four leagues across the Chapola, and the proprietor of Macu had proposed to establish this communication."" Diamantino carries on a direct trade with Para, by the Arinas, the Tapajos, and Amazon. The place of embarkation is ten leagues from the village, and a voyage up and down thence to Para occupies eight months. The Tapajos is said to be sickly. The foreign merchandise that reaches Diamantino by this route is sold at an advance, on the average, of eight hundred and fifty per cent. on its price in Para, which is some fifty or one hundred per cent. on New-York prices. Were this trade large, as at present it is not-and without steamboat navigation can never be-Pennsylvania, no doubt, would rejoice in it; for iron in Diamantino and the province of Matto Grosso generally sells at $25 the 100 lbs.-five hundred and fifty dollars a ton! -a price which ought surely to satisfy the iron men of any country. Salt sells at $18 the 100 lbs.: flour at $40 per barrel. Castelnau quotes the Para and Diamantino prices of thirty-four of the principal foreign articles of trade between the two places, and the average advance in Diamantino upon these Para prices is, as I have stated, 850 per cent. Passing from this benighted country ⚫ over into Bolivia, Castlenau came to an entirely different sort of people. Industrious and thriving, the Bolivians, as they contemplate their lovely rivers, the Pilcomayo and the Madeira, sigh for the steamboat and the free navigation of the La Plata and the Amazon. Chuquisaca stands on a spur of a mountain which juts out from the Andes, and constitutes the "divide" between the head-waters of the Pilcomayo and the Madeira. This latter, taking its rise under the north wall of this city, and joining a tributary which comes down from the city of Chochabamba, takes a sweep of some three hundred miles to the southward and eastward; then recovering itself, and swollen by the nu merous tributaries received by the way, it turns north towards the Amazon, and flows by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, (the present capital of the republic,) á magnificent sheet of water. From the two first-named cities, by the windings of the Madeira to the ocean, the distance is upwards of two thousand miles, more than half of which is in Bolivian territory. Well may that republic, therefore, sigh for river steamers and the right of way up and down the Amazon. The climate of Bolivia is one of the finest tropical climates in the world. Indeed, its climates and productions may be considered to include those of all the habitable portions of the globe. Here, one seated at the foot of a mountain, and surrounded with the luscious fruits of the tropics, may, casting his eye up towards the snow-capped peak above him, take in at one view the whole range of the vegetable gamut. Beginning with the chirimoya, the pineapple, the orange, and the vanilla, as they cast their fragrance around, he passes through, as he ascends, groves of the olive and the vine, the peach and the pear, until finally, having completed the vegetable notation The Pilcomayo takes its rise under in the order of production through the the south wall of their beautiful "Silver torrid and temperate zones, he reaches City," as Chuquisaca is called. The the frigid, and with its cap of snow he Vermejo, another large Bolivian tribu- finds the summit crowned with the tary of the La Plata, has its sources fur- mosses and the lichens of the polar rether south. After a course of a thousand gions. miles to the southward and eastward, About one-half of Bolivia is in the valthese streams empty into the Paraguay; ley of the Amazon; one-fourth in the valand so anxious is Bolivia for the steam ley of the La Plata; and the rest, which navigation of these rivers, that she has, is not desert or mountain, is in the valI am told, offered a bonus of $20,000 to ley of Lake Titicaca, that inland basin the first steamboat that will ascend the in which the Incas and civilization of Pilcomayo to the head of navigation. Peru had their origin. Mementoes of Ancient Greatness-Asiatic Commerce. 461 ART. VI.-PROGRESS-THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. In referring to these mementoes of prosperity and intelligence, it may be asked, Who were their founders? Who were their denizens? What was their literature?-the elements of their enlightenment? Who were their teachers? Who laid the foundations and raised the unique tumuli of our own land? The tescallis of Anahuac, of Otumba and Cholula-the dilapidated palaces of Oxmutal, of Mitla, Palenque, &c.? They, too, evince in silent veracity the existence of an enlightened era in America. Who will assert that this Continent is not the lost island of Atalanta, of which the elder Pliny vaguely speaks, or that the line of Asiatic commerce did not cross the Isthmus of Chiapa? The late discovery of an extensive city on the Island of Tinian, on the direct route to the Indian Archipelago, is the initiatory development of such a supposition; and similar discoveries on the same line of navigation would give it plausibility. THE chronology of creation is written to witness an exhibition, a solitary recluse in immutable characters in the great or bandit may be observed skulking volume of nature, and the surface of the among its dark recesses; yet, it eluciearth is rich in historical data in con- dates the splendor of the times and the nection with the promotion of human taste for public amusement. But what progress. The experience of nearly is Rome now, with all her ecclesiastical sixty centuries is recorded in these an- dignitaries? In the march of progress nals of animated action; exhibiting, as she lingers in the rear, as if loth to it were, a journal of the progressive and leave the beaten paths of eighteen cenretrogressive changes of mind in its turies, bearing all the accumulated efforts to explore the hidden secrets of decrepitude of age. It would be folly the universe. to follow the destroyer's footsteps The civilized world of the present throughout Europe, where every valley day may well boast of the flattering as- is a witness, and every headland expect of human improvement and ex- hibits a ruined trophy of a brighter panding genius, while a retrospective day. view calls up a host of strange, gloomy, yet interesting images that float upon the waves of the past. The wrecks of ancient grandeur meet our gaze at every turn; the ruins of enlightened periods are found in every land. Look into the dim vista of antiquity, among the dilapidated masses of mural rubbish strewn throughout the once gorgeous East. There are the foot-prints of Desolation, clear and defined. Overstepping the terrene temples of Salsette and Elephanta, he crushes under his tread the magnificent Temple of the Sun at Persepolis; Shushan, Nineveh, Babylon, Baalbec, with all their storied greatness, are almost lost to human ken. The columnar fragments of Palmyra only mark the location of the solitude of ruins, and green stagnant tanks or oasian pools, where the prowling jackal, and Bedouin bandit, slake their parching thirst. Jerusalem, "the city of our God," is trod by the feet of the infidel; the Turk and the Arab pitch their tents on Mount Zion. Where are the ancient Following the diurnal course of light emporiums of the eastern commerce, to that quarter of the globe where it is Tyre, Sidon, Tarshish, and Carthage? supposed the human race commenced Heliopolis, and Thebes, with its hun- its course of improvement, and from the dred gates, from each of which a thou- remains of science that was anciently sand chariots went forth to battle; and cultivated, as well as the arts that were where is the oracle of Jupiter Ammon, exercised there, it is concluded to have of the Lybian desert? We still look up been the first in which man made any to the mouldering battlements of the considerable progress in that career. Acropolis, frowning grimly from the The wisdom of the East was early celerocky hold upon degenerate Athens. brated in Scripture history; and its proThe arcades of the grand Colosseum ductions were in request among the still stand a gloomy monument of archi- Egyptians at least four hundred years tectural genius at the period of Vespa- before Moses wrote the Pentateuch. sian's triumphant reign. Instead of There is reason to infer from the same eighty thousand gay auditors assembled source that Damascus had a mercantile communication with India as early as their authors having copied from nature, the days of Abraham, or about four hundred years after the deluge. and having truly represented the state of the heavens, in the era in which they lived-nearly five thousand years ago. Nor do these calculations descend to the grosser estimations of the Chaldeans and Egyptians." Yet the student of ancient history is referred to the valley of the Nile as the cradle of literature, science, and arts; but Cadmus, the Phenician, introduced the elements of writing to the colonies of Greece. Perhaps no country has undergone less change than eastern Asia. What is in India now, was always there; as it was found by the Portuguese, so was it found when Parmenio led the triumphs of Alexander thither. Neither the conquering sword of Alexander, nor the ferocious violence of its Mohommedan masters, nor the power of its European tyrants, have been able to effect any The researches of the learned in this considerable change. Indeed, it may hitherto sealed magazine of knowledge, be deemed problematical whether any have opened for the contemplation of alteration would be an improvement on the philosopher, the philanthropist, and a system of laws and ethics that have statesman, a novel but ripe field of inbeen tested by the experience of four teresting inquiry. Each may here disthousand years-idolatry excepted cover a regular system of science in the Yet, notwithstanding the apparent per- various ramifications of government and fection of this system of laws, having morals, perspicuously displayed to the existed from time immemorial, and still understanding in the annals of an age tenaciously adhered to by the natives, that extends far away, back beyond the the last of their conquerors only have popular epochs of our day. When been able to procure the means of their Egypt was yet unknown; long before analysis by access to their libraries. Mizraim had left the plains of Shinar to -Many of their Brahminical tomes establish the empire of the Nile; when claim an almost incredible existence; all other nations slumbered in savage reaching far beyond the tolerated limits sloth, excited only by the barbarous of orthodox chronology. Ridicule and passions of rapacious hostility; led on grave denunciation have condemned by the tide of commercial enterprise, these records of an inappreciated an- the minister of our artificial wants and tiquity, and there is reason to doubt, necessaries, and the most successful whether the constructive creeds of missionary of learning-literature, inmodern zealots have not retarded the spread of intelligence and the progress of intellect, by positive assertion, unsustained by Scripture, the evidences of nature, analogy, or the philosophy of the physical indices of the progress of creation. The condemnation of these antique records, that contain much to recommend their perusal, as the mere emanations of a voluptuous fancy or sublime fable, should be sanctioned, if not with doubt, at least with extreme caution. For, how is it, if they are totally unworthy of credit, that the astronomical tables exhibiting an exact delineation of the celestial spheres at the same periods, have been attested and accredited by such eminent astronomers tuitively flowed in the same channel, westward, through the metropolitan marts of Persia, Assyria, Chaldea, and Phenicia, to Egypt and Carthage. Its African progress was arrested by the arid sands of Lybia and the great Saharah; while, on the North, after passing Damascus, it seems to have lost its impetus at the base of Mount Taurus. But in the process of time a brilliant flame burst spontaneously from the hills of Palestine, illuminating not Syria alone, but the whole of western Asia basked in the effulgence of wisdom, emanating from the mind and pen of Solomon, King of Israel; a prince no less distinguished for his literary fame, than for the splendor of his commercial M. Bailly, of Paris, and Professor enterprise. He laid the foundations of Playfair, of Edinburgh? "These ta- Tadmor in the Desert; raised its pillared bles," say they, "display an accuracy palaces, colonnades and aqueducts, as a less surprising than the justness and central trading rendezvous for the merscientific nature of the principles on chants of Elam and Ind, from the east, which they are constructed; that such and the caravans of Damascus, from the a conformity to the calculations for those west. Under the auspices of a royal ages could result from nothing, but co-partnership-Hiram and Solomon as Jerusalem the Metropolis of Science-Institutions of Greece. 463 "High, on silver wheels, navigation extended from the seas of brass. And when the monarch willed The iv'ry car in azure sapphires shone- generous steeds, Caparisoned in gold, were harnessed to the car. The king commands-himself the charioteer." Much has been said and written concerning the sapient King of Israel, his magnificent temples and gorgeous palaces. The former were overlaid with gold, and ornamented with the most lustrous gems, dazzling the eyes while the imagination was bewildered, and the But it is to the institutions of Greece, mind, as it were, transported into the region of fiction and enchantment. By the the beacon-light of antiquity, to which influence of superior policy his power ac- the modern world is mainly indebted cumulated, and his sceptre swayed over for all it knows of ancient literature. all the neighboring nations; and the They were admirably adapted for sovereigns at a distance sought his friendship and alliance. His fame had spread to the uttermost parts of the earth; the philosophy and learning of the age were concentrated at his court, and Jerusalem became the metropolis of science. The brilliancy of his genius and of his power was not displayed more in the richness of his architectural designs, the superlative beauty and magnitude of his buildings, or his commercial adventures, than in the number and pomp of his military divisions. One million and a half of men composed his infantry; twelve thousand horsemen, with one thousand four hundred chariots—the exquisite workmanship of Assyria and Egypt. He procured the fiery barbs of Africa for his cavalry, and the swiftest coursers of Arabia were harnessed to his chariots. His charioteers were helmed in brass, and their armor was of burnished steel. His cavalry were clothed in purple, and the housings of their saddles were embroidered with gold, while the precious dust of Ophir glistened in the hair of his guards. The reins of their bridles were chains of brass; the headstalls and frontlets were plates of silver. Their swords were of Damascus, and the armories of Lebanon were stored with shields of gold and targets of silver. His garrisons were built of marble, and the for the horses were made of stalls *China, at this time. the early development of the intellectual and physical powers of its citizens. With an inherent reverence for the sacred mysteries of Eleusis, embracing the doctrines of religion, the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments-virtue was an essential qualification for public honors. The Olympic, Isthmean, Pyrating incentives to merit; not alone for thean, and Nemean games, were exhilithe athletic, but the literary competitors for fame were there. Herodotus, the father of profane history, read his compogames. It was thus the Greek became adsitions at the celebration of the Olympic dicted to controversial declamation on speculative theories, which he had the excess of dignified refinement. "To deaddress to controvert or defend with an fine with accuracy, to distinguish with attempting to analyze those operations acuteness, to reason with subtilty while of the mind which the faculties of man were not formed to comprehend,” were his specious characteristics. Urged on by the desire of surpassing excellence, the Grecian mind soared far above the envious flights of its predecessors. The delicacy of taste, richted life, was only found in the inimitaness, beauty, glowing almost into animable statuary of her studios, while her architectural proportions have deservedly been admired in every age for chasteness of outline and ornamental + Bible and Josephus. design. Literature, sculpture and paint- furnishing the rudiments of the mecha ing were sedulously cultivated, and were nical elements, on which are formed deemed exclusively the permanent cha- the fiery vehicles on which we ride triracteristics of Greece, until her sove- umphantly away from the rude and reignty was suppressed by the Roman dusky purlieus of antiquity. power, and the torch of Grecian genius blazed from the altars of Italy. Spreading with the success of the Caesars, it swept round the southern foot of the Alpine barrier into the ultra-montane regions of the benighted west of Europe, illuminating the progress of the con queror. With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the advance of man's intellectuality was arrested, and for a thousand years the gloom of ignorance brooded over the tomb of science, of literature, and arts. All had passed away, as it were, into the vortex of oblivion. All that ennobles the mind, the mighty power of intelligence, was obliterated the world was a waste of depravity and superstition, until that brilliant spark gleamed upon the genius of Guttenburg. The effulgence of a new era burst from the literary press with tenfold vigor. Accelerated alone by its intrinsic merit, its course was onward, under the happy coincidental auspices of the Reformation. How often is the public ear assailed with the broad assertion, that the intelligence of the present period far surpasses that of every previous age. Here we should pause! while we may view, with laudatory complacence, yes, even with some degree of pride and exultation, the brilliant march of intellectual improvement, and reflect that, besides what we see among the devastated ruins of the past, and the exhumations of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Nineveh, we are yet in the novitiate of progress, considering that we possess the superior advantages of past experience. We should not forget that there has been a Cadmus, a Solomon, a Homer, an Herodotus, a Socrates, an Archimedes, a Praxiteles, an Apelles, a Demosthenes, a Cæsar and a Cicero a Bacon, a Locke, a Descartes and a Newton; that the splendid career of to-day is predicated on the incidental progress of forty centuries, by legacies of wisdom, discoveries, and inventions of former times, which we have inherited, and continue to appreciate and improve, seldom accrediting the distant periods from which they emanated. Thus have they prepared the way, Mind has now mounted the CAR of PROGRESS-seizing the reins of science and of art-bounding forward unrestrained, like the bright chariot of the sun, into the untrodden fields of knowledge, and like that glorious luminary, enlightening the world in its course; invigorating the germs of intellect and genius, until they burst forth into fructi fying maturity. Disengaged from the gross hallucinations of past ages, imposed by priests and princes, it rises from the slime of ignorance and depression on freedom's pinions, independent alike of antiquated dogmas, rude philosophy, the restraint of intolerance, and senseless superstition. By the buoyancy of its own enthusiasm, it soars in an atmosphere uncontaminated by a false philanthropy. Time and space are conducted by its operations, and the world is embraced at a glance. It commands the elements, and they obey it; the silent mandate of a tyrant's wrath, or the sweet accents of a lover's vow, fly on electric wings, and strike their destination of a thousand miles in an instant of time. The globe is a sphere too circumscribed for its expansive research; the universe alone can limit its aspirations. No part of it, however, is too remote for the investigation of the mind, too sublime for its contemplation, or too insignificant for its reflective consideration. By the influence of a candid pulpit and enlightened press, benevolent institutions and the dignified administration of a liberal government, it will diffuse the genuine aspirations of the soul-of nature-of justice-of truthyes, and of a Deity-until the final link of the despot's chain is dissolved by the intensity of its power. Even now, the empires of oppression quake, and the ebullition of the volcanic base on which they rest is only suppressed by the arms of a military force; yet another is rising into being on the very crater of revolution, and it may be, with the germ of destruction in its bosom. It is but a few years ago that thrones tumbled their occupants, leaving the sceptre and the diadem, the pomp of regal sway, the insignia of royal grandeur, with all |