upper navigable waters of the Madeira with the Mamoré and the 3,000 miles of Bolivian rivers. The road cutting off the curves of the rivers will be about 168 miles long. The facilities for construction are very great, and abundant labor is to be found in Bolivia. Easy gradients, no rivers of moment to cross, no swampy ground, and very little excavation and embankment, render it light work to the engineering science of the present day. The estimate of its cost is £625,539 sterling.

Brazil has very wisely turned her attention in this direction. Her great problem is the development of the Amazon valley. The only countries lying in this valley that can produce the cereals to any great extent are Bolivia and the Brazilian province of Matto-Grosso. These are destined to become its granary; and to these countries, therefore, the lower Amazon must look for food. In 1867, in this lower valley, there were consumed 18,915 barrels of flour; in 1868 the consumption was 21,104 barrels; imported mostly from the United States, but in part from Europe. The average cost to the consumer was above £4 sterling per barrel. Once Brazil completes the railway, she can receive all this at half the price.

In addition, cattle do not thrive in the lower Amazon, where the average price is about 4 sterling; while the vast herds of Northern Bolivia will furnish them on the river banks at ten shillings per head. Numerous other items might be added here, in the same ratio of values, relative to the populous upper Madeira and the now progressive lower Amazon.

I only

cite these to show what an effect the opening of the Bolivia and Matto-Grosso valleys of the Amazon is destined to have upon the development of the vast empire of Brazil and its enhanced importance with respect to other countries.

With regard to the upper valley of the Madeira and Bolivian trade with Europe and the United States heretofore, it presents some very curious features. September 5th, 1864, Peru and Bolivia concluded a Commercial and Custom House Treaty, which gave to Bolivia the use of the post of Arica on the Pacific coast, 300 miles west of La Paz, across the Andes. Previous to this date there existed an arrangement between the two countries by which the imports of Bolivia

were permitted the free transit of the long, narrow strip of Peru that intervenes between Bolivia and the Pacific Ocean.

The above-named treaty was not put in force till 1866. In accordance with its terms, Peru collects the duties upon Bolivian imports, entering them upon the scale of duties established by the Peruvian Custom House, and makes an annual payment to Bolivia of 405,000 "soles," or £81,000 sterling. Almost the whole of the commerce represented by these duties is carried on with Great Britain; but the statistical reports of the United Kingdom show almost no commerce whatever with Bolivia, but give the entire credit of it to Peru. This credit, in the financial operations of Peru in the European money markets, must be of very great value.

For instance, the five years, from 1863 to 1867 inclusive, will show this properly :

This is paid for in silver, gold, Peruvian bark, and copper-ore from the extreme western frontier. None of the vast products heretofore mentioned can be used in exchange, for they cannot pay the enormous cost of the mountain transit, and therefore lie rotting on the ground. The sugar and wheat growers of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra consider it a great misfortune if their lands grow a too abundant crop, as they must either give away or throw away the surplus.

The above estimated value of £751,ooo for imports is at European rates, and is entirely fictitious as regards the Bolivian people. The difference of values between the Pacific coast and the real frontier on the eastern side of the Andes should be added, for Bolivia annually pours a vast treasure into the hands of the Peruvians for freight transportation. Cobija, on the south, is merely an advance-post, witb 490 miles of waterless deserts and barren mountains between it and Potosi, the south-western city of Bolivia. A ton of goods leaves Europe for Cochabamba, the trade centre of Bolivia; it makes the stormy transit of Cape Horn, reaches the rocky coast of Peru, is landed in the surf, cut into small parcels for mule-back freighting, toils up the Andes to an elevation of 15,800 feet (the highest peak of Mont Blanc is 15,700), which is the elevation of the pass of Tacora, descends to the Titicaca basin, crosses the inland ridge of the Cordillera, and finally reaches its destination about five months after it has left Europe. The cost of this freighting is from £40 to £45 sterling per ton; but there is another charge to add to this, for, in the meantime, it has paid a large profit to the merchants of Arica and Tacna, in Peru, who have built around them flourishing cities as a result; not to mention the colossal fortunes that have blessed the European houses which have quietly enjoyed the monopoly.

This trade of Bolivia, and the conse

one of the trade and condition of the AtGama discovered the Cape of Good Hope lantic coast of Europe before Vasco de in 1597. The England of that date was not much better off with reference to the great trade currents of the world than Bolivia is to-day. The caravans toiled across Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, just as the caravans of mules now toil across the Andes. Then, as now, under such difficulties, nothing but the most precious products could stand the cost of the transit, and England, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Germanic States contented themselves with internal feuds and struggles, for want of external development, and the home progressive activity which is its resultant. The prosperity, power, and civilization of all these States proceed from the fact that in 1498 Europe, at the beck of Vasco de Gama, changed front, and found cheap transportation. What Europe did then, Bolivia proposes to do now; and, relatively, the results cannot be far different.

There appears to be no reason why three-fourths, at least, of all the population of Bolivia and Matto-Grosso should not take advantage of the Amazon route to the Atlantic; while a larger part of the remainder will find their trade channel vid the Plata river. It is reliably estimated that over 46,000 tons of freight will be added to the traffic of the Amazon river the first year after the contemplated improvements at the rapids of the Madeira are concluded. This will give in values, about £2,637,000, or about £1 6s. 4d. per capita for the 2,000,000 of people who represent it.

The average imports (not to count exports) of all the Spanish American States are very approximately £2 per capita. Bolivia, at this rate, should exceed £5,000,ooo sterling of imports instead of the £751,000 estimated for her to day via the Andes. The trade which the above States offer is more or less in proportion to the facilities which have been extended to them by European capital.

The two gigantic river basins of South America are the Amazon and the Plata. Bolivia is to the former what the Argentine Republic is to the latter. It may be stated that it is even more, for the commerce of the latter is almost entirely with Europe and the United States, while

Bolivia is so situated that, aside from this commerce, there must be a very extensive exchange of products with Brazil, as heretofore mentioned.

I remember seeing the first river steamer ever placed on Argentine waters. It was called the Arjentina and commenced running in 1854. A little craft, scarcely larger than a ship's launch. The effect was like magic. Ten years afterwards the Parana, the Uruguay, and the Plata estuary itself swarmed with steamboats varying from ten to two thousand tons burden. The impulse given to commerce was enormous. The upper Argentine provinces awoke to new life, and long trains of goods toiled overland to reach the river-banks from the interior. Smaller craft, under sail, came into the main rivers loaded with products that, before that date, had been valueless. The flourish ing city of Rosario, now containing 40,000 people, was then scarcely more than a rancho. Since 1854 European capital has commenced the development of the country, and as a resultant we have the following comparison of trade. In that year it was merely a fraction. In 1865 it had reached £10,000,000. With the impulse given by steam navigation and railways for three years more, the goods that paid duties at the Buenos Ayres Custom House in 1868 were, in value, £13,207,942. This does not include the ports of Rosario, Santa Fé, and other riverine ports of the Republic. They will increase the amount by about one-fourth, making the total imports and exports £16,509,927. All these pay duties.

In 1868 there passed the Buenos Ayres Custom House, in duty-paying and nonpaying goods, £15,859,531 sterling. Adding one-fourth more for the other ports, we have £19,811,914 sterling, representing the commerce of about 1,700,000 people. This gives 11 135. per head for exports and imports.

These people occupy a country inferior in most points of mineral and agricultural wealth to that of Bolivia and MattoGrosso, while the inhabitants of the latter States are fully as industrious. The Argentine population is more nomadic, more given to a pastoral than to an agricultural life. They prefer the saddle and a dash across the beautiful plains of their country to a sedentary existence, and the limiting of their energies to a few acres of arable

land. I have already explained how dif-* ferent the Inca race is from this, and how eminently it is adapted to the tilling of the . soil. This, with the taste of the SpanishAmerican population for mining pursuits, gives an excellent combination for a territory so divided by nature into mineral and agricultural lands.

The only reason why Bolivia has not given an even greater trade to the world than the Argentine Republic is its heretofore forced transit of the Andes already explained. With a population of 2,750,000 sturdy people, the country should furnish a foreign commerce of at least equal value to that of the Argentine States.

It will be a curious study to watch the effect of this commerce upon the Amazon valley of Brazil. Bolivia holds four-fifths of the entire population of the Amazon basin, and lies upon its most beautiful Andean slope. Its commerce, passing over the main channel of the mighty Amazon, must attract great attention to the vast region watered by that river. Additional and rapid means of communication, furnished by the constantly passing steamers, must force a settlement of the lands on the river margins, and commence a civilization that it would be impracticable to promote so rapidly in any other manner. Brazil has made great efforts to introduce immigrants and populate her immense territory. The problem of how to settle the valley of the Amazon and make it what it should be, the most flourishing portion of the empire, has occupied the minds of her statesmen for many years. If, years ago, the empire had been able to settle the vexed treatyquestion with Bolivia, the problem would have been then, as now, far on its way to a very successful solution. The wealth of the Amazon valley may be best understood from the fact that the trade of Pará to-day represents a draft upon unaided nature; for the products of the forests furnish the exports of the river, which pay for the imports, and give great riches to those engaged in the exchange of them. These exports and imports amount to £1,750,000 sterling, and represent the trade of 500,000 people at the most. This gives £3 10s. per head.

It was in 1853 that the first steamers commenced running on the Amazon river. The year previous to this, the imports and exports were but £413,926 sterling. The

effect of steam was similar, to some extent, to the resultant in the Plata valley. The difference was that the Brazilian valley had not the same temperature nor the same population as the Plata had. The fault was that no effort was then made to reach the real populated section of the Amazon basin-Bolivia. Had this been done at that date, we should now see a commerce, entering and clearing at Pará, far in excess of any figures shown at the ports of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. The borders of the Amazon would have presented along their whole extent little ports and towns, the centres of commerce, and of efforts to bring the adjacent lands into use, and thus furnish outlets for the over-crowded States of Europe. But 1870 promises to commence what should have been done in 1853.

On the lower Amazon there are now running sixteen steamers, and their number is being rapidly increased from the United States. The present ones are mostly of English construction, and appear to be unsuited to the commerce, so much so that most of the new ones lately sent out are of the Mississippi river pattern, flat-bottom, and affording great facility for ventilation. There are two now nearly finished in the United States for the Bolivian rivers above the rapids. They belong to the National Bolivian Navigation Company, lately chartered by the Congress of the United States. This company is the owner of concessions of great value from the Government of Bolivia.

Three great efforts are now making to reach this inexhaustible treasure-house of old Spain-the new Bolivia. On the south the energy of the Argentine Republic is brought to the problem, and will accomplish all that nature will permit; for there is no country in South America whose people are carrying it to a more splendid destiny than this. The Argentine Central Railway has been pushed

forward to Cordoba, about 250 miles distant from the port of Rosario, on the Parana River. The steady earnestness of its contractors promises to extend it to Jujuy, 585 miles north of Cordoba. This will draw much trade from Southern Bolivia ; and if extended to the north-east, around the spurs of the Andes, to the Bolivian province of Tarija, will give a great commerce to the Plata valley. Already many of the products of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and of Tarija find their outlet by carts and on muleback over this route.

Peru, having, at Tacna, Arica, and Ariquipa, tasted of the vast riches which lie upon the eastern slope of the Andes, appears determined to retain a little of it, even at the expense of a railway from the coast of the Pacific to the Lake of Titicaca. This road is finished as far as Ariquipa, 117 miles distant from the port of Islay, on the Pacific: 220 miles more, making in all 337 miles, will complete the work. This is under contract. Certainly the wealth in the north-west corner alone of Bolivia must be astonishing; for Peru is trying to reach it at an expenditure of ten millions of pounds sterling. The road, too, is to scale a pass of the Andes 14,600 feet above the level of the sea; and, when it reaches Puno, its eastern terminus, it will be separated by Lake Titicaca from Bolivia.

These efforts are bold and full of merit. The country is so rich that they will all reap large returns; but it is by the way of the Amazon river that Bolivia looks for her greatest development; and it will be in connection with the Amazon valley of Brazil that she will receive it.

The subject is full of interest for Europe and America. This sudden launching into notice of a country hitherto prevented from participating in the general progress of the world, is of considerable moment to commerce and civilization.

GEORGE E. CHURCH.