side they differ greatly from those on the Atlantic. The latter are in general bold and rocky, and having the advantage of great and navigable rivers, they offer a multitude of the finest harbors in the universe. The coast of Brazil is especially favored in this respect, throughout its extent of about I,ooo leagues. All this coast is very fertile, and capa ble of supporting a very large population. On the Pacific side, on the contrary, the coasts are with few exceptions sterile and frightful, and as it seldom or never rains over a great extent of country, there are considerable tracts as arid as the desert of Arabia. Communication by land between Chile and Lima is almost impracticable by reason of these arid plains. They form even serious obstacles to traffic between the different States, which is therefore conducted by sea. There is a notable difference between a voyage toward the northwest and one to the southeast: the latter nearly always encounters contrary winds and currents. Though the ports on the Pacific are not so well furnished with harbors as are Brazil and Terra Firma, still there are several that possess considerable advantages. It should be noted that the same difficulties of communication exist between different places on the opposite coasts of the southern continent, but for different reasons. On the Atlantic side it is the extraordinary mass of vegetation that covers the ground, presenting almost insurmountable obstacles to the opening of roads. But navigation is so easy on that delicious coast, where maritime dangers are almost unknown, that there is really no motive for making extraordinary efforts to open highroads. To make up for the difficulty of internal communication by land, there is no country in the world having so great a number of navigable rivers as South America. Those great and beautiful rivers, the Magdalena, the Orinoco, the Amazon, the Plata and their thousands of branches, stretching in every direction through the continent, offer convenient routes between the most distant regions. " Of all parts of the globe," says Humboldt, "America is the best watered." There are a great number