PREFACE.

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America; nor having, in common with the other continents, riversrunning from tfre centre to the extremities; but, on the contrary,its regions separated from each other by the least; practicable of allboundaries, arid deserts of such extent as to threaten those whotraverse them with the most horrible of all deaths, that arisingfrom thirst ! Placed in such circumstances, can we be surprisedeither at our ignorance of its interior part, or of the tardy pro-gress of civilization in it? Possibly the difficulty of conveyingmerchandise to the coasts, under the above circumstances, mayhave given rife to the traffic m men; a commodity that can trans-port itself.”

When the Europeans first discovered America, the Peruvians,who were to a certain degree a civilized nation, had no other me-thods of transporting goods and heavy materials but on portersshoulders, or by the force of men’s arms ; and it has been sup-posed that two thousand of them have been employed in remov-ing one stone. A wide difference from modern times, when theimprovements of mechanics in Europe will cause the fame to bemoved by five or six men, and with as little labour transportedmany miles on a canal. The cities, towns, and villages of Hol-land have such a free communication with each other by water,that they appear like the streets of the fame city in respect to theconvenience of carriage ; and from every town of any size, atfixed times paffage-boats go for the neighbouring towns, convey-ing passengers and goods at cheap rates, and not less certain thanour ilage-coaches. Till these advantages are adopted on our

b English