But we digress. If the geography of the South American States is nebulous to the ordinary person at home, how much more so is that of Central America? In the first place, it may be asked, where or what is Central America? Many well-informed people do not know. North America and South America are easily realizable as geographical entities, but where can a third America exist? Central America is not the centre of the South American Continent, as some well-meaning people think, but is that part of America lying between the two continents, and includes no less than six independent Republics, together with British Honduras. The Panama Canal cuts through it; the Tehuantepec and other railways cross it. Thus when we are asked where is Costa Rica or Nicaragua or Salvador, Honduras or Panama, where perhaps the latest revolution has just broken out, or the Government have just repudiated a loan, or managed to pay an instalment of the interest due upon a loan, we may reply in Central America. And Paraguay--ah, Paraguay! Where is it? And Hayti, too? Many people in England have relatives in Spanish American countries, and it is interesting to be able to inform them where the particular localities are situated, and how to get there, also the distances approximately places are apart. "I have a cousin who is Chargé d'Affaires in Revolutia," says a lady at a reception. "I do trust he has not been injured by that terrible South American earthquake we saw in the paper this morning." We are able to assure the lady that the earthquake was in San Volcania, at least two thousand miles from the enterprising Republic where her relative carried on his doubtless invaluable diplomatic duties. "Have you ever been in ---- (we will call it Santa Andina)?" says a stout, bald-headed gentleman, who looks like a company promoter (and we afterwards found that he was such), referring to a well-known Spanish American capital, adding that he thought of going there, and had heard that no great difficulties attended the journey. He thought oil concessions were to be obtained there. When he learned that you take a river steamer, then a train, then a canoe, then a steamer again, and lastly a mule, his _wanderlust_ seemed somewhat to abate. The story of the lady who had a relative in New York, and hoped he would call one morning on the brother of another person present who lived in Buenos Ayres has often been told, but I am inclined to regard it as far-fetched. The point is that the lady, knowing that both places were in America, imagined they must be in easy daily radius of each other.