Excerpt from Illustrated South America: A Chicago Publisher's Travels and Investigations in the Republics of South America, With Photographs of People and Scenes From the Isthmus of Panama to the Straits of Magellan The fact that human progress has followed the sun's course long since gave rise to the famous phrase, Westward the star of empire takes its way. Round the world from old Asia, pressing forward through thousands of years, the rising tide of civilization has followed the sunset; across Western Asia, Continental Europe, through the British Isles, across North America to the Pacific coast, across the ocean to Japan, and across Japan to China, in old Asia, where modern progress is now sweeping away the ancient order of things. Having com pleted the circle of the globe, the human stream of civilization is broadening, flowing off into the open spaces, chiefly to the southward. In Africa and South America is found the greatest amount of open or sparsely settled space; toward those fields the human tide of power and progress is flowing. Will we presently be saying, Southward the star of empire takes its way Perhaps. Certainly, in the centuries to come, in Africa and South America great nations will floarish, pos sibly greater nations than the world has ever known; hence, those continents and their opportunities and present state of development become vastly important and interesting. Because the greater part of South America lies in the tropics, the very thought of it arouses the imagination. Like Africa, it is a country of astounding contrasts, and for that reason invites and interests the traveler. Topographically, South America contains enormous table-lands that are beauti ful and tillable, contrasted with almost impassable mountain ranges and miasmatic lowlands and vast forest-choked valleys; politically, in some sections statesmanship has changed once chaotic elements into peace and order, in other regions the vio lenee of revolution is still in action: socially, there is every contrast conceivable from semi-barbarism and peonage to re finement and riches, and from bloody outlawry to the unselfish followers of the Man of (lalilee. Hence this quarter of the world is exceedingly interesting to read about. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.