[Illustration: AVENIDA CENTRAL, RIO DE JANEIRO. Vol. I. To face p. 20.] The traveller sometimes finds it necessary to explain that Colombia has nothing to do with British Columbia. It is a republic quite unassociated with our Imperial outpost of British Columbia. As for Venezuela, only those who have been there can ever be expected to know where it is, notwithstanding that it is the part of South America nearest to Europe and was that first sighted by Columbus. The Guianas are rightly associated by many with Demerara sugar, but Demerara, it has to be mentioned, is not the whole of British Guiana, and there are in addition French and Dutch Guiana. British Guiana and British Honduras--which latter, let us remark, is not in South but in Central America (location to be explained later)--are the only foothold of the British Empire on the mainland of Spanish America. Guiana, moreover, has nothing to do with Guinea, in Africa, or New Guinea, in Asia. Few people at home know where these places are or who lives there or what they do. As to the first-named, it is interesting to see that a deputation has recently arrived from the colony in the Mother Country, to remind that parent of her offspring's existence. Both these small places--they are as large as England--are perhaps among the most backward portions of the Empire. It is not their fault, or not alone. It is largely due to the stupidity or lack of interest of the Home Government. It is also due, in general terms, to the stupidity and ignorance of British folk in general, who take little interest in their possessions overseas, and who from one point of view do not deserve to have them. The tropical colonies of Britain, and among them are these of South and Central America--not to mention the magnificent heritage of the West Indies, which of course are geographically part of America--are most valuable charges, most essential elements of the national food supply. They are at least geographical larders, and it is time they were much more fully developed and cared for. It is well to recollect, moreover, politically, that Britain has scarcely given an efficient object-lesson of development, social and economic, to the backward States of Spanish America in her control of these two Crown Colonies.