The history of each State has been lightly touched upon and space has been devoted to a consideration of the men of light and leading who have helped to direct the fortunes of the continent from the earliest beginnings of its modern history. The romantic adventures of Pizarro are told in one chapter; in another the exploits of the sinister Dr. Francia of Paraguay are recorded; and the reader will not set down the book until he has learned what General O’Higgins and Lord Cochrane did for the independence of Chili, and how San Martin, the Galahad of South America, laid as though on a rock the foundations of that thriving State now known as the Argentine Republic. Moreover, the part played by Simon Bolivar in liberating the northern half of the continent from the Spanish yoke is, the writer trusts, set forth with a due sense of proportion. Mighty men these, and more or less so because their dramas were enacted on a remote stage of the world-theatre. But, like the age of chivalry, the days of romance have passed and the author has deemed it a necessary part of his scheme to deal with more prosaic matters, things which impress the work-a-day world quite as much as the sanguinary progresses of Spanish conquerors and the marvellous civilisation of the Peruvian Incas. Something will be found in the book concerning many of the resources of the country. The imminent opening to universal traffic of the Panama Canal arrests the attention of the entire civilised world. It has been the lot of the author to spend a longer time on the Zone than is generally done by persons not connected with the undertaking. Consequently he has had abundant opportunities of studying, at first hand, not only its constructive arts but also the character of the people living on the isthmus. His impressions are embodied in the early chapters of the volume. The completion of this great waterway will make much of this enchanted land as easy of access to us moderns as it was difficult to those old Spanish mariners who dreamed that they were voyaging to an actual El Dorado or to the fabled land of Ophir. [Illustration] [Illustration] A TOUR THROUGH SOUTH AMERICA CHAPTER I _Early Adventurers and Discoveries_ The history of the Isthmus of Panama, which was the point of departure for the whole of those notable conquests which placed nearly all South America under the heel of Spain, began with its discovery by Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499. The great name of Columbus figures prominently in this period, for in the course of his fourth voyage he spent much time in sailing backwards and forwards from east to west along the coast of Terra Firma in a vain search for a passage through which his ships might pass to the land of the Grand Khan. But it was not ordained that the great navigator should add this laurel to his crown, albeit his enterprise made the way easier for those who were to follow.