And when there shall be established a commercial thoroughfare across the Isthmus, the trade-winds of the Pacific will place China, India, New Holland, and all the islands of that Ocean, down hill also from this sea of ours. In that case, the whole of Europe must pass by our very doors on the great highway to the markets both of the East and the West Indies.

that river almost as much in the Florida pass as is way, of 80 or 100 miles a day. If her destinathe mouth of the Mississippi river itself. Two tion be Rio, or India, or California, her course travellers may set out from the Yucatan Pass; is the same as far north as the island of Berone North for the sources of the Missouri, the muda. other South for the head waters of the Amazon. If, when the former reaches the base of the Rocky Mountains, he will cut a tree down and let it fall in the river, so that it will drift with the current without lodging by the way, it will meet in the straits of Florida one cut and cast into the Amazon, by the other traveller, from the sides of the Andes, and floated down that river in like manner. The natural route of the drift-wood from both to the open sea, is through the Gulf of Mexico, around the peninsula of Florida, and so out into the Atlantic through the Gulf Stream. These twin basins are destined by Nature to be the greatest commercial receptacles in the world. No age, clime, nor quarter of the globe affords any parallel or any conditions of the least resemblance to these which we find in this Sea or Gulf.

This beautiful Mesopotamian sea, is in a position to occupy the summit level of navigation, and to become the great commercial receptacle of the world. Our rivers run into it, and float down with their currents the surplus articles of merchandise that are produced upon their banks. Arrived with them upon the bosom of this grand marine basin, there are the currents of the sea and the winds of heaven so arranged by nature, that they drift it and waft it down hill and down stream to the great market places of the world. To one who has never studied the course of the

What other arm of the ocean is between two continents with opposite seasons? Where is there another Gulf Stream uniting the waters of winds and currents of the sea, and the influence an Amazon with the waters of a Mississippi-which they exert upon the routes which vessels an extra-tropical with an inter-tropical river— and placing the commercial outlet of both before to and fro across the ocean, it appears startling to must pursue in order to accomplish their voyages the doors of one and the same people? Where, be told that the shores of the Southern States, of in the wide ocean, or the wider world, is there Florida and the Carolinas, are on the wayside of another Mesopotamian sea, that is the natural vessels bound from the mouth of the Amazon, outlet for a system of river basins draining an the Orinoco and the Magdalena rivers to Rioextent of arable and fertile lands greater than de-Janeiro as well as to Europe. The way out the continent of Europe can contain ;—that yield all the productions of the torrid and the temper-ers, and from that of the Mississippi, is practiupon the high seas from the mouth of these riv

ate zones; and that are so situated withal, that
from opposite hemispheres, with their opposite
seasons, they will deliver into the markets a crop
every six months? Famine can never visit such
a land. The double chance of a crop in double
hemispheres, frees it from any such liability.
In consequence of the winds and currents of
the sea, the course of navigation from the mouths
of these two rivers, as well as from all parts of the
Gulf and Carribbean Sea, is such, as to compel
every vessel that trades in their markets, whether
it be with the produce of the great Amazonian
valley at the South, or the mighty valley of the
West, we repeat, the course of navigation is
such as to compel every vessel so freighted for
Europe, for Africa, for India—nay, for Rio-de-
Janeiro and for South America itself, to pass the
very offings of our Southern ports on their way

to market.

From the Gulf of Mexico, all the great commercial markets of the world are down hill. A vessel bound from that Gulf to Europe, places herself in the current of the Gulf Stream and drifts along with it at the rate, for part of the

cally one and the same.

To a vessel under canvass, Norfolk is not half as far, iu point of time, from the mouth of the Amazon as is Rio in Brazil.

On account of the winds and currents of the Atlantic, a vessel bound from the Amazon to Rio, has first to sail to the northward until she reaches the northern parallel of 25° or 30° before she can begin to stand South. It is the same, no matter what be her destination, provided it be not the West Indies, nor any of the ports in the Carribbean Sea, or Gulf of Mexico.

Norfolk and Charleston may be called halfway houses from the Amazon and the Gulf, to New York, to England and Europe, and to all ports in Africa, South America, India and around Cape Horn. Indeed, they are the half-way houses from Amazonia to all the markets of the world, the way to which is across the seas.

We wish to fix attention as to the great advantages which our geographical and physical position gives us of the United States, in contending for the commerce to which the valleys

of the Amazon, the Orinoco and the Magdalena greatness shall be in the Northern, not in the are destined at some day to give rise. Southern Hemisphere.

Another condition required in the constitution of sea-faring communities is a niggardly soil, or other sources of a scanty livelihood to the laboring man. In these days, men forsake the land for the sea only when the sea affords better means of living than the land.

Before we submit the proposition which we design to make to the merchants of the South in particular, and to the people of these United States in general, we wish to call attention to another physical condition which nature has connected with the South American trade, and particularly with the commerce to which her Where in the history of the world did the peoriver basins are to give rise. And that is, ple of any nation ever become maritime in their that not only do none of these river basins, habits, when their climates were mild, their but none of the continents of the Southern soil kind, and lands cheap? There is no such inhemisphere, afford the contrasts for forming stance on record. Who ever heard of bodies of sea-faring communities among their inhabi- men forsaking the cheap lands and beautiful clitants. Who ever heard of Brazilian seamen, mates of the Mississippi Valley to become marior of the "mariners of Peru? We have ners, only that they may wring from the seas a heard of the Gauchos, the llaneros, and the hard-earned, coarse, sometimes scanty and often horsemen of South America, but never of its dangerous subsistence?

seamen.

If the Mississippi Valley do not produce seamen enough to fetch and carry its own produce across the ocean, and to do its own commerce, much less will that of the Amazon with its softer climates and more benignant soils.

In order to become sailors, people must use the sea. And that they may use it, familiarity with it from boyhood and in early life is one of the prerequisites; preliminary to this prerequisite is a deeply articulated shore line; a sea front Therefore whatever be the extent of the busirichly indented with bays, bights, gulfs, and harness which the Amazon may have to offer combors thrusting themsalves far up into the country merce, the fetching and the carrying of it must on one hand, with capes, promontories and penbe done by sailors from our own side of the equainsulas pushing far out into the sea on the other, tor. Why may they not be Virginia and Carothus increasing the length of water line; thus lina sailors? Those states have along the sea bringing the inhabitants and the sea into close shore pine barrens poor enough to drive men, proximity and into the presence of each other. women and children all to sea for a living.

Let any one of our readers who lives between tide-water and the Blue Ridge, cast about him, in his neighborhood, and tell how many boys and young men have left it and their country-life to become sailors; small, indeed, is the number. Even there the people are too far from the sea to take to it for a living.

In the Amazonian trade, the winds for us are

fair to go and fair to come. And we of the Atlantic sea-coast are the only people for whom they are favorable both ways.

The voyage from the capes of Virginia or from Charleston to the Amazon, is the most certain voyage as to the length of time that is to be found between any two ports in the Atlantic Ocean. Now let him take the map and look at the stiff, In eighteen or twenty days, a sailing vessel can rigid shore line, not only of South America, but go and come, the year round. The N. E. trade of the Southern continent generally-and then winds carry her there; and they bring her back. let him compare their almost isleless coasts with They are "Soldier's Winds." Therefore among the finely articulated and beautifully contrasted the inducements which the South has to move shore lines of the Northern Hemisphere: the her in the matter of commencing to establish Gulf of Mexico with its gems;-the peninsula of commercial relations and business ties in that diFlorida;-its string of Islands;-the sounds and rection; is the future one of competing in her bays; and gulfs at the north;-the Mediterra- own vessels and with her own sailors for the carnean reaching a thousand miles and more back rying trade of that magnificent water shed. into the heart of the continent;-the Red Sea seperating it almost in too;-the Baltic and the Black; the Gulfs and Bays and Bights and Peninsulas of India and China. Let him look at these physical features;-let him contrast the two hemispheres in this respect, and see how much more maritime in feature one is than the other: let him study these features on a map of the world, and he will perceive how that nature has decreed that the seat of maritime power, strength and

The proposition, therefore, which we have to make is with regard to a line of steamers from Norfolk, Charleston or Savannah, to the mouth of the Amazon.

Para is its "New Orleans." It is the city at its mouth. It has a population of some 15 or 20,000 inhabitants. There is a line of steamers already in operation from Rio to Para.

From Savannah to Para, the distance is about 2,500 miles; from Para to Rio 2,100. This, at

the rate of the best performance of Collins' fect desolation to be found on the face of our steamer " Baltic," would give for the passage be- planet is the field of strife on our shores between tween Rio and the United States thirteen days the waves and the winds and the dry land. for coming and thirteen for going.

The time occupied now in going and coming by sailing vessels, is about ninety days.

Suppose we lengthen this computed passage, and base our estimates upon the supposition that the time to Rio, by this line of steamers, will really require twenty instead of thirteen days, viz: ten to Para and ten thence to Rio.

The effect of such a communication would be to turn the whole correspondence and travel connected with the Atlantic slope of South America, through Norfolk or whatever port may be selected for the American terminus of the line.

In Amazonia, the mineral gives place to the vegetable kingdom in the conflict, and a new combatant enters the field. The forces of the vegetable kingdom there, march down for the fight to the very water's edge. A storm arises; the waves come and beat back the vegetation, bearing it down and heaping upon it piles of sand and shells, cast up from the depths below. In a few days the tremnedous power of vegetation recovers and it is seen marching down over the sand banks and piles of fragments, and planting its foot again upon the water, in the water and under the water, and pushing out its advance posts

Now it should be recollected that our commer-in lines of green far into the sea. cial transactions with Brazil and the valley of the Rio de la Plata, are already worth more than they are with any of the countries of Europe, except Great Britain, France and the Hans

towns.

At this instant the "Levee" at Para affords foreign commerce enough from the valley of the Amazon to give annual freight to a fleet of fifty sail. But this is nothing to what it will be when the stimulants of civilization, agriculture, navigation and commerce shall be applied to that prodigious wilderness of wealth.

Of more than twice the area of the Mississippi valley, that of the Amazon is much more bountiful. There the labor of one day in seven is enough to crown the board of the husbandman with plenty.

The lilies of that valley* attain such gigantic vigor and proportions that a single leaf will float man.

a

If there be such a display of vegetable growth in the wild state, of what is such a climate not susceptable when it shall be assisted by the arts of cultivation?

Peruvian bark-cascarilla and cinchona as the Spaniards call it-is found in the valley of the Amazon and no where else. It is cut from the banks of one of its navigable tributaries, packed upon the backs of Peruvian sheep-carried up beyond the clouds into the regions of perpetual snow on mountain tops, and transported beyond the Andes, 600 miles to the Pacific Ocean; arrived there, the Seroon, which, at the place of production [in the great Amazonian basin, was worth only a few pence, now commands from eighty to one hundred dollars.

The vegitable kingdom sits enthroned there in surpassing grandeur, sublimity and power. Its energies are in ceaseless display, its forces in per Thus the world is supplied over the mountains petual activity, vigor and health. There is there and around Cape Horn by sheep, asses and ships no falling of the leaf; no season of repose in with that drug. Were steam once to force its the vegetable economy: and consequently no way up the Amazon, this drug would come down period for the decay of vegetation ;-no time the river and pass by our doors on its way to for the development of noxious gasses and pes- market. That trade, in its present state, is worth tilential miasmata. As soon as these are evolved upwards of half a million annually. The use from one plant, they are absorbed by another in of quinine is increasing, and the demand therethe perpetual summer: the result is a climate of fore for the bark must continue to increase. great salubrity.

On the steppes of the Andes where they serve The display there of the vegetable force is as a water shed for the Amazon, are to be found terrific. Here with us, as we travel along the flocks numbering thousands of sheep covered with sea shore, we see the vegetation standing back fleeces of the finest and the rarest of wool; and and seperated from the water by the battle-ground yet it is scarcely worth the sheering, so great are between the waves and the land. Strewed with the difficulties of getting it to market. Neverdebris and covered with fragments thrown up theless, were it possible to place this wool on a from the bottom of the sea, or uprooted from the raft that would keep the current, and were it to base of the hills, this field of battle with us is a be thus launched on the stream where the flocks sandy, barren waste. In it, no subject of the go to drink, it would drift down the Amazon; and vegetable kingdom is permitted to take root; and being delivered by it to the winds and currents not a member of the whole animal family is of the sea, it might, without other guide, be found able to gather even the most scanty means of subistence from it. The scene of the most per

*The Victoria Regia, a water lily that produces the largest leaf and flower known in the vegitable world.

of that valley to this country.

in the Gulf stream off Cape Hatteras; so direct smile under the tillage and the worship of a is the natural rout even from the remote corners peaceful and happy population. Therefore, let the South look to the South for Such are the physical conditions which invite trade and commerce; let her in the peaceful. Christhe south to the study of the commercial re-tian spirit of the day, cultivate with Brazil the resources, the advantages of trade, and the inter-lations of friends and neighbors; let her foster by ests to her navigation in that quarter.

all means in her power liberal commercial relaIu the valley of Amazon are mines of silver tions with a region which has such vast possesand gold of immense yield. There too are found sions, such countless treasures, such infinite reand wrought the great quick-silver mines of the sources, to make valuable its future commerce, world; and there, too, situated far down towards—rich and great the people who are to enjoy it. the Atlantic in that valley are the mines of diamonds, of gems and precious stones which have dazzled princes, leut splendor to the crowned heads of Europe, and added brilliancy to the pageants of all people.

There is now on the statute books of Portugal a Royal Ordinance forbidding any of the productions of India to be cultivated in Brazil. This was when Brazil was Portuguese; and when Portugal was apprehensive lest the spices of Brazil would injure her eastern commerce and possessions.

There is no colonizer, civilizer, nor Christianizer like commerce.

Encourage commerce therefore with the valley of the Amazon, and you encourage its settlement, and its cultivation, and the development of its resources. And in doing this you keep bright also that precious chain with golden links which bind nations together in peace and friendship.

In the whole domain of future commerce, the greatest boon for the people of the United States is in the settlement of Amazonia. We are bound to enjoy largely of the commerce to which such settlement is to give rise.

The people who go there will, for many gene

ted States for their manufactories, for articles of

The cinnamon of Amazonia is superior to that of Ceylon; its gums and ornamental woods are said to be of surpassing beauty, variety, excel-rations yet to come, be dependent upon the Unilence and value. Men of science who have studied the physi-fancy and luxury, and for all varieties of mercal conditions of Amazonia and India, and who have compared the climatology of the two regious, are of opinion, that in this magnificent wilderness of America, are to be found both soil and climate suitable for the production of every spice, gum, resin and drug that is grown in the East.

chandise, save and except those articles-and they in their unelaborated state-which they may dig from the mine, or gather from the field or the forest. The climate there is unfavorable for the workshop, and the soil will readily yield to the husbandman the richest of harvests wherewith, by exchange and barter, all his wants may be satisfied.

The spirit which moved men in the days of knight-errantry, which drove them in the time What would any of the maratime nations not of the crusades, and which, at a later period, give for a monopoly of the commerce of the valcarried them across the seas and conducted them ley of the Mississippi as it now is—and what is to the New World in search of adventure and geo-that commerce now compared to what that of graphical discovery, is still as rife in this country the valley of the Amazon must be?

as ever it was in the world. But it has assumed a new character: it has doffed the tinsel array of former times, and laid aside the pomp and circumstance with which it was wont to influence the imaginations of men, to dazzle their minds, bewilder their judgment and beguile their energies. Guided now by the lights of knowledge and improvement, which ornament the age in which we live, this active, restless and misdirected spirit of former times has been tamed down. Eminently utilitarian in its character, it now goes abroad with commerce, and seeks adventures in the fields of honest industry-achievements in the paths of peace.

It is this spirit, which, if once permitted upon the wings of free navigation to euter the grand river basius of South America, will cause the wilderness there to blossom, and the whole land to

Settlement there, will transfer the productions of India and place them in Amazonia at our feet; so that the ships of all nations that may flock there to buy and carry them away will have to pass by our gates.

Surely an enterprise that has for its future the possibility of such results; an enterprise which has for its object the lifting up of the Indies and the setting of them down within a week, by steam, at our very doors-surely an enterprise which looks to such a revolution in the commerce of the world—to such a carrying trade, and to such a monopoly of it to ourselves, cannot fail to find favor with every true-hearted American, whether he come from the North or the South, the East or the West.

The beginning, it may be said, is too small for the end-the means proposed not adequate to

the result. Not so: the fall of an apple was the mense resources of that valley. Subdued to combeginning of a science. Have we not seen how merce it would be a boon indeed. by dipping a thermometer in the sea, our Atlan- There is, moreover, another point of view in tic coast as it regards the course of navigation which the valley of the Amazon, with its magand trade with Europe, was turned end for end?nificent and interesting future, presents itself to And how by Jeremiah Thompson's packet ship the American mind.

That view we will hastily sketch, presenting only the main features of it.

of 300 tons and the enterprise of New York, the Mississippi valley has been turned upside down, and the commercial mouth of the St. That valley is a slave country. The EuroLawrence river lifted up and brought by canal pean and the Indian have been contending with and railway down to Sandy Hook? We do not its forests for 300 years, and they have made no mean to commit ourselves to the position that a impression. If ever the vegetation there be line of steamers from Norfolk to Para would be subdued and brought under; if ever the soil be self-sustaining now. We have been speaking of reclaimed from the forest, the reptile and the the future, and maintaining that the establish- wild beast, and subjected to the plough and the ment of the line now would give the South many hoe, it must be done by the African. It is the and great prospective advantages, that the South land of parrots and monkeys, and he aloue is perhaps never would enjoy to the full extent, un-equal to the task which man has to accomplish less she commence now and prepare foundations there. suitable for that magnificent commercial structure which is cartainly at some day to arise out

of that valley.

To encourage the enterprise now, there is the carrying of the Brazilian and the Buenos Ayrean mails. The correspondence between the United States, Pará, Rio, Montevideo, and the Argentine Republic is extensive, and the revenue to be derived, for the transportation of these mails, would, with or without previous contract, go far towards supporting the line; and the sources of all of its business, freight, passengers and mail matter, would rapidly increase.

At the North, the spirit of emancipation has been pressing the black mau down to the South. the Gulf. In the South, the same spirit has He is now confined almost upon the waters of pressed him up to the North, and assigued to him the valley of the Amazon as his last resting place upon this continent. When that valley is subdued and peopled up, it is not for us to divine of the future for our ken. Sufficient is it for us what will happen;-it is too far away in the mists

to know that even then God in hisown wise providence will order the destiny of the black and the white race to be fulfilled, whatever it may be.

So far, geographical position only is in favor of the South. The facts we have stated, the arguments we have used, commend the enterTherefore, humanly speaking and humanly prise as strongly to the North as to the South; perceiving, the settlement of the valley of the and if the South do not make haste soon to take Amazon, its relations to this country, its bearit up and embark in it, we may rest assured the ings upon our future commerce and institutions north will not be slow. The contract for carry-appear to be so close, so intimate, and withal so ing the mails would protect those who may be potential, that the destiny of the United States first to embark in this field, from competition for seems to be closely connected with, wrapped up a few years, which, while the company is get-in, and concealed by this question. ting a foot-hold, is no small consideration.

It is useless, because the attempt would be vain, to draw a picture of what commerce and navigation with the Amazon, or on the Amazon, or up the Amazon, or down the Amazon, would do in a few years; or how the silver from the mines of Potosi and Pasco, the gold of Peru and Bolivia, and copper and tin would all flow down the Amazon to the Atlantic, instead of crossing the Cordilleras to the Pacific. We are now informed of gold diggings, placers and washings on the Eastern slopes of the Andes that would vie with those of California. They are in the Indian country of Amazonia; but the energy and enterprise to fight, dig and wash are not to be found among the people there. This however, we regard as among the least valuable of the im

Storms will come at sea, and crises will arise on the land; but no mariner or statesman ever escaped the one or avoided the other by failing to prepare for them. When the ship is too much pressed-knowing that she may be the prudent seaman has all,-ready provided and at hand,— the means of relieving her. In doing this he considers the safety of the vessel, of the cargo, and of all on board. We propose to follow his example with regard to the ship of State.

The institution of slavery as it now exists in this country, fills the mind of its statesmen with anxious solicitude. What is to become of it? If abolished, how are so many people to be got rid of? If retained, how are they to be controlled? In short, when they have increased and multiplied according to the capacity of the