The proof of arbitration puddings is in the eating. If the contributed ingredients do not emerge from well-kept cupboards, they are apt to sour whatever the label upon the cooked product. North of Panama the five Central American Republics agreed upon the erection of the Court of Cartago some years ago where all disputes between these neighbours should be thrashed out. Approval smiled upon the project from the United States, deeply interested in the peace of Central America; Mr. Carnegie spent a large number of dollars upon the building of a beautiful palace, and the first meetings were held with mutual kindliness and the applause of the world. The writer saw the Peace Palace in May, 1910. A few days previously an earthquake had visited the lovely mountain-surrounded valley of Cartago and nothing remained of a charming city but a heap of broken bricks and stone. The Peace Palace was a dust-heap, with twisted iron girders thrusting up against the serene sky from a medley of disaster. The sight was symbolical of the spiritual fate of the Court. At the shake of an earthquake of opinions it is in ruins. When Nicaragua signed a treaty which Costa Rica, Salvador and Honduras declare an encroachment upon their territorial rights, recourse was had to the Court, re-erected in San José. The Court found for the three appellants—and Nicaragua refuses to accept its decision. Let us hope the A. B. C. treaty is made of better material. CHAPTER IV TRANSPORTATION _I. River and Road_ All the great railway systems of Brazil are pioneers, lines of penetration, driving into new country like hopeful explorers, and starting from one of the old centres of population on the sea-border. Within the last few years links have been completed between some of the cities where the lines originate, so that there are now long strips of line running parallel to the coast, and thus Central and South Brazil are benefited by this junction so far as it exists: but for several neighbour states the only means of communication with each other is the sea. The Brazilian, descendant of the seafaring Portuguese, is a good waterman by instinct; thousands of little sailboats navigate the sea margin of Brazil, homebuilt, doing an active petty traffic in raw materials and fruit and merchandise. This traffic figures in Brazilian statistics as _cabotagem_. Passengers of a humble class are carried in addition to freight and there is also a fishing fleet attached to every sea town, so that the total of Brazilian vessels of this useful little class is large.