indians have had very little influence on the history of South America since the days when the Spaniards broke up the highly civilized Inca Empire. Apart from the Incas, however, and a few other tribes, the South American Indians were primitive people when the white man first visited their country, and most of the members of the numerous savage tribes have for generation after generation shown a strong desire to shun the white man's civilization, and to continue to live a very simple life in the heart of the Bush or among remote hills. In contrast to the negroes, who never lose an opportunity of hearing themselves speak, the Indians are very silent people; moreover, the negroes in South America always chatter in the language of the country that has adopted them, but the Indians, who have refused to be adopted by any foreign nation, speak, when occasion demands, in the tribal dialects of their ancestors.